LOCO - The AgLoco® Documentary
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- "LOCO" is the story of AgLoco® so far, from Sam's early experiments in his parent's shed to the new goal of taking the diesel out of food.
Filmed, produced and directed by William Bowden, a Masters Student in Science Communication at the University of Otago.
Enjoy the documentary and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!
What a sight it will be! Long live steam!
We may be going back to the steam era! Yes!!! I can't believe this channel isn't more popular. I wonder where this will go.
Some places never left the steam era. New York for instance.
Can we get an update video, I live in the states and run a wood recycling/processing site. Heavily interested in a modern steam tractor
Still hope you get to make a locomotive one day, but I wouldn't say no to a modern steam tractor either.
This would work wonderfully on our farm / sawmill operation. I personally love steam power and have backgrounds in machining / mechanical engineering, this makes me excited. We don’t have the amount needed for order but we will in the future! Will the end product have ports to power other steam implements?
👍👍👍 for the concept of zero carbon haulage. It is great to see that your circulating pumps are working fine and I understand your ‘radio silence’ due to obtaining patents.
I hope you have not given up on railway locomotives. The boiler outline clearly has them in mind.
Just one comment. For an AgLoco Tractor the boiler need not be ‘traction engine-like’. Of course you have thought this too. A compact box like shape could accommodate all the components you need. The main body needn’t be round and could incorporate return bends necessary for full combustion. What I’m thinking here is that farmers might warm more quickly to an AgTractor that is more nearly the size and shape of their existing machines (yet different enough to be an obviously new concept.
The 2% figure is FANTASTIC.
I’m guessing that your pre-production AgTractor will be less traction engine like. Then when the railway revived your existing boiler can go on a loco chassis.
Absolutely love your work. This is the future of field based and forestry farming. Go Sam. Go Go Go😁
Got to second the above - brilliant work by Sam and Philip, and I'm watching this for future developments!
@@theenigmaticst7572 Agreed. This is not an eccentric solution. It is front and centre to where we need to go. Not hydrogen, torrified wood fuel possibly, but dry wood certainly. The 2% figure is key. Battery electric tractors powered from solar panels would take up too much space and I suspect the capital costs of wind turbine charging would be too much for most farmers (though there could be ‘district’ charging schemes if farmers are prepared to collaborate. New Zealand has one of the most productive bio systems on earth so wood based tractive energy self sufficiency is a highly plausible route. Plus Sam is an extremely able mechanical engineer. It’s looking good for him. Capital will come.
@@stephensmith799 He. I see it before I belie it. 2% is not really feasible. But electric for anything but local short distance or stationary work is out of the question. But the hole ide of sustainable farming tractors/production is pretty much impossible without a culture change in society. End of the day there is to many on the planet to feed energy.
Your better off focusing on industry and wastefulness of today processes. Introduce back steam engines for production and rail. Simply make machines easy to work on and FORCE reliable sustainable tools that are made to last and be repaired. Outlaw stupid things like mobile phones that last 3years and all the stuff that is truly broken.
A old diesel tractor that can last 100 years and be a work hours for a family farm is much better then electric garbage that runs on coal power. Even if the diesel is expensive to make (biodiesel) it is sure a better way to drive back the bad farming practices. Simplify and make sure to improve the big scale factory pollution and processes.
Henp still being underused due to still to this day being compared to the dungs. (can not type it out right) Emisin cheting and laber slavring to make money. etc etc etc.
It would be interesting to see a prototype steam locomotive produced for the American narrow gauge railroads that I’m sure would be more than happy to test the trial runs.
There would probably be shops happy to build them too if the guy wants to license the production of a prototype or two. Get all the patents in line and legal work figured out, and then the shipping would be a bit easier.
Probably because something like this already exists, aka the lombard steam log hauler and most logging narrow gauge locomotives
I'm going to be trying to get involved in a local model train club to see if I can get funding for research myself for my 87 acre farm and hopefully a small tourist railroad
Yes. Model And Experimental Engineering Societies are fantastic repositories of skill and tools👍
Nice :) .
I have been running woodgas generators, as opposed to steam engines, for the past 10 years, here on my farm.
They save a fortune in running costs, and are carbon neutral.
Where there are problems, there are always valid solutions :) .
If you could make pyrolysis work then carbon negative opportunities arise from biochar production on the farm. Or large scale pyrolysis plant with some of the carbon provided as bio-coal, allowing smaller boiler?
@@trlah
Anything is possible, as I run internal combustion engines on wood, and I use the biochar as fuel for yet another internal combustion engine.
The leftovers could be ploughed into the ground, to become a carbon negative soil asset.
Mad respect to these lads for commiting to innovation and inventon. The best of luck to them 😊
Surprised about this, I'm currently studying civil engineering and thinking of later on studying agronomy. This idea is very stable for agriculture and really appreciate it. Good luck to the company.
It is not very stable. As long as the diesel tractors get there act together and produce tractors that actually works without a fault code. (greed) The only thing this has going for them are the carbon neutral. Even now in reality a diesel engine can also run carbon neutral. Just to expensive and to little incentive to do so.
A tractor like this is going to have poor view from the driver position. Probably having to mess about with the engine instead of actually watch what your doing. Comfort? Yea maybe you can sit down in a suspended air seat. But is the tractor going to be able to plow a field as fast as a diesel tractor? No. Simply they are going to be not as flexible. On a train line or stationary yes a steam engine is just clearly better. But not for farming to sustain millions of people with just a few hands doing the farming.
@@TheDiner50 this was originally going to be a railroad locomotive. Thus the weird shape for a tractor.
@@TheDiner50 You do have a good point. The one key reason why this could be a good alternative to a diesel tractor is the fuel itself, besides working against the global warming aspect. We are experiencing some petroleum shortages and price spikes. Granted that has lowered, it has shown why diesel can be a hustle to work with, especially when there are international problems affecting the price of diesel.
Don't be distracted by the original hardware being made to look like a railway engine. With modern electronics controlling combustion and an on demand steam generator it would not feel that different to a large diesel tractor. Steam engines have amazing torque. Look up the Doble steam car. Much faster than the gas cars of its time.
BTW, idk the steam laws where you are from but in the UK there is 10 year license. Meanwhile in the US is 1472 days in service until major teardown and rebuild. So if the engine can be rebuilt quickly such as possibly easy to replace boilers which can be serviced easily by shop forces.
My dad and I have been talking about pelletizing switchgrass to use in a small steam engine powered tractor with a high pressure (800psi), coil-tube style steam generator driving a single-acting inline-3 engine.
👍👌👏 Simply fantastic! Now where is this modern steam tractor? Where can it be seen?
Now all you have to do is grow huge stands of timber; fell and haul away the trees; and process the firewood. All of that takes diesel-powered trucks and equipment. Then you let the wood dry out for a year, move it from the wood lot into the stack; move it from the stack to the tractor; and shovel out the ashes after every use. Now you've spent time for farming on making firewood. On top of that you need hundreds of gallons of water for the boiler while a farm already needs enough water to begin with. Yep. Sounds efficient to me. Sounds like there's a reason we switched from wood and coal-fired steam engines to diesels.
I still hope you build steam locomotives.
It would be more feasible to mount a wood gas generator to a traditional farm tractor. You can burn biomass and run IC engine off it.
Hello, I've just stumbled onto your video's and its fantastic stuff! Not many people embark on experimental projects this big! One thing I will say is your UA-cam channel does not seem to be attracting the Subscribers / Views it absolutely deserves! I assume you've followed the usual tactic (key words, repeated words, correct title / description, etc). All the best
👍 best in the business
Ah I see, your project has changed from originally being for locomotives to now being for steam tractors, which is still great! Still a very clean and efficient engine, just for a different use!
this is fantastic. i just watched all your videos. there seems to be a bit of a gap last year, i am sure you got busy. i look forward to your next update.
If the world would reduce population to 2 billion, this would work. I'm old but learned to be wise, I love young peoples optimism ❤❤❤❤❤ go for it Sam
Keep the dream alive
Keep up the great work!
Will there be an option for torrified biomass firing?
Gr8 job! Keep it up! :0 i wanna see more about this. If some day You come to argentina You gotta see the trenes del fin del mundo, i send u a Big hug and suport from argentina
I'm curious how they achieve the no risk of explosion.
Thanks loved it. Good luck .make a auto boiler.
I would suggest you try to insulate the boiler to reduce energy loses even further and increase efficeny.
Ye know wat might work
Condensers
Instead of a blast pip have a turbine where the exhaust steam gos through
@MarioTrainMan i have a question
Are you south African ( i am)
Only south Africas know about thosee beast
@MarioTrainMan 😂true
Its a rarity to find people that know about our sar locomotives
I believe sar steam deserves more attention
@@laaity chief many railfans know about the red devil and so one from the south african railways, if they have even a passing interest in steam locomotives in the world today, and many also know of livio dante porta including sam here
Where to invest money?
Scale it down again and make a self-propelled BBQ, you could even add a steam kettle for soup. or stew.
Can we put one into a ship? Maybe 300hp on a coastal freighter. We want to work in the Islands helping remote communities but diesel is increasingly troublesome. Lots of biomass though. Husks and wood etc. Possibly the agloco that can be removed from the ship hold to assist on land and recover biomass. Then replace to provide propulsion. Love your passion. We need a solution. Russell @ Biosource Ltd
Yes! Exactly the application this technology is built for. Give us an email or call: info@mackwell.co.nz or +64 3 669 8607
Sam
Have you guys done any testing of charcoal vs wood?
So are you building steam tractors or locomotives
hu, someone reinvented the traction engine for the modern eara. However, while it doesn't add anything to the carbon cycle, it isn't zero emitions. and will have some environmental impact. However, unlike fostle fuel burners, the impact is purely short term.
Wood and some biomass(natural)fuels don’t produce the same type of emissions that internal combustion engines do. They are absorbed quicker then fossil fuel emissions.
@@cameronlamb7274 Co2 is Co2
The issue with fostil fuels is the Co2 has been locked away underground out of the carbon cycle of longer than our species has been capable of walking upright.
While burning anything releases Co2 into the air, if you burn bio fuels, that Co2 was already in the carbon cycle, and would have been released back into the air eventually reguardless. (wood rots, for e.g.) So it only has a short term affect on climate.
Burning fostil fuels however, increases the amoung of Co2 in the carbon cycle and thus has an additional long term impact on the climate, as well as the short term impact.
Therefore, burning wood is better for the environment in the long term.
why are you trying to re-invent the Case or Marshall steamer?
Because if he ever wants to build modern steam railway locomotives, he'll need something to help kickstart it. Besides, the original plan for the boiler being a locomotive was dropped when the railway that wanted it mothballed the project.
This boiler is quite different from traditional steam tractors in both safety and efficiency.
How does one clean out the ash? Can the ash be used on the farm?
I would imagine you can dump the pan. Ashes are very rich and can be added to your garden in moderation. Every brush pile I’ve burned in the woods always has a great heaping mound of lush moss growing on it by next year.
Ash has many uses it can be used to give soil more PH for one. Here in Canada I use wood ash and sand for my sidewalk in the winter it melts ice same could be done for driveways and such. Wood ash can be spread on fields or in a wood lot and not have bad effects.
Go back to horses and cows for tractors. Like there's the tractor and it refills and enriches the land as it goes. Nature knows best. ;)
You’re not entirely wrong for small farms.
I’m not understanding this project…. You are basically building a steam traction engine. Many of these still exist in the USA and England. They are a bear to run compared to a modern diesel tractor. They were quickly replaced by simple gas engine tractors running kerosene, then gasoline and then diesel.
He was building a steam train for a museum but the project got cancelled. Had to pivot.
Is this satire?
Imagine if Elon Musk created a Tesla Steam Locomotive!?
You don't want Greta Thunberg to see what you'redoing, "How dare you" 😂
so your idea is to take a tree that stores carbon while it lives and burn it releasing the carbon that was stored in the tree. even a dead tree holds onto carbon letting it go slowly over time but burning a tree is like dumping carbon out in large quantities. i mean if you want to build a loco thats awsome but its not a green solution to diesel they are way cleaner running than a tree burner.
and going back to wiping out forest to run large amounts of trains is just a really bad idea.
Real farmers don't use tractors.
Kinda a dum idea all of this. I mean yea burning ecological material to make mechanical energy is quite reasonable.. But as a tractor this makes little sense. A "small" traitor needs to be flexible and light/compact. And a farm tractor of today is huge but fast and economically a must to compete in the market. This big hard to control AND most likely really heavy and have no off road in the farm mud chance at all. And if it has any chance the speed together with the need to feed the fire is just not feasible.
Stationary engines for production and passenger trains/road vehicles are possible. There also is the history of having tractors be more like portable engine plants that should also be reasonable to create. Having for example 2 tractors pull instruments over the fields with a pulley system making the tractors act more like a lorry/movable power unit.
It is clearly more sustainable and useful to create a lorry/power unit that can under own power move around and deliver mechanical energy to whatever is needed. sawmill/emergency fire pumps/plowing and even as a electrical generator when the power grid fail.
And still there is the problem of getting enough wood to power it. Trees grow not that efficient when it comes to space. It takes energy and time to work it. And transporting it with you is heavy for the steam engine. If you need wood for 6 hours of work you can not refuel a tank only. You need the heavy wood too. A diesel engine can go non stop for 10 hours without a big problem (outside of the driver needing to pee and such) A steam engine can not do that doing anything really.
Really having steam engines for trains and stationary work is just a better option. Simply reality unless comfort and modern values change drastically. It wont.
Remember that the big boiler show in this video is a unit built for a train locomotive and for development, not a tractor. Reducing it to the 150hp will make it small enought for a medium tractor (2.5T) while having more than enought power to do comparable work like the diesel tractors of today. Still, it keeps the tech simple and user friendly, wich is a number 1 priority for farmers. Look at how they are to the "Tech" introduced to modern tractors by stablished manufactures like John Deere.
Agriculture used to be based all off traction engines in England
You're wrong if you think steam is going anywhere for transport or farming. How much wood do you burn, 250kg - 500kg per hour during use? That would be 1/2 - 1 trees per hour per engine, now if just 1 million of the 500 million farms in the worlds starting using steam, that's 0.5 - 1 million trees per hour, average of 6 hours per week using the engine that's 156,000,000 to 312,000,000 trees a year. There is an average of 1.9 billion trees planted every year. Not to mention that farmers would just use coal as it's cheaper than burning wood.
You're also underestimating how much people like convenience, especially when farmers work longer hours than most people. Jump on a tractor and turn the key vs storing and moving heavy wood/coal loading a and maintaining a fire in the boiler, also all of the shut down procedures, insane maintenance time/costs, which is the reason trains switched to diesel.
Registering trademarks and making a "documentary" about yourself doesn't make tis idea green nor does it change the fact that steam is not practical.
Steam engines like this one are incredibly easy to operate.
There’s not even a sightglass to keep up with. If this type of boiler runs out of water it just stops working, it cannot explode.
There are alternatives to wood.
Pelletized lawn clippings and horse manure are 2 that come to mind.
There is no shortage of leaves and grass.
nearly no locomotive is diesel. all of them are either fully electric or diesel electric