Converting Coal to solid-fuel. Is it worth it?

[FM Helldiver Radio]

I just researced coal-liquefaction.
Is it possible (and worth it) to convert coal to solid-fuel?

Lets say I want 100000 solid-fuel per hour.

To archive that I´ll have to produce 109720 solid fuel (the extra 9720 unit will be needed for the energy consumed by the process)

The calculator says this will need:
https://kirkmcdonald.github.io/calc.html#data=0-17-1&rate=h&fuel=solid-fuel&p=coal&vis=box&t=off&items=solid-fuel:r:109720

steam: 756689.7
solid-fuel: 111611.7 (another extra 1891,8 to fuel the boilers that make the steam)
heavy-oil: 1362041.4
light-oil: 1040448.3
petroleum-gas: 151337.9
water: 1494462.1
coal: 151337.9
The power needed to produce all of this is 32.4 MW.

So the needed energy is 32.4 MWh = 116640 MJ (32.4 * 3600 MJ)
It needs 9720 solid-fuel to generate this energy (1 solid-fuel = 12 MJ)
These are the 9720 extra units of fuel we produced.
So the total net output is exactly 100000 solid-fuel.

As solid-fuel is three times as effective as coal this equals 300000 units of coal.

That is an increase of 98.2%
So it nearly doubles the energy.


Is this correct or did I get something wrong?

[DCYW]

solid fuel takes longer to run out than coal, so it is worthy.

[astrosha]

While that's not all that bad an idea ... I personally tend to just find an oil field that I can just turn all the crude oil into its three products, and have the HO turn into LO, and both the LO and PG into Solid fuel.

Coal patches, on the other hand, either get the PG shipped in, or I use the Coal Liquifaction to make the PG, and the rest gets turned into Plastic.

IMO we need enough Plastic that its worthwhile minimizing the coal burnt up as fuel, either in the raw form or the more processed form.

[zOldBulldog]

Lets look at it from a different perspective.

1) Your best sources of factory power are either solar or nuclear, and you should switch to those as early as possible. Also, they don't pollute.

2) Whether it comes from oil or coal liquefaction, it is a good idea to make solid fuel and then turn it into rocket fuel quite early, as it is a pretty good fuel for trains, car and tank.

3) Once you do the above, you won't be consuming much coal. So, you might as well setup a liquefaction plant, even if you have oil.

[FM Helldiver Radio]

Just tried it with a little setup.
The thing even produces it own electricity.

I put in 100 coal and 66 solid-fuel comes out.
Thats exactly 98% more energy than before.
This thing basically produces energy from nothing. :-)

[PunCrathod]

You also can get a significant increase in efficiency if you put productivity modules in everything and surround them with beacons filled with speed modules. It'll take a little more electricity per solid fuel(~10%) but you can cut the coal consumption in half resulting in net energy profit.