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Author Topic: Heart of Coal  (Read 25942 times)

dmp

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #45 on: May 20, 2008, 10:28:19 PM »
BTW, the price of a KAA-2 in a normal situation, installed is around $5000.00.  Thats labor and parts.
I fired mine 1/6/06.  Not only did I recoup the expense, I'm now saving.  Profiting,I think so.

David

europachris

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #46 on: May 21, 2008, 10:07:54 PM »
BTW, the price of a KAA-2 in a normal situation, installed is around $5000.00.  Thats labor and parts.
I fired mine 1/6/06.  Not only did I recoup the expense, I'm now saving.  Profiting,I think so.

David

I have a Keystoker stove - it's an older 90K Btu model with the direct vent option.  I picked it up as a "basket case" for $850 and spent last summer getting all the packed in fly-ash and rust out of it, and stripping the outside down to bare metal and repainting it all.  New glass, gaskets, ash pans, hopper lid, and a a few blower motors, and it looks (and runs) like a new unit.

I'm pretty far from anthracite country (in Illinois past Chicago) - but I have a local stove shop that carries coal stoves and bagged coal (Blasch@k) for a pretty decent price considering.

I'd rather burn the local, downstate bituminous, but there is a total lack of good, stoker fired stoves that will burn it, and I won't run it in a hand fed because there is also a lack of units designed to burn it and it burns much less cleanly in a hand fed.

dmp

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #47 on: May 22, 2008, 02:15:45 AM »
Chris


You need coal, cheap.

Get 4 or 5, or so, friends to go into a tractor load.  That's 23 tons. 

Dump it on the ground.  Divy it up by volume.  Figure that while the coal's still
in the trailer.  Divy by volume.  You could wiegh it, but what a hasle.  A 5gal.
bucket is 31 to 35 lbs.  Depends on the density of the coal.  Also on ones'
judgement of 5gals.

That trucker's going to want to backhaul.  Maybe go on.  If you're creative...well.

Nice to meet another coal man.

David

europachris

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #48 on: May 22, 2008, 06:31:35 PM »
Chris
You need coal, cheap.

Get 4 or 5, or so, friends to go into a tractor load.  That's 23 tons. 


That's my problem right now, I don't know anyone else in the nearby area that burns coal.  I'm the only wierdo... ::)

I'd like to talk my local dealer into going bulk, but I don't think he has the interest or demand, nor any way to handle it aside from a big pile on the ground and he doesn't have loaders, trucks, chutes, etc.  Maybe as the price of oil, propane, and natural gas continue to go through the roof, that might all change soon...

captfred

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #49 on: May 22, 2008, 09:25:49 PM »
Couldn't resist my coal story

A while back I was sailing from Japan to Seattle via the Aleutiians.  The boat was heated with a small potbelly wood stove and we'd been heating with wood from pallets we got in Japan. We were running very low on wood and no trees in the Aleutians.  While Hiking around Kiska Island we found scattered pieces of anthracite in an area where the Japanese or Americans had set up camp during WWII. Picked up as much as I could carry and headed back to the boat.  Right next to the beached dink was a rather odd out of place grassy hill.  On closer inspection I noticed a few black spots in it and found it to be coal - low grade stuff, nothing like the pieces of anthracite I found earlier but it burned and provided heat.

Figure There's  a 100 tons or more - free for the taking - just gotta go to Kiska and pick it up  ;D

Cheers Fred

rbodell

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #50 on: May 23, 2008, 06:24:38 PM »
Couldn't resist my coal story

A while back I was sailing from Japan to Seattle via the Aleutiians.  The boat was heated with a small potbelly wood stove and we'd been heating with wood from pallets we got in Japan. We were running very low on wood and no trees in the Aleutians.  While Hiking around Kiska Island we found scattered pieces of anthracite in an area where the Japanese or Americans had set up camp during WWII. Picked up as much as I could carry and headed back to the boat.  Right next to the beached dink was a rather odd out of place grassy hill.  On closer inspection I noticed a few black spots in it and found it to be coal - low grade stuff, nothing like the pieces of anthracite I found earlier but it burned and provided heat.

Figure There's  a 100 tons or more - free for the taking - just gotta go to Kiska and pick it up  ;D

Cheers Fred

Somebody gave me a coal stove for my boat once. Went and picked up coal along the railroad tracks but it didn't burn worth crap till I put a blower on ti. The stove started to turn white hot and on the verge of melting, that is when I realized I had Coke instead of coal LOL.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2008, 06:29:01 PM by rbodell »
The shear depth of my shallowness is perplexing yet morbidly interesting. Bob 2007

captfred

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #51 on: May 23, 2008, 10:23:16 PM »
I had a stack fire off the Kuril Islands (sailing great circle from japan to attu) At the time it was the Soviet Union - excellent motivation to extinguish the fire - in those days I dont think the Soviets would answer a mayday.

Hey Bob, check out this link in youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=rD4roXEY8hk  "the German Coastguard" I think you'll enjoy it

Cheers Fred

Stan

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #52 on: May 24, 2008, 02:07:18 AM »
Did you see the "bank" robbery commercial?
Stan

rbodell

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #53 on: May 24, 2008, 03:42:40 AM »
I had a stack fire off the Kuril Islands (sailing great circle from japan to attu) At the time it was the Soviet Union - excellent motivation to extinguish the fire - in those days I dont think the Soviets would answer a mayday.

Hey Bob, check out this link in youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=rD4roXEY8hk  "the German Coastguard" I think you'll enjoy it

Cheers Fred

LOL glad I never had to deal with the German coast guard. I always figured that if I was stupid enough to make long trips in small boats single handed, I wasn't going to ask somebody else to risk their life saving my ass if I got into trouble.

When I used to do long trips single handed,  and I ran across a ship going slow killing time I used to holler at them and bum some groceries and water from them. Many times I got where I was going with more than I left with. Once I made the mistake of calling a Russian ship. besides the usual stuff they also sent over a nice hot pot of something or other. Man that stuff was bad. I felt that if they had to eat that stuff, I should have been giving them food. i have seen cooks disappear overboard in the middle of the night for serving better stuff that that LOL.


The shear depth of my shallowness is perplexing yet morbidly interesting. Bob 2007

dmp

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #54 on: May 26, 2008, 01:46:58 AM »
My neighbor had oil delivered yesterday @ $4.19 a gallon. 

IMHO this can't stay at this high a price.  It will drive demand down.  It will drive price down.
Where it'll settle is a guestmate.  In the $3.00 range, maybe.

That's even a "tough row to hoe".

Glad I have my stoker, fun to have my Listeroid, and also to be optomistic of the future.

Just covering my bases,
David

captfred

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #55 on: May 26, 2008, 03:57:01 AM »
The problem is in Asia - China and India want to grow their economies and need energy (cheap or not) to do that, who knows what price it'll take  for them to reduce their demand.  Indonesia and others subsidize fuel prices -  consumers don't feel it as bad - no need to reduce demand there either - at least until their central government goes broke.

Boone Pickens predicts $150 a bbl oil by year end. Goldman Sachs' Arju Murti predicted $100 bbl oil years ago (and was thought by wall street to be crazy as a loon, but was right) and predicts $200 bbl very soon.  OPEC President Chakib Khelil agrees (they'd love it too).

I'd be planning for $6.00 -$7.00 a gal ($1.50 - $1.75 per litre) gas in the not too distant future.

Think about this - The Northsea, Russia, Mexico and many other non-OPEC production are in decline - Bakken, Brazil, and other "challenging" new fields are years away from producing.  Prices are at record highs and yet OPEC isn't (or can't) ramp up production and increase supplies.  What will it take for a substantial drop in demand and a corresponding drop in prices?

Don't see any breakthru technology coming to our rescue in the next coupla years (not to say that something won't come up - but it'll be further down the road - if at all).

Every reason I come up with scares the S#@t outta me - I think I'll be more than happy with $8.00 a gallon gas (mixed with homebrew ethanol of course) versus the alternative.

Fred

Stan

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #56 on: May 26, 2008, 04:46:26 AM »
OK, I'll say it first, does anybody now doubt the peak oil theories?

Stan

dmp

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #57 on: May 27, 2008, 03:39:36 AM »
The price has to moderate.  The WORLD economy will do that.

Free Market!

David

Canuck

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #58 on: May 30, 2008, 08:50:18 AM »
I think that any effective down ward pressure on energy prices is still quite a long way off... As David says, the free market can and will control the prices of basic commodities... but most people I know don't look at oil/gas/electricity as a descretionary purchase. To most folks energy in the form of oil/gas/electricity is a cornerstone of "life as we know it" and they will do/spend just about anything to retain access to it.

Combine this with a demand that is growing exponentially and a free markets tendency to charge what he market will bear and we have our current situation. Made worse when one needs to spend a large amount of this costly energy in the process of earning enough money to pay for the energy... it makes my head hurt!

What I'm seeing locally is that more and more  household income is being tagged for energy costs at the expense of just about everthing else. David is correct in observing that this trend is not sustainable... but the huge question is "How far will it go before a significant percentage of the population adjust their expectations"...

And what will the world look like once those expectations shift and our need to move around in multi ton, chrome plated living rooms on wheels is replaced by.... what???

we are living in interesting times folks!

Rob.

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captfred

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Re: Heart of Coal
« Reply #59 on: May 30, 2008, 01:54:33 PM »
Since the Chinese economy has a little something to do with whats going on globally with petroleum, Thought it fitting to use  some good ol' fashion chinese curses....

the first of three chinese curses

            May you live in interesting times.                                      Rising energy prices

the second of three chinese curses

           May you come to the attention of the authorities.              Ain't gonna touch this one

the third of three chinese curses

           May you find what you are looking for.                               Dropping energy prices

Gan bai, Fred