Chemfuel powered generator
Chemfuel powered generator
The chemfuel powered generator provides power from chemfuel. The generator outputs a constant 1000 W, burning 4.5 chemfuel per day (no matter how much power is actually drawn). Fuel has to be delivered to the generator by a colonist. The generator is an exact analog to the wood-fired generator, only the type of fuel is different. Generators are a low-level light source, and also produce heat.
Fuel and energy economy
A chemfuel powered generator holds 30 chemfuel, consuming 4.5 chemfuel per day. This means a completely refueled generator will run for 6 days and 16 hours without refueling. For comparison, the wood-fired generator uses 22 wood per day.
Using boomalopes for fuel
A boomalope produces 6 chemfuel per day (a little less in practice). This means you can run 4 generators indefinitely from a herd of 3 boomalopes (one boomalope can fuel ~1.3 generators). In practice this is not exactly attainable, because milking the animals and refueling the generators will not be a seamless process.
Growing plants for fuel
Unrealistically, and against intuition, chemfuel generators together with hydroponics greenhouses and biofuel refineries produce (a lot) of free energy, if the colonist workforce is available to run the setup. The conversion chain is
Power (for greenhouse) → food (for refinery) → chemfuel (for generator) → power
A lot of excess power is generated at the end of the chain (this would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics in the real world).
A single hydroponics basin can produce ~0.7 raw nutrition per day (growing rice, and assuming a perfect grow operation). This converts into ~7 chemfuel per day at a biofuel refinery. Therefore, the produce from a single basin fuels about 1.5 chemfuel generators. This is not attainable in practice, but will serve as a guideline. Theoretically, a single hydroponics basin lit by a sun lamp (in a group of 24 basins) uses 130W of power on average, including the sun lamp (190W if you assume day-time power draw). This results in a theoretical net gain in energy of about 870W (810W during the day). 4.6 generators are needed to power a full hydroponics setup, which will require ~21 chemfuel per day, or about 3 hydroponics basins. This means that with 5 generators you can grow plants in ~20 hydroponics basins for free, with about 400W of power to spare during the day (3,300W during the night).
Using batteries to catch the night-time excess power, the setup described will cover the food and energy needs of a medium-sized colony entirely (without having to resort to any other power sources).
Obtaining
Chemfuel powered generators can be constructed after you have completed research into Electricity.
History
Chemfuel powered generators were added in Beta 18.
- Power
- Power conduit (Hidden, Waterproof) • Power switch • Wood-fired generator • Chemfuel powered generator • Wind turbine
- (research)
- Battery • Geothermal generator • Solar generator • Watermill generator • Toxifier generator
• Bioferrite generator
- (uncraftable)
- Vanometric power cell • Unstable power cell
- Related
- Ship reactor • Electroharvester