The magic of steam!
While most of the electricity generated world-wide is produced using 19th Century steam technology, sadly direct steam power has not been used for transport for over 50 years (Except of course electric cars charged by the grid – they are really mostly coal fired. Additionally the modern electric train is also mostly coal fired but the smoke and pollution is nicely out of sight). This lack of direct steam transport is due to the fantastic liquid fuels we have had available until now. The Otto and Diesel cycle engines work well on liquid fuels – the SUCK, SQUEEZE, BANG! and BLOW engines.
This may be about to change and such a change may again give direct steam transport a chance. Steam power uses external combustion (as against internal combustion in petrol and diesel engines) some call it infernal combustion. External combustion allows solid fuels to be used for power and indeed it may be more efficient to use solid fuels directly in a vehicle rather than convert them into liquid fuels first for use in diesel or petrol engines or indeed convert the energy into electricity first in order to power electric vehicles. It should be noted that the coming “peak oil crisis” is a liquid fuel crisis only.
Of course those who’s profits and taxes depend upon the consumer using liquid fuels will hardly make the transition to, for instance, wood pellets or agri-pellets for steam power easy.
Mayglass Farmstead in County Wexford was built in the early years of the 18th century. Always a family home, it remained so until its last inhabitant, Seamus Kirwan, died in the mid 1990s. This house is typical of the mud walled and straw thatched houses which were the main dwellings used in centuries gone by in Wexford.
It is very interesting and informative that our ancestors perfected a mud walled or adobe house in a very wet climate. Normally adobe houses were only used in a dry climate, it took particular genus to perfect a form which worked in the Irish climate.
Typically the houses were constructed from “yella mud” this was a yellow colour subsoil which was dug out from “marl holes”. The old people always said that the old houses were “cold in Summer and warm in Winter” and indeed they are very comfortable to live in providing the traditional construction is retained. Recent research has discovered that adobe acts as a “phase-change material”. When the interior surroundings try to warm up the moisture absorbed in the walls has to be evaporated and this holds back the temperature rise giving the “cold in Summer”.
Read More: Adobe Research
Similarly when the interior surroundings try to cool down the ambient moisture is absorbed by the walls and the latent heat release holds back the temperature fall giving the “warm in Winter”. In order for this effect to occur in the walls it is necessary that the walls are able to “breathe” to the house interior while a moisture proof layer has to be applied to the outside of the walls. Traditionally a lime wash was applied to the exterior and a lime mortar was applied to the interior walls.
Lime mortar allows walls to breathe so that the vapor could enter and leave the walls giving the powerful “phase-change” effect which made the houses so comfortable. Additionally it was necessary to have a fire in the wet months so that the walls were not soaked and unable to absorb moisture.
If the house was “improved” using modern materials such as cement plaster then the moisture transport into and out of the walls was inhibited and the modern people wondered what the old people were talking about!
Read more: http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/architecture/heritage-council-initiatives/mayglass-farmstead-project/
Photos from Time’s Series by Photographer Norbert Wu
Norbert explores the plants and animals who live under the frozen continent
