Steam Submarines: Incredibly Dangerous REAL Designs
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Like steampunk but real. There were several types of steam-powered submarines built between 1879 and 1920s. This video explains the types and why they were built, even though steam power is considered crazy for submarines.
For my article on the Nordenfelt Steam Submarines, complete with original cutaway drawing, see www.hisutton.com/Nordenfelt-su... 
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That last german design is crazy. It's only missing a storable mini-zeppelin as a focke-achgelis fa 330 for reconaissence and is the most steampunk submarine of real life
Those early 1890-1920 submarines always seem like death traps. You definitely need to made of some strong stuff to even step foot on them
No they were OK actually my dad used to drive one
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 Your dad used drive submarines over a hundred years old?
@@grand-dadmiral yes he drove a submarine in the ww2 and cold War and became boss of the US submarine school as well a navy top gun pilot at the weekend on carriers. Even admiral saluted him because he had so many ribbons
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 So he drove a steam powered submarine during the second world war AND the cold war, you say? And he was a fighter pilot, you say? Despite the United States clearly not operating steam powered submarines at all, bar the technicality of nuclear submarines in the cold war? And despite there being no such individual who flew aircraft and 'drove' a submarine in the US Navy, because in order to join one service, one had to leave the other?
@@grand-dadmiral yes he started out driving a Battle cruiser before getting promoted to driving steamboat subs conducting special ops mission in soviet waters and then he was assigned to special activities division 7 a special unit that trains its members in all directions of militarily from commando, pilot, computer hacker, black ops mission and assassin and he flew f15s from carrier decks and also trained for space walks with the space force on satallite sabotage missions and off planet intelligence missions.
Yes. Accidents on K Class were due to operational issues. Battle of May Island, during night manoeuvre, caused multiple sinkings with 100 lives loss.
The steering failure on K-14 really set the May Island debacle into motion.
Human evolution is always interesting. These designs were ahead of their time. Steam came back with nuclear reactors, so the concept was sound, the steam source was the problem.
Also you forgot the MESMA AIP system
Steam turbines never fell out of fashion in the coal fired power industry.
@@dougwayne4548 Nor in the nuclear power industry. The vast majority of the world's power production is and has always been enabled by steam conversion of heat into motive power.
@@phamnuwen9442 the entirety of modern human history is humans spinning things with hot things
Steam is quiet? Or why is it important?
Appreciate the good work man.
Scripted or not, your programs never fail to inform, Enlighten, and entertain. Thank you for your time and expertise.
Another great video. Thanks for all the effort!
Your channel was just recommended a few days ago to me and i've viewed all of your content here, absolutely love your channel! Hope you keep them coming, the format is perfect.
Awesome! Thank you!
@@HISuttonCovertShores Same, I don't know if you were recommended or I just stumbled on you from other mil history stuff but I insta-subbed and have devoured every talk, I eagerly await more.
Excellent video as always - I've been interested in submarines for 55 years, and this is the first I ever heard of the proposed German WW1 Steam powered boat -excellent work on your part for digging that one up. To your steam powered list I would like to add the French "Narval" their first steam powered boat launched in 1899, and I think their first dual propulsion boat (if you don't include Fulton's "Nautilus" of 1800). Again thank you for a fascinating vid and I look forward to the next one.
Yes I forgot to include the Narval, cannot edit it in now unfortunately. Agree re its significance.
Its taken me a while to really appreciate this channel. I may not always be interested is submarines but when I am I am always satisfied by this channel.
this video is wonderful.
Superb work Mr. Sutton. I noted no mention of any sort of detection sensors aboard these… and obviously radar had not been invented yet. At what point did sound analysis start in subs? A talk on the various types and uses of sensors in subs from the early days till current would be very interesting.
As of the start of WWI, most "modern" submarines would have passive hydrophones.
@@jamesharding3459 citation needed
;)
@@thelukesternater And yes, I had that saved. I keep a lot of interesting articles like that in a categorized and alphabetized Google Doc.
You could definitely sell posters of those cutaway drawings you make. Love them.
Good idea 🙌✌️👀
Love your channel.Submarines are so fascinating, they are real marvels. And you break them down so even a grunt can understand, Thanks,
I cant get enough of niche or weird stuff like this, especially anything submersible related, thanks for this, liked.
Never heard of them so a very interesting part of sub history. That last German one looked very seaworthy for long surface cruises to raid shipping . Four 150mm guns sounds very overkill considering subs with one deck gun managed fine capturing and sinking unarmed merchants.
I forgot to note what sort of range steam subs had. I’d imagine weight and bulk of coal couldn’t have been as efficient as diesel.
To clarify, the later ones were oil.
Steam powered does not mean you have to use coal as fuel.
one 8,8cm or 10,5cm may be enough to sink a merchant, if there is enough time and the merchant let you sink them.
With 4x 15cm the merchant will propally not try to run away and cooperate, and if try to escape it can be sunk much faster.
@@HISuttonCovertShores>>> While watching this video, something occurred to me: Steam powered submarines _burning oil_ could just _shut off the burners_ in preparation for diving.
I presume the earliest steam powered subs ran on coal. How would you 'shut off' a coal-fired combustion system prior to submerging? Just shutter it closed to remove its oxygen source?
I didn't know there were this many steam powered submarines. Fantastic video!
Nuclear submarines are steam powered.
@@kdrapertrucker Some Russian subs don't use steam.
They use bismuth metal or some other derivatives of substances not water.
Another exceptional good "sub brief", thank you H I Sutton for delivering quality!
_Forgotten Weapons_ You have good taste, sir.
The K class used steam turbines not triple expansion steam engines. Turbines are a lot smaller.
Thanks
I love your videos these are a lot of fun to listen to.
I Really enjoy your videos, thanks for sharing them!
Imagine working inside those very early subs with GAS or OIL lighting, incredible heat & no oxygen tanks !
Fascinating lecture - thanks so much for doing this.
Hey man, loving the vids; wondering if you could do a video explaining the nuances around sonar such as the shadow zone...I imagine given your breadth of knowledge it is something you could give a lot of detail on :))
Mate I can never get over how good your illustrations/cutaways are (alongside the terrific narrations I might add) - I grew up on Military vehicle cutaway books - am I correct in stating that you use Microsoft paint too? I think I heard that through Jive Turkey, in which case that is absolutely mental lol.
Try ruclips.net/video/PdKkR_lbLN0/видео.html
This video exceeds all human standards and expectations; I am deliriously happy having seen it. HI Sutton - keep them coming; PLEASE!!!
Good stuff as always
I love this channel! So much great information!👍👍👍💪 thanks so much!
The Battle of May Island illustrated the difficulties in using the K-class in fleet operations.
Amazing!!! Superb work!!!
Cool video. Superb information
In December 1916, K3, with the future King George VI aboard, uncontrollably dived. The ship plunged to 150 feet with the stern and propellers raised above the waves. It took twenty minutes to free the ship from the sea bed mud and surface successfully.
I love your work man!
at two meters deep with a nice tall snorkel blowing smoke i am sure no one would see it!
this is Wile E. Coyote's grandfather right?
Brilliant! Thank you Mr Sutton!
The K Class of RN between the World Wars.. Kalamity Class as they were known. 3 minutes to submerged.
Thanks for expanding my knowledge about the K-class subs. I'd read about their 'deathtrap' reputation only, so good to hear it wasn't quite that simple.
When steampunk was reality :-) Another grat video from H. I. Sutton.
thanks for awesome video!
I find steampunk/high-tech steam power so interesting because the combustion engine came about just before steam power could cement itself as a standard of power, leading to designs like these that were on the edge of becoming capable but became obsolete before they design kinks could be worked out.
Looking forward to your cutaway book on these exotics someday...
I think project 50's swivel mount was for surface warfare instead of under water but man the thing would probably have been removed early on because of its complications
Amazing information!
Some surprisingly hydrodynamic hull designs! I wonder why those didn't propagate into more mainstream sub production early on?
Short answer is, early subs spent more time on surface than submerged. So needed to be more boat-like.
These designs are less hydrodynamic than you or the designers thought…
Any chance on a video on midget submarines???
Very cool, thanks for sharing
Very interesting. Would love a special on the amazing and innovative Ictineo II from 1864!
Thank you for your videos I find them informative and entertaining. On another video of yours I mentioned that we might share a relative or an ancestor it's possibility anyway I realize that for a while that I didn't comment about my grandfather or my mother's side which has something to do with your channel as far as the subject matter goes. From I always knew that my grandfather was in the Navy United States in 2000 I'm sorry in 1918 when he turned 18 years old my great-grandmother gave him the blessing that once he turned 18 he can join and in the late '70s I pick them up in Long Beach New York it's Long Island and we drove to our house my parents house in Providence Rhode Island where I got all these stories about his submarine experiences. There were pictures that we had of him going to with his crewmates going to a remote islands and you know where the people were loincloths and my grandfather in a lot of these pictures yeah he traveled all over the place in 1918 through I guess the I don't know if it was a three or four years service but he spent most of it on a sub and he said you know the conditions were horrible but it brought him to places he only could have never even imagine. He said the batteries leaked and there was there a lot of toxic fumes in it is very cramped. I couldn't believe that my grandfather at the age of 18 was traveling all over the place to all these remote Islands on a submarine which was even then basically a new technology in the form of which it took in 1918 but yeah so yeah I guess it's too tall I see a channel one I could be related until my grandfather in 198 starting in 19 it was a submarina for the United States of America he told me about electric boat and the lodge naval Base up by there in the eastern coast of the United States we are pretty interesting stuff I miss the old guy he passed away in 85 and he was a veteran as was my father my other grandfather now but yeah my dad was a world war II veteran president of the blinded veterans the PVA I think two terms okay just thought I'd throw that out there my grandfather was a submarina before the 1920s but I think about that it brings a smile to my face he was a tough guy and I couldn't imagine and it was so many cool pictures of him with natives and stuff and you know basically wearing nothing but a long cloth seems like it was tropical pictures of long gone so and I'm blind now so I couldn't see him if even if I had them but I tend to think from the pictures that they were tropical but I could be wrong could have been from the Eastern hemisphere sincerely Bob the blind bedroom guitar PS I once went on the US the USS I think it was called growler which is displayed like a museum or at least it was in the 80s in San Francisco on on the pier that was pretty interesting a world war II submarine United States
What the frig
Fascinating , thank you.
Regarding the beam tubes, this was actually a quite common feature of British subs. Also the E class has them. The idea is more that you can stay parallel to your target, making it less necessary to manoeuvre a lot.
Also the diesel engines, as in UD1, the K class had these, they were meant for cruising speeds and recharging the batteries. Diesels are a lot more economic to use, start faster, stop easier and can change speed more conveniently.
The boiler arrangement of the UD1 was unique. It was meant to flood these when diving, eliminating the need for large pressure resistant shutters for the smoke flue. To this purose the boilers were placed in a kind of blisters in the side wall of the sub, leaving the central area free for the turbines etc. (source: Eberhard Rössler, Geschichten des deutschen U-Bootbaus, band 1)
Keep up the good work on unusual vehicles (because that's what they are!). The K class was the most significant steam powered submarine in the 20'th century!.
I don't remember if it was a K or M class, the latter being a diesel powered version of the K. One sank with the bow being above the surface, and the stern being in the mud at the bottom. The submarine was so long that the stern was below crush depth for the type, which I think was about 160 feet.
6:30 wow, you're a great artist!
Always good stuff from you, H. I.! I wish you, Sub Brief Aaron, and Count Drach were all my neighbors!
There was also the steam powered wooden hulled Baker Submarine Boat built in 1891 and tested on Lake Michigan though he had trouble keeping the thing below water.
*This is very interesting!* Nice!
👽✌
Love the videos
Great video! I would love if you could do a video about German WWII submarines like the Typ VIIC or Typ X.
Thank you. Very interesting.
Nordenfelt 1&2 had its imprint on Jules Vern's "Nautilus" Thanks for covering propeller driven trim vs. ballast tanks like the Confederate Hunley.
I can not imagine quenching the boiler fire and then relighting it after surfacing.
Question - what was the range and submerged time of these subs ?
(smiles) Yes, nuclear powered subs are steam driven like battleships and aircraft carriers. There is just more HP per volume. Diesel would take up way too much room.
I would expect that given the short submerged duration of the early boats, and that shutting down a boiler could in theory be as simple as closing all the fuel and air valves, I suspect that quenching and restarting it wouldn't be a terrible task, but getting steam pressure back up would take a while.
@@jamesharding3459 I hear you. My first thought is "air tight firebox" No dust nor clinkers letting air in because the smoke stack is AIR Tight.
Would have been a very, very hot ship. WW-II subs were notoriously hot running silent. All that steam and hot water would bake the men.
Psychologically it would be better than being topside taking cannon fire. "Tis better to give than to receive"
@@allenshepard7992 All you’d really need to seal would be the exhaust uptakes and air intake valves - same as a diesel boat, just a bigger exhaust.
As far as heat, Das Boot aside, I’m not aware of any sources stating WWI/II boats in the Atlantic were particularly hot. Steel is a good conductor of heat and countless tons of near-freezing seawater will pull heat away in a hurry.
@@allenshepard7992 WW2 u-boats in the north atlantic or arctic sea were frezing cold when running submerged, without the diesel running there was no heating, only 3 or 4 portable electric heater under the iron thumb of the chief engineer
@HISuttonCovertShores >>> Just an observation on an image appearing at about 12:56 in this video:
That submarine appears to have its bow to the left & stern to the right, and is travelling to the left. The exhaust from the smokestack matches that.
However, the _profile_ of the _conning tower_ makes it appear as though the bow should be to the right and stern to the left.
*EDIT →* At about 21:24 in this video:
That drawing shows the _conning tower_ in the _profile_ I would expect to see.
My Grandmother's cousin by the last name of Neville drowned in 1917 aboard K-13 (later raised and recommissioned as K-22).
That UD-1 is gorgeous.
Sutton, you legend. I live for Covert Shores content.
can you please make a video about the Virginia class sub i keep hearing its so successful but i didnt notice much difference from the others other than it has a lower test depth witch seems like a disadvantage a video explaining what im missing here would be cool
Is it just me, or a part of the video seems to be missing, around 10:13 ?
Some editing mishap maybe?
Interesting stuff indeed. :-)
subbed
how different were subs from ww1 to ww1 or even before? thanks for all the cool vids.
@H I Sutton - Covert Shores >>> I am posting this while I am watching the video, at about the 08:10 mark.
You mentioned the submarine that fired a torpedo underwater, being the first submarine to do so. _What_ was the source of propulsion for the torpedo? Was it also some kind of steam power plant?
vaven't been able to confirm, but very likely compressed air based on the Whitehead torpedoes available at the time
@@HISuttonCovertShores>>> Rodger that -- Thanks!
Good video
I REALLY want to see a video about the progression of battery subs.
For the early steam only units, how could these possibly work? To get a steam boiler warmed up would take many hours. You store up some steam but now it is time to submerge, you can't just stop the coal fire in an instant and that fire is going to suck out all your oxygen and smoke is going to build up. Do they put out the fire by pouring water on it? Now you are out of steam in your tanks and time to surface. Getting that fire going again and getting the water you poured over the fire out of the coal box? I have so many questions.....
The steam only designs used a boiler mostly full of bricks. You heated the bricks and the bricks heated the water.
The hot coal in the boiler also provided heat for a considerable period (along with a lot of carbon monoxide).
I think they just closed the door to the firebox sealing it off from the interior and any internal air vent so it didn't consume any air while submerged, the heat from the coal kept producing steam allowing the submarine to run it's steam engine for up to 20 minutes or so submerged. (from Garret's Resurgeon I think I read that)
@Brian Anthony The K class could run submerged on steam for about 20 minutes as well at 20 knots…
The engine room was not a fun place to work however.
They drew air in through a pipe.
They never submerged below the pipes ability to draw in air.
@@allangibson2408 Actually. It worked like a steam locomotive. Pipes ran through a fire box heating and pressurizing the water in the pipes.
Your vids are great, man.
very interesting thx
The open lifeboats in the earliest "subs" made me chuckle.
Wow, didn't even know there were actual steam powered subs. I thought they are just fictional designs since steam boilers are usually large, bulky, and certainly something you don't want to be trapped in a room with.
Now about that AIP thing that runs on peroxide, is it based on the same reaction used in the ME-163 rocket plane? That (both AIP and peroxide sub) might be an interesting topic to go deeper.
Just think of peroxide as highly energetic oxygen in a liquid form, to allow ICE engines to be used submerged.
Yes, the rocket engine in the Me 163 and the AIP turbine for u-boats was developed by the same guy
There is no L in the word chimney
I think Chim Lee was one of the fire stokers... Tall slim guy... Wearing a boiler suit...
They really had a set of bigger balalaikas in those days, then these .. DAMN..
Those later steam submarines really looks like cruiser submarines before the cruiser submarines.
How do the diving times of diesel subs of that era compare to the 4-5 minutes of the K-class?
I did not know that such advanced submarines existed in the 1880's.
They not only looks great but the inventor was also able to think outside of the box.
The goal for submerging was more like the modern "flying underwater" then just go down by weight.
And the biggest downside of steam powered submarines seems to be the heat of the boiler since not one of them went down because of the engine.
Using stored steam for driving underwater at speed is a brilliant idea, similar to passive steam lokomotives used in chemical factorys today.
One interesting fact about the Nordenfelt saga is that the murky Sir Basil Zaharoff was involved in the company. He made Nordenfelt an 'offer Nordenfelt couldn't refuse' and Zaharoff stepped in and did one of the things that he did better than anyone: to sell the same weapon (at diferent degrees of developement) to potential enemies (Greece, Turkey, Russia). Just imagine him approaching the Turks after selling a sub to the Greeks: "Guys, do you know that Greece has a submarine? I can sell you two, if you don't want to fall behind". And then to the Russians to tell them about the Turkish acquisition...
Fun fact about Zaharoff is that his origin is so shadowy that despite being a British national he was born in Turkey to either Russian or Greek ancestors...
Not so fun fact is that he also approached Peral and made the same offer that Peral couldn't refuse. Stubbornly patriotic, Peral refused the offer and then Zaharoff did all what he could through his connections in the Spanish Admiralty to sabotage Peral's submarine. But that's another history...
Awesomeness
Actually, the first steam powered sub was the Ictineo II, designed and built by Spanish engineer Narciso Monturiol in the late 1860s. It used a coal fired boiler to provide surface power, and a chemical oxide reaction to provide steam while submerged, which also provided oxygen for the crew from the reactive gases. It had a wooden hull that functioned well. The submarine functioned well, but Monturiol was not interested in selling his design to the military, instead aiming it at undersea commercial operations. Technically successful, but a business failure. You can't but wonder what would have happened if his customer had been the Spanish navy.
Interesting video, thank you, two points K class, they were turbine powered, when steam boiler are submerged in water, they dont explode the steam is condensed by the cold water, producing a vacuum causing the boiler to collapse.
Only in theory or if you cool the boiler slowly down.
In praxis, if a hot boiler get in contact with cold water it ruptures and the high pressure steam rips it apart befor it even has time to condensat. Like pouring boiling water in a cold glass bowl (or cold water in a hot glass bowl)
@@wolf310ii this is a myth , take a look at underwater footage of steamship Wrecks ie Titanic.the boilers are sitting there unscathed . The temperatures involved are very low , 100psi equates to steam at 170° C saturated. and also boilers are made of steel, not glass, different stuff.
@@clivelee4279 The boiler of the Titanic are 6,6m long, a temperatur difference of 170°C means also a change of lenght of 13,8mm. If one side of the steel plate is heated to 170°C and the other side gets shocked by -4°C cold water, thats creates a lot of tension in the steel plate, even without the tension from the pressure.
Also steel becomes brittle at -4°C.
A hot pressureized boiler will become cracks when the boiler room gets flooded by -4°C cold water and the pressure ripps the boiler apart.
On the Titanic that doesnt happend until the water flooded boiler room 2, because they extinguished the fires and released the steam. No pressure in the boilers, no explosion.
The remaining steam in the boilers of boiler room 2 was used to keep the generators running.
Interesting info.
Three things:
-Narcis Monturiol
-Ictineo I
-Ictineo II
I can recommend "Montiriols Dream" by Matthew Stewart
Hi, Ictineo II is shown at the end. It was a peroxide motor
Sorry. Your right that I hadn't seen it to the end.
Ictineo I was human powered.
Ictineo II was AIP but did not use Peroxide. Instead it used zinc mixed with potassium chlorate to boil steam (There was manganese dioxide in there too but, IIRC, it was a catalyst that didn't take part in the reaction much.)
He used this same mixture, less some yzinc, to make oxygen for the crew, too. As you prob already know, this kind of thing is now called an "Oxygen candle" and is used in emergencies where people are cut off from the atmosphere; like in mine shafts, submarines or spaceships. I had never heard of them before learning of Ictineo II.
thanks
@@HISuttonCovertShores You're very welcome.
That book is amaze-balls, by the way. Highly, highly recommend.
Tangential but I'm interested in the concept of a steam reservoir as a form of energy storage. I imagine they switched over to batteries for a reason, but I wonder what kind of energy density you can achieve with a big cylinder of compressed gas.
How were the coal boilers fed? I shudder to think of stokers manning shovels.🧐
My first thought upon seeing the Nordenfelt-IV was the USS _Nautilus_
Ive got a book on the K class. I read it about 30 years ago
5:25 an wooden boat on an davit on an submarine :) Now it makes perfect sense on an surface ship from age of sail to today there they are replaced by better boats serving the same purpose, but not on an submarine for obvious reasons.
Well done. I thoroughly enjoyed your unscripted vid.
should the submarines with Walter Engine (Type XVIIB) not also considered to be steam powered?
With the indirect method, yes. Peroxide AIP subs are mentioned at the end, along with nuclear.
No one would call a Peroxide AIP sub a steam sub though, same for nuclear.
Have you considered modding the HOI4 submarine technology tree?
I mean, all the nuclear ones are steam powered right?
After the American Civil War some interesting nonsubmersible steam ships were invented in Baltimore, MD, USA called the WINANS CIGAR STEAMSHIPS. They were a new concept that predated steam submarines. You may be interested in their story.
Even with liquid fueled boilers the K class were pretty hopeless... I wonder if the would have been better with automotive style steam plants like the White and later Dobell companies used
To be fair do modern submarines do not use steam engines or just termonic tiles?
6:21 so it has external torpedo tube.. some russian submarines have those for baits between outer and inner hull but why not normal torpedo tube? i mean if you store torpedoes externally you need smaller inner hull anyway.
There have been quite a few submarines with external tubes. The main challenge is that you cannot perform maintenance on them while underway.
As weapons move towards zero-maintenance rounds, we might see them coming back.
@@HISuttonCovertShores recent submarines? i mean yes i saw ww2 ones but never knew any recent ones.
Very few at the moment, although the Cos.Mo.S MG-110 is an example
Daphne was the last major class I can think of.
Belgorod is the next major one, but special case applies. See ruclips.net/video/96ieEd-wTCo/видео.html
however, I look at a lot of submarine designs around the world and it frequently comes up, especially for smaller boats. Most of these designs never get built, but that's not because of the torpedo tubes.
VLS / slant launch tubes on various classes are effectively this, just with missiles not torpedo's.
Overall most navies think it is preferable to have a torpedo room. But the variables at play are likely to move, slowly, towards more external carriage in pre-sealed tubes.
@@HISuttonCovertShores yes when sealed missile launchers work torpedoes could too and probably a bit cheaper version to swarm attack fleets. im surprised russians didnt try something like that on alphas. 10 or more torpedoes swarm would surely confuse carrier group a bit.
also such design could decrease number of crew even more for non nuclear submarines i guess
I LOVE your videos but the audio quality of this one is particularly painful due to the fact that I cannot, for the love of me, make sense of some sentences and it's pissing me off !
Thanks for your work ^^
I knew these existed, just didn't want to admit how scary they seemed. The things man will do, to defend, try to stay alive, and to kill others.
Yoir infographic showed the K class as having triple expansion engines, when I believe they had steam turbines to give their high speed.
I'm still pretty confused on the basic concept: so they stored up pressurized steam, then underwater they ran that through the pistons? But then what? Where did the steam go? Did they just vent it and leave a bubble trail pointing to themselves? Did they capture it in another vessel? How efficient was that once the pressure of the destination vessel approached that of the supply vessel?
Theoretically, the used steam could be cooled back to a liquid state to be boiled again later.
@@foxymetroid I guess, but can you condense it back to water fast enough? I have no idea and I'd love to find out.
@@Norsilca I suppose the water could be cooled by depressurization via larger pipe as well as something to transfer the heat to the water outside the sub. Plus, the water can only be realistically boiled at the surface, since the furnace would require a significant amount of oxygen. The sub might have to stay at the surface for awhile.
It's not too different from a diesel sub, if you switch the steam engine with a diesel engine and storing steam with charging huge batteries.