Am I missing something on Power Gen?

[martyr]

I literally can't see any reason to use coal. It's really easy to get a couple of oil rigs up and import enough oil to make diesel + run large generators.

1) I don't have to produce / use a water resource.
2) The refinery requires no inputs. Heavy Oil goes to the Cargo Ship, Light Oil gets burned and provides enough to steam to run the Stage 1 / 2 and Sour Water Stripper (refineries built in pairs).
3) Nets 72 Diesel / 60 seconds which can run 4 generators generating 20 MW of power for 4.8 Exhaust per MW.
4) All of the above is self sufficient, requires no inputs, and generates Sulfur and Ammonia for Fertilizer and Petrochem.

A coal plant with the Upgraded light turbines produces 12 MW per Boiler using 30 Coal and 48 Water / 60s. Produces 5 Exhaust per MW. That water has to come from somewhere, so you could use some of the Steam Lo to run a Thermal Desalinator and take it away a Turbine, but that cuts you down to 8 MW per boiler set up and brings exhaust up to 7.5 per MW.

Seriously, is there any reason to use anything but Diesel Generators once you have a refinery set up?

Went back and did the math on running Gas Boilers with Medium Oil (Heavy Oil to the ship) and you end up with 8 MW per boiler (some steam has to go off to run the refinery) at 10 Exhaust per MW. Same amount (at a slightly higher exhaust) as a Coal Plant, but self sufficient, no inputs.

Edit: Also just wanted to check, the Sulfur and Ammonia created making the Diesel for the generators were burned off it'd up the exhaust to 12 per MW.

[Austin]

I run a mix: I have 4 refinery groups (3 stage), the ammonia and sulfur get used to make fertiliser and acid and other useful things (and tofu. Tofu needs sulfur??). The stage 3 makes gas which runs through 3 hydrogen reformers and, increasingly, runs the excavators in the mines. I have 3 large diesel generators (also note that those are quite new, before that you needed a stack of little ones). The trucks and ships still run on diesel. Thus the use of the oil is pretty efficient: a little gas gets flared off and somewhat more naphtha, which there's not a huge demand for in my game at least, at present.

I also have a stage 2 turbine line (with the 15MW generator and a stage 1 with 3x2MW. These run from a woodchip-fired boiler, and the refinery also runs from a woodchip-fired boiler. The woodchip comes from 3 renewable forests. Note that on islands with tight land area, that wouldn't work.

The hydrogen thing neatly sums up in my mind the state of play in the real world. Most hydrogen is produced via fossil fuel, AIUI. In principle you can use solar-sourced electricity to make hydrogen from water but in practice, that needs a huge amount of infrastructure investment, both in the game and in the real world...

[Peter34]

You'll run out of Diesel faster. There's much more Coal to burn than Crude Oil.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by martyr:

A coal plant with the Upgraded light turbines produces 12 MW per Boiler using 30 Coal and 48 Water / 60s. Produces 5 Exhaust per MW. That water has to come from somewhere, so you could use some of the Steam Lo to run a Thermal Desalinator and take it away a Turbine, but that cuts you down to 8 MW per boiler set up and brings exhaust up to 7.5 per MW.

Not sure what you mean with an 'upgraded light turbine', but T2 high and low steam turbines get you to 18 MW per Boiler and you can use the depleted steam to feed two desalinators. Which gives you 66 Water / 60s.

Yes, that is more than your boiler is actually consuming. With a single water delivery, you can make a coal (or other fuel) power plant that is water positive.

[Synical]

Diesel/oil power takes a lot of unity and pops; the real MVP is burning trees for power. You only need ~2 fully grown trees per month to run a 15MW plant.

[VladK02]

You use coal because coal is right there in front of your nose, waiting to be mined by your cool excavators.

Because otherwise, to take your example further - I literally cant see any reason to use diesel for power, when those solar panels over there are a source of free energy, forever.

But mostly, you need coal for a variety of things, and since you will be digging it up anyways, not least to feed your smelters.... it costs you nothing to scale it up to feed a few boilers for power along the way. Pollution is negligible once you get exhaust filtration going, plus you get tasty sulphur. Nothing generates sulphur like burning dirty coal. What do you use sulphur for, you ask? Why, i make slag with it of course!

[pete1051]

I use coal/gas hybrid. After a pure diesel startup. I have a blueprint that generates 60MW (stage 2 generators). and one that generates 16MW (stage 1 generators)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227960927

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227968707

I prioritize steam from the gas boiler and loop the low steam back into the system and not use it for generation. of course, scrub everything!

In my refineries, I maximize diesel production in early game, and run gas into the power.

Once I can got hydrogen trucks, I built a diesel - hydrogen converter and made a blueprint.

I'm entirely hydrogen vehicles now, and I think the power plant is using about 50/50 coal/gas. A world mine at 8x seems to be sustaining it fine.
I have an oil platform maxed out at 16x and 12 stage 1-3 chains of refineries. 16x is actually only enough for 8 stage 1-3 chains. So, I must not be consuming all that oil.

I have 160 almost all huge hydrogen, and a few regular side hydrogen trucks.

I scrub all pollution, I have found excellent health benefits to that.

Just started the last stage of research, game year 2386 on the new Armageddon map, and pretty dang easy settings. wet, unlimited world mines, I do have powered belts & storage turned on though. Sucking down a LOT of power now.

Careful switching on too many mainframes at once. My total generation was 96 MW, but that was a few different plants and everything started browning out at about 60MW, the limit of my big plant. I didn't pay attention to how much those mainframes need.

I may have to give in and build a nuclear plant. But I am not sure I will need all that extra infrastructure. I almost have everything researched and I will with what I have already.

My unity is good (+2.37/mo), health is excellent (30-34). I can even survive illnesses with no heath yet. population is 5060.

I mostly just sit and watch trucks dig and fill. Tend to occasional emergencies. It's all quite stable now. Just engineering the landscape now, so sloooowly...... Even with full trucks, it takes forever to build out into the sea.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227974574

Going so smoothly, been doing other stuff and just checking in on it. COI is a very casual game :) I like it.

[pete1051]

I will agree though, diesel is extremely useful. necessary for early game, and as a backup.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227978443

I keep these on low priority for surge times. Glad I was able to get these up and running when the mainframes took everything out.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by pete1051:

I use coal/gas hybrid. After a pure diesel startup. I have a blueprint that generates 60MW (stage 2 generators). and one that generates 16MW (stage 1 generators)

So, uhm... Could you explain why you are not using low pressure steam turbines?

Your T2 blueprint uses six boilers to run four T2 generators. That's 60 MW electric, by using 72 MW mechanical power. A low pressure steam turbine takes exactly the amount of low pressure steam that a high pressure steam turbine outputs and wrings another 6 MW mechanical power from that.
So if you supplement your power plant with low pressure steam turbines, that plant can run another two T2 generators, bringing the output up to 90 MW electric.

Same with your T1 setup. One low pressure steam turbine in each shaft would allow you to use another generator in each shaft. Your output would go from 16 MW to 24 MW.

And you can still run the depleted steam through a cooling tower.

[pete1051]

Originally posted by Kaery:

Originally posted by pete1051:

I use coal/gas hybrid. After a pure diesel startup. I have a blueprint that generates 60MW (stage 2 generators). and one that generates 16MW (stage 1 generators)

So, uhm... Could you explain why you are not using low pressure steam turbines?

Your T2 blueprint uses six boilers to run four T2 generators. That's 60 MW electric, by using 72 MW mechanical power. A low pressure steam turbine takes exactly the amount of low pressure steam that a high pressure steam turbine outputs and wrings another 6 MW mechanical power from that.
So if you supplement your power plant with low pressure steam turbines, that plant can run another two T2 generators, bringing the output up to 90 MW electric.

Same with your T1 setup. One low pressure steam turbine in each shaft would allow you to use another generator in each shaft. Your output would go from 16 MW to 24 MW.

And you can still run the depleted steam through a cooling tower.

I haven't bothered to figure them out yet. I wasn't getting consistent output from low pressure, so I just said "whatever" and dumped it into the cooling towers. i know I'm not getting the most out of it.

It's not perfect, but it keeps my factory running while my trucks build out more fill area.
I'm in it for the long run. once I have more flat space and did everything else, I'll tinker around and get to know those game mechanics more.

There is a lot to this game. Most of the time I slap together what works and fix it later.

I'll have more space soon to work out a more efficient power plant. I'll take note of your advice in future versions.

But right now I am making Construction 3 really slow and I have to be frugal with the changes I make. I have a faster St 3 factory in blueprint. I'll need that improved power plant for that.

I really do not want to deal with radioactive waste, so I am skipping that stuff.

I really just want to see what happens when it hits year 9999, and how big my compost mountain will be by then. :P

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3228776026

[Kaery]

Radioactive waste, you'll only have to deal with that for a bit. The upgraded reactors eat the waste. The 'waste' from the upgraded ones is something you'll need to store for a few years, then you can recycle it.

[pete1051]

Originally posted by Kaery:

Radioactive waste, you'll only have to deal with that for a bit. The upgraded reactors eat the waste. The 'waste' from the upgraded ones is something you'll need to store for a few years, then you can recycle it.

what about the depleted uranium? wouldn't that contribute to landfill pollution? I have managed to keep my pollution numbers good and don't want to erode that with a growing DU dump. I burn waste and scrub the pollution from that.

This has kept me from needing to set up a heath care production line, I'm still building places to lay down dirt for the sugar cane farms I use for that.

I'm in no hurry. I make changes a little at a time as not to upset my balance. I have a bit of a rats nest. I need to build more flat space to organize better.

I am getting a bunch of excess ammonia right now, I think I can use electrolysis to turn it into hydrogen and run my power on hydrogen too. But all that electrolysis may not be worth it.

But hydrogen does burn nice and clean.

I plan to experiment with different power stuff as i go on with this. Just taking quite long to engineer the landscape to my desires. But that's really what drew me to this game, the army of excavators :)

[Keranik]

Originally posted by pete1051:

Originally posted by Kaery:

Radioactive waste, you'll only have to deal with that for a bit. The upgraded reactors eat the waste. The 'waste' from the upgraded ones is something you'll need to store for a few years, then you can recycle it.

what about the depleted uranium? wouldn't that contribute to landfill pollution?

nah it's perfectly safe with no penalty to dump depleted uranium

[pete1051]

Originally posted by Keranik:

Originally posted by pete1051:

what about the depleted uranium? wouldn't that contribute to landfill pollution?

nah it's perfectly safe with no penalty to dump depleted uranium

But I have found that garbage landfills do contribute to the pollution penalty.

I've become kinda focused on keeping that penalty to a minimum. In reality DU is nasty stuff and should more accurately have greater penalty than normal garbage. maybe in the future they might change that. I suppose they could add a new tier to ship armor and weapons and add some stronger pirates to fight out on the ocean. That way there would be an actual use for it. But people don't like to think about it being used like that.

But as it is I guess in the game it's just fill material. better than garbage. lol.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by pete1051:

That way there would be an actual use for it. But people don't like to think about it being used like that.

But as it is I guess in the game it's just fill material. better than garbage. lol.

There is a use already. Two actually. ...Three if you count using it as fill.

DU plus Salt makes Blanket Fuel, which the FBR (T3 reactor, basically) uses to make an enriched version of it.
DU plus Plutonium makes MOX Rods, which the T2 reactor uses to make Steam and Spent MOX.

[pete1051]

Originally posted by Kaery:

Originally posted by pete1051:

That way there would be an actual use for it. But people don't like to think about it being used like that.

But as it is I guess in the game it's just fill material. better than garbage. lol.

There is a use already. Two actually. ...Three if you count using it as fill.

DU plus Salt makes Blanket Fuel, which the FBR (T3 reactor, basically) uses to make an enriched version of it.
DU plus Plutonium makes MOX Rods, which the T2 reactor uses to make Steam and Spent MOX.

Ok, I'm sold. Especially since I can essentially run trucks on electricity with electrolysis.
I'm playing on a wet map so I can use all the rainwater I want, provided I have space for collectors. I have a nice rainwater hydrogen station that uses 8 electrolysis II for 96 hydrogen. costs 28.8 MW though. Essentially powering my trucks with coal right now. ...and a little gas.
(well, maybe half the trucks are using the rain station, still getting a lot from the refinery.)

The nuclear stuff is all I have left to research anyway. I have explored the whole map too.

It's late game grind now. I think I'm going to dig out terraces on this new Armageddon map.

I just need to keep trucks running right now.