Eli5: If we had steam powered trains back in the day, why didn’t steam become a common “clean” energy source? Why did it die out?
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Like others have said, steam for power generation is very much alive (and will continue to be so).
Besides not being “clean”, it’s cumbersome to generate steam power for use in many situations, especially in comparison with combustion engines, electricity delivery or storage, and other ways of producing energy.
Steam has to be generated by burning something to make heat. Early Steam trains burned wood or coal for that purpose.
Diesel electric trains (that we use today) are by comparison more powerful, pollute less, and have the advantage that you don’t need to stop for water for the boilers.
Some form of electric train, or hydrogen powered trains have the potential of replacing diesel.
It didnt dieand it did become common. We are still using steam power. Nuclear power heats the water that turns into steam to spin a turbine under pressure. Coal /fossil fuel /natural gas same process to boil water into steam for a turbine. Steam is inefficient and dangerous due to the excess energy needed to keep it’s temp.
We just realized there was a easier way to use steam in the form of electricity eventually. We still haven’t really figured out how to turn one source of energy into one that our energy grid supports except in hydro, wind and solar without steam.
Old fashioned reciprocating steam engines died out because they’re very inefficient, heavy, and they burned coal so not at all clean either.
But we still use steam power. It’s just that these days, we use steam turbines, which are much more efficient at extracting energy from fuel. It’s still not clean energy unless the heat source is nuclear (or sometimes solar), but modern power plants burn a lot less fuel to produce a given amount of power than the old steam engines did.
Like others have said, steam for power generation is very much alive (and will continue to be so).
Besides not being “clean”, it’s cumbersome to generate steam power for use in many situations, especially in comparison with combustion engines, electricity delivery or storage, and other ways of producing energy.
Steam has to be generated by burning something to make heat. Early Steam trains burned wood or coal for that purpose.
Diesel electric trains (that we use today) are by comparison more powerful, pollute less, and have the advantage that you don’t need to stop for water for the boilers.
Some form of electric train, or hydrogen powered trains have the potential of replacing diesel.
Old fashioned reciprocating steam engines died out because they’re very inefficient, heavy, and they burned coal so not at all clean either.
But we still use steam power. It’s just that these days, we use steam turbines, which are much more efficient at extracting energy from fuel. It’s still not clean energy unless the heat source is nuclear (or sometimes solar), but modern power plants burn a lot less fuel to produce a given amount of power than the old steam engines did.
Steam isn’t a clean power in trains it uses coal and the coal smoke created was a major issue from the first day it was used and steadily became a bigger and bigger issue.
Steam has to be generated by burning something to make heat. Early Steam trains burned wood or coal for that purpose.
Diesel electric trains (that we use today) are by comparison more powerful, pollute less, and have the advantage that you don’t need to stop for water for the boilers.
Some form of electric train, or hydrogen powered trains have the potential of replacing diesel.
Steam isn’t a clean power in trains it uses coal and the coal smoke created was a major issue from the first day it was used and steadily became a bigger and bigger issue.
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