Mark, I can see that you want to make a small steam engine viable. I hope you succeed. But it’s going to be tough for you. Suction gas engines largely replaced small mobile and stationary steam systems in the last half of the nineteenth century, then electricity (lights and motors) replaced suction gas in the twentieth. So what’s next? I think the key is to somehow define the right mix of all the technologies we have available in each situation we find ourselves in. Your steam engine will definitely be part of of it if it succeeds. Hey, our ancestors learned to cook their food over an open fire and I, for one, like a steak cooked over charcoal. If it makes you feel any better I think I can make an improved a gas water heater. I hope I succeed, but I realize there may good reasons, that I may not be aware of, why this was not done a hundred years ago. LINK
God bless you,
Rindert
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