Power Generation: Difference between revisions

Next are the Railcraft boilers, available at the start of LV. These are multiblock boilers, and can be 1x1, 2x2, or 3x3, and up to 5 blocks tall. These consist of a single base layer of boiler fireboxes, over which between 1 and 4 layers of boiler tanks are placed, depending on the size (look on the tooltip for a list of viable sizes). The boiler fireboxes determine what fuel is used- solid fueled fireboxes can run on anything that is capable of burning in a furnace(mostly coal or charcoal are the viable options, BoP ash from the nether could also be used if you don't mind digging) while liquid fueled fireboxes run off certain flammable liquids (creosote oil, lava, diesel, and oil, though of these the only one you'll want to use is probably creosote). The boiler tanks determine steam production, warm up time, and fuel consumption- low pressure boilers warm up faster (although still very slow relative to other boilers) and make 10 L/t of steam per boiler tank present(Note that this is per tick, not per second unlike the GT boilers- multiply this by 20 to get per second), while high pressure boilers are more expensive, use twice the fuel, warm up much slower, but make 20L/t of steam per boiler tank. Since high pressure tanks aren't any more fuel efficient, warm up much slower, and need steel instead of iron, it's better to use low pressure tanks in nearly all circumstances. Both types of fireboxes are viable, and it's generally best to run a combination of both to fully utilize a coke oven. These can produce anywhere from a tiny 10L/t of steam, or 5 EU/t, up to 360L/t for a max size low pressure or 720L/t for a max size high pressure (180 or 360 EU/t, respectively). The fuel consumption uses a complicated formula; more details [[Railcraft Boilers Math|here]].

GT++ adds advanced boilers, which are available in 3 tiers from LV to HV. These produce 250L/s, 500 L/s, and 750L/s for each tier. They are fairly expensive to make, but are extremely fuel efficient. They run off any furnace fuel. Since you'd need to create a lot of these fairly expensive boilers to get much steam, they're not recommended for use.

Finally, Gregtech adds multiblock large boilers. The first one, the large bronze boiler, is available at late LV (as soon as you have MV circuits), up to the large tungstensteel boiler available at IV. These run off (extremely large quantities of) any furnace fuel or flammable liquid. Running these off liquids is not really viable- Railcraft boilers run off creosote more efficiently, while most any other flammable liquid is better in a generator of some kind. These produce enormous amounts of steam, 16000L/s (400 EU/t) for a bronze boiler and even more for higher tier ones. They also consume extremely large quantities of fuel, so be prepared. They're extremely good for producing large amounts of steam from furnace fuel, but Railcraft boilers are more efficient for using creosote.

Obtaining Fuel: Boilers require fuel to run, the two most common being charcoal and creosote oil. These fuels can be obtained from 3 main sources- Railcraft coke ovens, which are cheap and obtainable early but very slow, producing creosote and charcoal, advanced coke ovens which are much faster but more expensive and do not make creosote, and pyrolyse ovens, which are the most expensive but produce charcoal very fast, as well as yielding more useful byproducts instead of creosote. Coal ore can be processed in a sifter to get large amounts of coal for use in steam production also.

In later tiers, large quantities of steam can be produced by the use a [[Large heat exchanger]] fed by lava, which is able be produced infinitely. This allows for an essentially infinite power generation system when coupled with Large Steam Turbines.