Why do people want hot petroleum?

[Szczuku]

Another question topic of mine. I've seen many people around here talk about making "petroleum boilers" and I have no idea what do you need them for.

I'm thinking about making Molten Slickster petroleum farm and I've decided to finally find the anwser to that question.

[greggbert]

Heating crude oil to 400C will turn it into petroleum.   A refinery can turn 1KG of crude oil into 0.5 KG of petroleum.   Boiling it can turn 1KG of crude oil into 1KG of petroleum.  And no duplicant is needed like with the refinery.

[KittenIsAGeek]

1 minute ago, greggbert said:

Boiling crude oil creates sour gas which can be converted to natural gas.  The process does not require any duplicant intervention like the refinery does.

Its also far more efficient than using an oil refinery to produce petrol.  If you build a boiler system, you can get more water back than you put into the wells for the crude.

[avc15]

Regarding your molten slickster petroleum farm. If you burn petroleum you'll create lots of CO2 and a little polluted water. If you scavenge the CO2 and burn the petrol from your slickers first, it makes your power plant even more water positive.

water -> oil well (oil) -> boiler (petroleum) -> generator -> CO2 / pwater

CO2 -> molten slicksters -> petroleum

Feed the slickster petroleum back into your power system, to be used before petroleum from the boiler. You wind up with extra water on hand. (Your power plant produces extra water)

But if you use the oil refinery building (operated by a dupe) you lose almost half the output mass, so burning the petrol produces less water. Like, less water than you used to pump the oil out of the oil well. So, your power plant would consume lots of water.

[Trego]

54 minutes ago, avc15 said:

Regarding your molten slickster petroleum farm. If you burn petroleum you'll create lots of CO2 and a little polluted water. If you scavenge the CO2 and burn the petrol from your slickers first, it makes your power plant even more water positive.

water -> oil well (oil) -> boiler (petroleum) -> generator -> CO2 / pwater

CO2 -> molten slicksters -> petroleum

Feed the slickster petroleum back into your power system, to be used before petroleum from the boiler. You wind up with extra water on hand. (Your power plant produces extra water)

But if you use the oil refinery building (operated by a dupe) you lose almost half the output mass, so burning the petrol produces less water. Like, less water than you used to pump the oil out of the oil well. So, your power plant would consume lots of water.

Distinguishing between petroleum based on its source is not logical or relevant.  You are mixing up accounting with engineering.  Once you've chosen to use a boiler, there's no reason to specify that you're burning the slickster petroleum first, the math works out the same either way.  (the same is true for the refinery system, although I'm assuming we're only really talking about the boiler/slickster cycle here since that's the more viable/efficient option)

[avc15]

2 minutes ago, Trego said:

Distinguishing between petroleum based on its source is not logical or relevant.  You are mixing up accounting with engineering.

whoa, hold on. I'll throw this one back to 7th grade unit analysis (pre-algebra.)

If you fill up a tank with the petrol from slicksters, and it sits there - you never get the water from burning it in a generator. You prioritize the slickster tank first to reduce the amount of water you're pumping into your oil well.

Semantics is over there, next door <--

[Trego]

I'm not talking about semantics, I'm talking about facts.  Petroleum in the game, is petroleum.  Period.  If you burn 1000 kg of petroleum in a petrol generator, it produces the same amount of p water, no matter where it came from.

 

"You prioritize the slickster tank first to reduce the amount of water you're pumping into your oil well."

Per 1000 kg of water you pump into your oil well, you end up with the same outputs once all elements of the cycle are complete, no matter whether you prioritize the slickster tank or not--therefore, prioritizing the slickster tank does not in itself reduce the amount of water you pump into your oil well.

Assuming that the logical negation of prioritizing one type of petrol over another is building up a massive tank of petroleum which is never touched again and which ruins your efficiency is incorrect logic.  The logical negation of prioritizing one type of petrol over another is combining them all into one tank and running that one tank dry.

[avc15]

I was talking about water.

But, you can find someone else to have an argument with, I'm done

[Trego]

I'm talking about water too.  Water in the game, is water, period.  Nice discussing water and petroleum with you.  (Water can be of different temperatures and germ content, but the method of its creation is not otherwise stored in the game files, and it freely mixes in tanks)

[Nightinggale]

For each kg of water you pump into an oil well, you get 3.3 kg of crude oil. Burning 3.3 kg of petroleum in a petroleum generator gives you 1.25 kg of polluted water. This means you can build a closed loop where all you put into it is sand/rego for a water sieve. This means oil becomes a renewable power source with little to no maintenance.

5 minutes ago, Trego said:

Distinguishing between petroleum based on its source is not logical or relevant.  You are mixing up accounting with engineering.

It is when it opens the question of what to put into your system. If you can calculate that it produce more water than it consumes, then you know your system can run forever without adding water once it's started. It's just as much engineering as it is when you calculate if your powerplant produces more or less power than it consumes to keep the generator going.

[Trego]

43 minutes ago, Nightinggale said:

It is when it opens the question of what to put into your system. If you can calculate that it produce more water than it consumes, then you know your system can run forever without adding water once it's started. It's just as much engineering as it is when you calculate if your powerplant produces more or less power than it consumes to keep the generator going.

"If you can calculate that it produce more water than it consumes, then you know your system can run forever without adding water once it's started."

Yes, that's true, but my point was, once you've chosen your cycle and done your calculations, you don't need to make one petroleum tank for petroleum from slicksters, and a second petroleum tank for petroleum from your oil boiler. You can mix them freely in one central tank, if you want to, because you've done the calculations and you know your system will run forever without adding water.  The only reason not to mix the petroleums is temperature concerns, not 'amount of water' concern.  Or if you really just want to have two tanks, it doesn't hurt, it's just not necessary.  To put it another way, if it's easier to do the calculations by assuming the petrol from the slicksters is burned first, that's fine, but you can then just put the slickster petrol in a central tank and not worry about mixing the petrols, because petrol is petrol and it doesn't change the ingame results to do so.  I'm sorry avc finds this confusing, but I wasn' trying to start an argument, just trying to point out a simple fact about the way the game, and accounting, works.

 

To put it yet another, even more mathematically based way, run the calculations two ways.  First, put 1000 kg of water into an oil well, convert all that crude into petroleum 1-1 in a boiler, then burn the results in a pet generator.  Feed the Co2 to molten slicksters, burn that as well.  In one case, assume you burn the petroleum from the slicksters first.  In the other case, assume you burn the petroleum from the boiler first.  Continue running your cycle until there's nothing left but polluted water, for both orderings.  The results will be the same. The results of the operation, per unit, are not order dependent.  This is just a fundamental fact about every step of the process   Mathematically order independence is described by associativity and commutativity.  I.e. 2 + 5 +4  =11 whether your intermediate step is 2 + 9 or 7 +4, simply doesn't matter, since addition is associative, in this case.  What avc is doing here, is, in essence, claiming that 2 + 9 > 7 + 4.  I'm merely pointing out that both = 11.

 

So, avc, post your math for your method, 'prioritizing' the petrol from the slicksters, and I'll rerun the calculations for the opposite assumption, prioritizing the petrol from the boiler, and we'll see what the result is for each.  I suggest running the calculations for putting 1000 kg of water into the oil well, seems a nice round number, and we'll see how much polluted water we end up with for both calculations.

[JohnFrancis]

@Trego and @avc15 Try looking at it from this point of view, with way less numbers.

Burning boiled petroleum from oil wells in a generator is water positive we can all agree. Once our arbitrary sized petroleum storage tank is full say 400 tonns should we turn off the boiler? Oh hell no, with a little automation we auto burn off the excess petroleum and we gain 0.2kg/s of water for every oil well. I think we can all agree having extra water and power dumped into our system is great.

As for the CO2, that is now a free renewable resource as we are on average burning all the output of our oil wells. Slicksters poop out more oil. But the petroleum tank is already full, lets just burn it for more water. For the above reasons the hydro sensor that detects that my petroleum tank is full does not turn off my petroleum boiler, it turns on my petroleum generators. Side note it takes 25 groomed slicksters to eat the output of one boiled petroleum well. With only two oil wells I ended up dumping lots of CO2 into space.

[Oozinator]

3 hours ago, Trego said:

So, avc, post your math for your method, 'prioritizing' the petrol from the slicksters, and I'll rerun the calculations for the opposite assumption..

That sounds very complicated, for me.
I would kill all slicksters, to increase efficiency and vent everything i do not need, into space.

[Trego]

@JohnFrancis as a mathematician I naturally aim for precision, but from a practical standpoint your method seems quite optimized.  @Oozinator post update, your excess venting signals the vermicious knids, all your dupes are now knid-food.  

[Craigjw]

I would have thought that's it's an obvious answer, because it's cool to have hot petroleum!

6 hours ago, Trego said:

I'm not talking about semantics, I'm talking about facts.  Petroleum in the game, is petroleum.  Period.  If you burn 1000 kg of petroleum in a petrol generator, it produces the same amount of p water, no matter where it came from.

I would disagree, obviously, Kelis' petroleum is better than your petroleum, as hers brings all the boys to the yard.

3 hours ago, Oozinator said:

That sounds very complicated, for me.
I would kill all slicksters, to increase efficiency and vent everything i do not need, into space.

I hear dupes are very inefficient, I would highly recommend killing all the dupes, or perhaps eject them into space along with the waste CO2.  Naturally, the winner being the petroleum boiler, because who can hear you operate the oil refinery while screaming in space!

[Trego]

21 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

 

I would disagree, obviously, Kelis' petroleum is better than your petroleum, as hers brings all the boys to the yard.

 

Hot Fudge Sundae version 2.0, indeed; now with more branched alkanes

 

[Craigjw]

As long as that will power a motor boat.....

[Derringer]

5 hours ago, Trego said:

@Oozinator post update, your excess venting signals the vermicious knids, all your dupes are now knid-food.  

[greggbert]

This sort of arguing is how Enik's people devolved into the sleestack..   

[Trego]

This sort of arguing is how humanity rose from ignorance into godlike beings able to use technology to destroy their own planet's habitability.