Green Dragon Sustainable Fuel

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Following on from the ecoal article…

This came up on Facebook from the North Yorks railway… ‘green dragon’, a sustainable fuel made by pressing waste from the rapeseed oil industry into briquettes.

https://fb.watch/HM7Tf7Z2XY/

Neil

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

It certainly seems effective though I wonder if its calorific value is only about that of wood (roughly half that of good coal).

It seems rather a smokey fuel but that might reflect the combustion conditions in a vertical boiler. Have they tried it on the larger locomotives with brick arches in the fireboxes?

To be fair I didn’t get the best out of the video because my PC no longer plays the soundtracks, and the text below the images ended in mid-sentence.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://sunderlandheritage.org/projects/green-steam-at-ryhope-engines-museum

MichaelG.

.

Ref. https://ryhopeengines.org.uk/history

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

It certainly seems effective though I wonder if its calorific value is only about that of wood (roughly half that of good coal).

I think for the Heritage steam railways, pumping stations etc calorific value may be less of a problem if the cost and availability of the fuel is more beneficial. More of a problem would be storage of the large quantities needed as I would imagine it has to be kept dry.

Andy

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Ferinfo.

https://greendragonfuel.co.uk/our-solid-biofuel-briquettes/

 

MichaelG.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Interesting but the smallest size is 2″ square and 3″ long so it won’t even go in my 7.25″ engine. If firing with a normal shovel then it’s an option that may work once experimentation has arrived at the best way to use it – provided the boiler design can efficiently burn it. Rape oil is a good fuel for certain OLDER diesel engines and was a fuel experimented with by Herr Diesel in the late 18th century, though some concessions must be made.

Does the the smoke smell of barbecue ?   Noel.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Pedant alert, Rudolph Diesel was late 19th century.

Chap in our club ran his van on cooking oil. It smelled like a chip shop if you were following. Not to be attempted on modern diesels. Mine even had a warning not to use bio diesel. When the big stand-by diesels at a place I worked at were taken out they were converted to run on chip oil. They were old, but had done very few hours.

[Martin Johnson 1Participant @martinjohnson1]

The ASTT has done quite a lot of work in evaluating coal alternatives for steam engine use.  Green Dragon Mk1 had major problems in producing poisonous smoke with fantastic headache inducing properties.  I believe the blend has been tweeked to eliminate that problem.

However, current state of the art is that nothing equals good coal, generally needing requiring more of a more expensive fuel.  Feasible for hobby use but a problem when trying to run heritage railways already on tight financial margins.

Like all good research projects, “Further work required”.

Martin

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Did I read 17% rape seed oil?  That is not usual – it’s a bit more than twice the residual oil after hot pressing, I believe.

Cold pressing would be wasteful on oil extraction, but also leave behind the less combustible triglycerides.

The advertising hype (of not much more needed than burning coal) seems a bit off.

Buying a lorry load in 1.25 tonne bags/pallets would depend on how large the lorry was, wouldn’t it?  Appears to be 20% VAT for most?

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Son in law drives on the TR. They have experimented with ecoal and experienced the toxic smoke issue as well, not sure which brand.  They now use a mix of real and ecoal, as ecoal on its own didn’t produce enough heat.

The whole thing is a government created farce, unless of course imported coal produces less CO2 than Welsh coal. The heritage sector uses 20,000 tons a year, not trivial, and digging it up (opencast) would keep some people in a job, which means they would pay tax as well as helping balance of payments.

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

The whole thing is a government created farce, unless of course imported coal produces less CO2 than Welsh coal. The heritage sector uses 20,000 tons a year, not trivial, and digging it up (opencast) would keep some people in a job, which means they would pay tax as well as helping balance of payments.

I’m conflicted on this, given my professional background. I can see both sides of the argument and I honestly don’t know what the right balance is.

Obviously the ideal solutions is if some sort of biowaste based product can be devised that truly delivers a satisfactory performance.

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

The killer for this biofuel is that it more expensive than steam coal, and it’s just a waste product.

“Steam coal is still available and although it is expensive it is currently cheaper than Green Dragon”

 

[martin haysomParticipant @martinhaysom48469]

just another eco con. it cost more and its not as good.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

• Like most alternative fuels they will be more costly and not work as well, the more so when you factor in things like transport and all the other things involved in it’s production or disposal of waste generated.  Noel.

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

When we moved to France in 2009 we didn’t have local contacts for seasoned firewood,  so with two woodstoves to heat the house we ordered a pallet of compressed wood logs, made from sawmill and wood manufacturing industry waste – like these.

https://www.boisbuchemolinario.fr/product-category/bois-compresse/

Widely promoted as being ecologically superior etc.

We found that to keep the house anything like habitable in early 2010 when we had 12″ of snow, we had to be constantly stoking the stoves with these and ended up using up the  tonne pallet and had to order more.

I don’t know if this type of fuel is on sale in the UK or if anyone on here is using them.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Note that they produce rapeseed oil as boiler fuel itself, claiming similar calorific value to coal.

The company’s web-site does not tell us the briquette’s calorific value, but recommends using those 2 – 3 times the average size of the coal your would normally use.

For a full-size railway locomotive the recommended* size of the coal was man’s clenched fist; so ‘Green Dragon’ briquettes about the size of a house-brick. In a full-size locomotive boiler (I’d include traction-engines in that.)

Note that is lump size and not a guide to performance; but lump size governs ignition and combustion efficiency.

For a miniature clearly we’d need break or cut the blocks to suit the engine; but I’ve not noticed much talk among model-engineers about ideal lump size, even of coal. Some I know imagine that as long as it goes through the firehole it’s right! So are these ‘Green Dragon’ briquettes amenable to being cut or broken or would they just crumble into “sustainable slack”?

We might also consider the safety of its fumes, as driving a miniature engine puts us close to its exhaust. Though coal is not exactly healthy, with at least CO2 and if not burnt fully, some CO as by-products; and sometimes SO2.

 

As an experimental alternative to coal for our miniatures, what of charcoal?. Readily obtainable as barbeque fuel, mainly carbon, it produces a fair amount of ash but not clinker, and if I understand the tables ** correctly is comparable with coal in heating value. It was used for smelting iron until the development of coke.

A miniature burning low-density charcoal might be more prone to ember-throwing, needing attention to spark-arrestors.

 

Critical to trying anything other than coal, and this is made on Green Dragon’s site for its own fuel, is having to modify firing technique to obtain the best from it. It could even be that those who, as Doug Hewson shows us, build their locomotives with properly-sealed, damper-fitted ashpans below rocking grates, have the advantage because they can control the firebox conditions closely.

(A traction-engine’s firebox is similar in this regard, and a damper is normal on a model TE if only because it is visible, but fitting dampers to miniature locomotives seems a recent development.)

 

*By the BR-issued, Transport Commission’s handbook for steam locomotive operation.

** http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

A steam generating boiler will be designed to burn a given fuel, be it coal, oil, wood, gas, sugar cane waste or even straw. If one wants to use a fuel for which it was not built there will be consequences which may be just poor steaming Etc but could damage or destroy the boiler. If one is building a scale model then the design may well be unable to accommodate a different design of boiler, then what does one do ?

The amount of fuel burnt by both the heritage and model fraternities will make not a jots worth of difference to any climate change, is it just good PR ?  Ah well.  Noel.

[Author]

Posts