K2/SE and gas power stations question

[Jeffreyac]

Hi folks,

So, first ever K2/SE run, got myself into a bit of a power issue - was going to transition to nuclear, got everything set, but forgot I'd need rare metals to build the reactor and didn't have any yet. So, what was supposed to be nuclear sweeping in to save my dwindling power instead turned into me looking at a factory that's already about 60% of capacity because of low power, and my coal supply steadily dwindling.

I do have oil, though, so I thought as an interim I'd set up several gas power plants and let them carry me until I could get to nuclear. So, built 6 of them, set them up, hooked them to the grid... and nothing.

I'm guessing I just don't understand them yet - they say 'Burn fluids to produce electricity - ineffiecient, but easy!' in the tooltip, but perhaps they don't mean ALL fluids... Vurrently I have them fed to my light oil, because that's what I had a bunch of. Is it only specific fluids they'll burn, or did I miss an intermediate step?

edit: Things I've tried: 1) a different fluid (crude oil), 2. a fuel refinery (makes 'fuel', but not a liquid, I guess, and can't feed the plant)

[kremlin]

They will burn petroleum and biomethane.



If you're struggling to supply your boilers with coal, one way to smooth it out in K2 is by using the greenhouses to supply wood to the boilers. You can set it up so your emergency power stations are feeding themselves with wood they are generating from water on site. They have a long crafting time when generating wood so they'll take up about the same amount of space as the boilers and engines.



Biomethane can be produced with the greenhouses for wood and the atmospheric condensers for oxygen so you can build something similar to feed the gas power station.

[Jeffreyac]

Ah, thank you - I'll plop them back down and burn some petro until I get back on top of things. Then turns out I've got an iron shortage to deal with - what a shocker... :)

[shadain597]

I've barely touched K2, so forgive me if this is inaccurate, but can't you just convert the oil into solid fuel for the boilers? And/or if you are using SE, you have AAI mods, so processed fuel should be an option too. Of course, the greenhouses mentioned above sound pretty good too.

[Jeffreyac]

Yeah - I could, but I just wanted a stopgap to get me through a spell before transitioning to nuclear, and I figured it was one less step to drop down 6 gas powered plants, vs. create a solid fuel assembly line and run to my boilers. (Mostly, because my existing boilers aren't keeping up with demand, so if I went that route I'd have to add another boiler array, too. This way, the new gas plants plus my existing boilers cover me nicely, and should handle the load until I get my rare metals up and running....)

[cainboy]

I'm going through K2 atm. and just got nuclear. (i'll save SE+K2 for another run, i'm LOVING K2 atm)
and i didnt like the gas power stations. (I dont have koverax, so i dont think i could sustain nuclear). And I also didnt want to spam solar..

My solution which has been doing well for me is taking oil and turning it into fuel with light oil, and then taking all that fuel and turning it into eco fuel. These go to boilers that fuel steam engines. atm; I can expand this fast and easy. so i'm not even sure if i want to go nuclear.
My power situation may not be close to yours, but i didnt like the conversion rates for the gas stations when fuel existed for boilers. Atm, I'm only using roughly 70% of 6 full water pumps worth of boilers. (about 372 boilers?)

off topic; How is the SE+K2 mixer? I've done SE up to the first tier of the 4 space sciences.. but dropped it from burn out. I'm loving K2, and thought a mix would be cool. but didnt know how they implemented it with the different focuses and recipes.

[RiO]

Originally posted by cainboy:

and i didnt like the gas power stations.

[...]

My power situation may not be close to yours, but i didnt like the conversion rates for the gas stations when fuel existed for boilers. Atm, I'm only using roughly 70% of 6 full water pumps worth of boilers. (about 372 boilers?)

The gas plants are a bit unimpressive, until you realize the dirty; dirty secret they hold:
Bio-methanol.

Gas plants can run directly on bio-methanol.
Which is oxygen; plus wood; plus steam. Of course: wood is just water, via green houses.
And steam is just water plus a burnable fuel via a boiler; and wouldn't you know it: wood's a fuel.

So bio-methanol is just oxygen, which condensers can pluck freely from the air - indefinitely; and water, which pumps can suck up freely from the lakeside - indefinitely.

Would it surprise you to learn that if you set the whole thing up, it produces net positive power? About 80 MW surplus for 10 gas plants iirc, and in a 1:1 ratio with 10 fuel refineries it requires 10 green houses; 3 boilers; 4 condensers; and 1 pump.

It has far better yields relative to footprint than regular steam engines running on oil products and less pollution as well (though that's less of an issue with scrubbers present anyway).

Originally posted by cainboy:

off topic; How is the SE+K2 mixer?

It's less of a mixer and more of a you-get-to-play-too-but-on-my-terms.
SE is firmly in the lead there and its author basically takes K2, and kills of the parts that SE already supplies itself or via its dependency on AAI; or the parts that SE's author just flat out doesn't like, whether that's for reasons of 'balance' or personal taste. Probably more so the latter than the former, because for a mod that talks high-and-mightily of offering a refined game balance, SE is an awful grind-fest.

[cainboy]

Originally posted by RiO:

The gas plants are a bit unimpressive, until you realize the dirty; dirty secret they hold:
Bio-methanol.

Gas plants can run directly on bio-methanol.

So bio-methanol is just oxygen, which condensers can pluck freely from the air - indefinitely; and water, which pumps can suck up freely from the lakeside - indefinitely.

Would it surprise you to learn that if you set the whole thing up, it produces net positive power? About 80 MW surplus for 10 gas plants iirc, and in a 1:1 ratio with 10 fuel refineries it requires 10 green houses; 3 boilers; 4 condensers; and 1 pump.

It has far better yields relative to footprint than regular steam engines running on oil products and less pollution as well (though that's less of an issue with scrubbers present anyway).

Oh wow! thanks for that! I had been wondering about the bioethanol when i saw it was a gas/fluid material, but got super fixated on eco fuel, since I really wanted to fuel all the trains i have.
and looking at the conversion of oil to petrol to be burned in a gas power station, VS:
Oil to lightoil -> fuel -> bio fuel, it was so much better.

Edit; isnt bio fuel (given that biomethane gives 4.5MWH per 6 fuel in a gas station), still better? (6x15)+((50/6x4.5))=127.5, 12.5MHW less than the 150 biofuel recipe?
Idm swapping over if i can just crank out more plastic... since i'm always low :(


I'll see about plugging in a bio gas station, since I have 800 steam engines, no koverax, and not sure how i'm going to expand my network (i'm trying to avoid solar >.>; but i just unlocked imersite, so maybe i should look at it)

[RiO]

Originally posted by cainboy:

Edit; isnt bio fuel (given that biomethane gives 4.5MWH per 6 fuel in a gas station), still better? (6x15)+((50/6x4.5))=127.5, 12.5MHW less than the 150 biofuel recipe?

Are you factoring in the power taken to produce said bio fuel?

[cainboy]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by cainboy:

Edit; isnt bio fuel (given that biomethane gives 4.5MWH per 6 fuel in a gas station), still better? (6x15)+((50/6x4.5))=127.5, 12.5MHW less than the 150 biofuel recipe?

Are you factoring in the power taken to produce said bio fuel?

Nope. just the potential effeciency per point of the bioethanol (since i'm making use of the fuel and biofuel, it was part of what i needed infrastructure wise). If i werent using so many trains, i think i'd redo it all and mostly skip the large section of fuel producers i'm running.


Thanks for the help! will be implementing this. Though now i'm getting close to kovarax, and fission/fusion... i'm wondering if i should try something new.