Imagine A World Where The Internal Combustion Engine Didn’t Exist

There is no particular sanctity in internal combustion engines. Before internal combustion engines, there were EXTERNAL combustion engines, specifically steam engines, that used the power of steam to generate rotational power. They needed no auxiliary electrical apparatus for either starting or continued operation, though they were exceptionally good at providing energy input to generate electricity.

Much of the early automotive engineering was directed at utilizing steam power as a medium for converting heat energy into kinetic energy. The Stanley Steamer easily outperformed most internal-combustion powered vehicles in the early years. It was largely Henry Ford’s capability of vastly outproducing steam vehicles with the Model T, that finally forced steam power into eclipse, though the technology of steam continued to evolve, through the eccentric genius of Abner Doble.

Abner Doble gambled on steam. Doble built his first steam car while still in high school. He left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue his dream of building the finest steam car in the world. By 1918 he had built 80 steam cars in Detroit. He drove up to the Stanley factory in Massachusetts, and showed his marvel to the Stanley brothers, thinking they could adapt his much more sophisticated engine design, but they firmly told young Mr. Doble they knew everything they had to know about steam, would he please run along. Abner went back and organized a manufacturing facility, but he could not help continuing to tinker with his design, so no two vehicles were ever quite the same, and he never got into serious production. The 1924 model Doble steam car, which could run for 1,500 miles on a 24-gallon tank, had a flash boiler that could produce a working head of steam in one minute. This was more than equal to the reliability of even luxury vehicles of the era, but the company failed anyway. These vehicles ran in near silence, the loudest sound coming from the ignition of the flame that heated the flash boiler.

The design was tried by General Motors in the 1960’s, but the internal combustion culture that ruled the automobile industry still reasserted itself, and the idea was abandoned. There was even a Doble design airplane engine built, and it flew successfully, as it was light enough to be competitive with contemporary internal combustion designs, and more than adequate in its power output.

https://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car/

“virtually limitless reserves of petroleum he knew to be abundant in his nation and many others around the world.”

At least argue from a point of truth. It makes our side look foolish when you don’t and throw hyperbole. As a near 20 year oil industry veteran as a petroleum geologist ,exploration geologist, operations geologist,hydrogeologist and certified PG, long standing member of Tau Sigma,SEG,AAPG,DGS,and the USGS. There is at most 48 years of liquid light hydrocarbons left at under $300 in 2024 dollars.that number assumes 2021 levels of consumption. When not if Asia, India and Africa middle classes demand energy consumption levels of Western standards that number drops very quickly.

Do not confuse climate commies with very real issue of resource depletion on a vastly over populated planet. Humans have burnt to the sky three hundred million years of fossil sunshine accumulations in just under 200 years there is not two hundred years left at any price with 8 billion people let alone the 10 billion that is expected in the next 40 years. Humans need to move post haste to long term resource management and also to an equitable distribution of the resources or world wars will be fought. China can field a 100 million man Army same for India in conventional battles with boots on the ground the West can’t win it they will be eforced to use nukes. This is exactly why China is massively expanding its nuclear program they intend to fight and win a nuclear war by shear population numbers alone they could loose 750 million and still be a breeding population of 600+ million. Nuclear war kills 300 million in North America that’s the end of any North American nation.

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