Feasibility of electrically heated steam engine

I was looking into the Dobles of years past after watching videos of Jay Leno's Doble E-20 and was trying to imagine how one could make the steam car a viable competitor to EVs and obviously one of the problems is the pollution from coal or wood being used for the fire.

Well what if the boiler contained electric heating elements at the bottom of the tank (much like a stovetop), that were powered by a large reserve battery? Once the heating element superheated the water and steam began being produced there could be some sort of generator/alternator built in somewhere to convert some of the unused steam into electricity to recharge the battery, for self-renewing green energy.

Would this be feasible in a Doble-like application?

I am not planning on trying this, but I am interested in if it is possible.

My first concern is that heating elements may not be able to sufficiently heat the water or at least not in a timely manner. Unless maybe it was a series of stacked elements.

posted about 6 years ago

Blake‭

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