hydroelectric generators

[Reiyuka]

I'd like to see a hydroelectric generator, in order to enable pumped energy storage. It'd be cool if I could use excess electricity to pump water to the top of a column, and then have a generator at the bottom passing water through into another reservoir and generating power.

This should be simple: a pump uses 240 watts and pumps 10kg per pulse. A hydro generator could be a building built at the bottom of a reservoir, similar to a steam generator, that passes 10kg per pulse from the top to the bottom, generates 200 watts, and can be activated by automation. Maybe it takes a second or two to spin up once activated, and perhaps it needs a minimum of 1040kg of pressure on top.

Then, we could have a setup where, say, solar panels run pumps that are constantly pulling from the bottom reservoir into the top reservoir and keeping a bank of batteries charged. When nighttime comes and the solar panels stop producing, the batteries run down and activate the hydro generators, which start sucking water through into the lower reservoir.

This could be a nice addition for water-producing geysers. A 10kg/sec water geyser would produce 200 watts of energy while active with a little effort.

It occurs to me that something might have to be done about stacking them, though. A 240 watt pump can bring water all the way from the bottom of the map to the top, and if you set up a column of hydro generators like that, you could get WAY more energy out than you put in. I'm not sure how I'd deal with that. I'm sure the hive mind could come up with some good ideas, so I'm happy to see the floor opened to constructive ideas.

[Craigjw]

200 watts, seriously, I wouldn't even bother looking at that generator, let alone build it.  Effort vs reward ratio is like 10000000:1

[Reiyuka]

Well you'd want to build several in a row obv

[Coolthulhu]

9 hours ago, Reiyuka said:

It occurs to me that something might have to be done about stacking them, though. A 240 watt pump can bring water all the way from the bottom of the map to the top, and if you set up a column of hydro generators like that, you could get WAY more energy out than you put in. I'm not sure how I'd deal with that. I'm sure the hive mind could come up with some good ideas, so I'm happy to see the floor opened to constructive ideas.

Yeah, the solution is to drop all the ideas that depend on any of:

• Vertical position of materials
• Density of tiles pretending to be pressure

Those qualities can be easily manipulated and this fact is so deeply ingrained in the game engine that ancient bugs dependent on them still haven't been fixed.

To actually properly fix it, a notion of pipe pressure would have to be introduced (massive rework that would break all existing bases), door pumps would have to be nerfed into non-existence (energy cost for closing with gas/liquid, no automation without power), "gassed liquid vent" exploit/bug would have to be patched out (no idea how - make liquid destroy the gas in this case?).

And even then, it still wouldn't work properly, because you could boil the water on the bottom of the map and condense it on the top, bypassing the need to pump.