Dear list, I doubt that used crankcase oil was used for a stationary location. Back in them days, the oil was sometimes cut into diesel fuel or dumped. WWII had a bit of a reuse craze on such oil, but after that, waste oil was a waste. Further, the fuel oil that was then is not the same stuff as it is today. EPA and air quality has changed the composition over the years, so the fuel was different and produced more smoke before 1978. Also, the heavy smoke at startup could have been accounted for by the seldom use, long hours of pilot and sputter in an oil-fired boiler, and an older combustion technology. There was usually a dark plume from such boilers when they go to high-fire. Technology over the last 30 years (since 1973 oil embargo) has switched over most of the older plants to more efficient and less polluting (since the 1970 Clean Air Act) types of boilers. Come out to Montana and I can show you some operating relics in schools and public buildings. Hey, the State Center in Boulder (mental hospital) still operates boilers for heat that the state bought used in 1893 from the railroad. They had been coal, then oil, then back to coal, and now gas. And even with gas, they have a puff of smoke. Just older technology. Howard Haines ------------------------------
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