Wood chips as a fuel? opinions??

[Mr-Bandit]

probly not good for power, but for desal and stuff maybe? could make it a secondary fuel with a coal boiler to make coal supply last longer?? thoughts??

[Billy_Bligh]

I've done exactly that, albeit with biomass as well, to add 3 fuel types. Priority input from biomass and chips, coal is the backup, and it works well.

[CryptoCrash]

I have used it to make steam for research equipment production. you have woodchips there anyway and it saves you transporting coal to your 'science factory'

its a good fuel source, renewable, and easy to harvest. Might use it more in my next play through (waiting on next big content update first)

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

As above put it; its an excellent backup.

Especially since you need wood for basic building material chain at the beginning anyways might as well keep any extra/overflow lumber outside of construction as energy backup.

[VladK02]

incredibly inefficient. to feed decent power using wood chips, you will have to dedicate like a quarter or the island to tree production - and you already spending space to grow trees for construction parts; plus all these planters harvesters trucks to grow and haul wood; diesel and maintenance for all of the above; farm or two for saplings; associated labor cost, associated food / water costs.... and air pollution. And for what?? to get some steam???

If you need steam, a) theres a ton of ways to get it from by-products such as natural gas, which you can set up infinite trading loop for, OR from nuclear plant but b) get solar, and get electric boiler.

And if you need power - nuclear, and only nuclear, until you run out of uranium. Then solar.

Dont bother with wood chips. High volume product, requires lots of trucks, lots of space.... its only a stop-gap measure in the early game, for like 20 minutes.

And dont worry about running out of coal. The starter map, for example: you can max out the entire tech tree on the initial coal deposit, without dipping into second deposit on the hill. And if you play inefficiently, you still have that huge second deposit. Plus trading. You can also straight-up MAKE coal from trees, if it comes down to it. Running out of coal is not really an issue.

[Billy_Bligh]

Originally posted by VladK02:

incredibly inefficient. to feed decent power using wood chips, you will have to dedicate like a quarter or the island to tree production - and you already spending space to grow trees for construction parts; plus all these planters harvesters trucks to grow and haul wood; diesel and maintenance for all of the above; farm or two for saplings; associated labor cost, associated food / water costs.... and air pollution. And for what?? to get some steam???

If you need steam, a) theres a ton of ways to get it from by-products such as natural gas, which you can set up infinite trading loop for, OR from nuclear plant but b) get solar, and get electric boiler.

And if you need power - nuclear, and only nuclear, until you run out of uranium. Then solar.

Dont bother with wood chips. High volume product, requires lots of trucks, lots of space.... its only a stop-gap measure in the early game, for like 20 minutes.

And dont worry about running out of coal. The starter map, for example: you can max out the entire tech tree on the initial coal deposit, without dipping into second deposit on the hill. And if you play inefficiently, you still have that huge second deposit. Plus trading. You can also straight-up MAKE coal from trees, if it comes down to it. Running out of coal is not really an issue.

He's not suggesting using it for power, but for desal plants, which is very doable, and doesn't take much wood, especially if you combine with biomass.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by VladK02:

You can also straight-up MAKE coal from trees, if it comes down to it. Running out of coal is not really an issue.

This is even more inefficient. Feeding a boiler with woodchips takes a lot less wood and workers than feeding a boiler with coal made from wood.

As such, eliminate coal use completely.
Power = Nuclear. With the breeder reactor you can drastically reduce your actual uranium consumption. (Or actually get it down to zero, I haven't run the numbers)
Smelting operations = Arc Furnace. So, back to power there. The Graphite you can get from CO2.
Desal and other steam needs = Woodchips or Fuel Gas.

[Duke Leto]

Originally posted by VladK02:

You can also straight-up MAKE coal from trees, if it comes down to it. Running out of coal is not really an issue.

If you are going to run a boiler from wood -- DO NOT "MAKE coal from trees."

If you are going to run a boiler from wood -- USE WOOD CHIPS. Converting to coal will waste about 1/3 of your wood.

A fully used boiler runs on 30 coal/minute OR 48 wood chips/minute and with max "efficiency" creates 18 MW of mechanical power OR 15 MW of electrical power.

A "coal maker" coverts wood to coal at a ratio of 18 wood to 7.5 coal a minute. So you will need 4 coal makers and 72 wood/minute to fully supply (7.5 x 4 = 30) a "coal" boiler. Each coal maker requires 2 workers but no power - so 8 workers will be needed.

A "shredder" coverts wood to wood to wood chips at a ration of 24 wood to 24 chips a minute. So you will need 2 shredders to fully supply a "wood chip" (24 x 2 = 48) boiler. Each shredder requires 2 works and 100 KW of power - so 4 works and 0.2 MW of power will be needed.

Converting wood to coal: 4.8 wood per 1 MW of power a minute. (72 wood / 15 MW) AND 8 workers.

Converting to wood chips: ~3.24 wood per 1 MW of power a minute (48 wood / 14.8 MW) AND 4 workers.

DON"T covert wood to coal to run a boiler if you are worried about "efficiency.", use wood chips. Making coal from trees should probably only be done if you have no other option (i.e. blast furnace), or for simplicity - not efficiency.