Water + L.Carbon Dioxide?

[DrSugarFreeman]

I just realized that Carbon Dioxide Geysers emit at -67 F, or -55 C.

I was lucky enough just now to find a Water Geyser and a Carbo Geyser right on top of each other. Am I right in sensing a possible cooling system by combining the two, or has this been proven bunk?

 

[Nebbie]

What does carbon dioxide have to do with cooling? Just run the water through your base before electrolyzing it or feeding it to plants.

[SamuraiJones]

Oh it's completely reasonable, but the output is pretty skewed. In my experience, CO2 geysers emit like 200 g/s, while steam geysers emit like 3000g/s. Plus water has a much higher heat capacity. Go ahead and try it, but the results might not be as dramatic as you'd like.

[Khullag]

dont waste you time - co2 geyser has no cooling capacity. best cooling geyser is "slush geyser" - minus 10 degree C of output and in great volume

[Coolthulhu]

Assuming CO2 outputs at its max and water geyser at its minimum, rounding favorably, CO2 geyser output will have no more than 5% of the heat capacity of water geyser. It's useless for cooling, if you don't have a slickster farm to farm for food and lime (they're useless for oil - literally 0.5% of output of a single oil well), just keep it sealed.

The recent balancing run on geysers was more of a bandaid than a proper fix.

[Gus Smedstad]

Yeah, CO2 geysers don't contribute much due to the low output mass. Despite the low temperature, the cooling potential is negligible since the mass is so low. Ditto CO2 -> polluted water -> dirt or CO2 -> slicksters -> oil, the mass emitted is just too low to make a visible difference.

It's worth hooking up a CO2 geyser to an existing CO2 processing system, just because it's there and it's free, but that's about it.

[DrSugarFreeman]

Oh... well then I guess I'll just keep the CO2 sealed up then. Damn. I was thinking I had the resources for a really neat cooling system.

[QuQuasar]

Co2 is among the less useful waste resources, but running it through a heat source might still end up being a good idea. End-game it goes to molten slicksters for meat, eggshells and a small amount of petroleum, and it's a good idea to heat it up before you feed it to them.

[PhailRaptor]

The other issue with using it for cooling purposes is the mass disparity between Gas Pipes and Liquid Pipes.  Liquid Pipes can take up to 10 kg per segment, while Gas Pipes only hold 1 kg.  Sending the CO2 in pipes through your Water will very very quickly heat the CO2, but won't make that much of an impact on your Water.  The reverse is also true -- running your Water Pipes through a room full of CO2 will just heat your CO2.

Your best bet is to just use a Scrubber combined with a cooling loop.  Use the CO2 as a convenient way to create Polluted Water right there through the Skimmer, use the Polluted Water to absorb heat from the Geyser pool, Sieve the Polluted Water, the Aquatune it, send it back to the Skimmer.

[KittenIsAGeek]

The biggest problem using liquid CO2 for a coolant is that carbon dioxide has a specific heat capacity of 0.846 (DTU/g/^oC).  This means that it holds roughly 1/5th the heat energy of water.   Then, when that CO2 inevitably turns to gas at -48c, its thermal conductivity drops to 0.015 (DTU/ms/^oC).  So, if you have 1kg of liquid CO2 and 1kg of water, you'll warm the CO2 by 5 degrees for every 1 degree the water cools -- until the CO2 becomes gas. At which point the conductivity will be so low that you might not get much of a temperature shift in the water at all.  By comparison, the conductivity of insulated igneous rock tiles is 0.02, a good 1/3rd better than the CO2.

But all of that only matters if you've got the same amount of CO2 as you do water.  Which you won't.  Not even close.  The water geyser will output a LOT more mass than the CO2 geyser will.

[DaveSatx]

try things.  you learn by failing   who knows you might show us something. if not you've learned for yourself!

[Coolthulhu]

10 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Then, when that CO2 inevitably turns to gas at -48c, its thermal conductivity drops to 0.015 (DTU/ms/^oC).  So, if you have 1kg of liquid CO2 and 1kg of water, you'll warm the CO2 by 5 degrees for every 1 degree the water cools -- until the CO2 becomes gas. At which point the conductivity will be so low that you might not get much of a temperature shift in the water at all.

Conductivity is not a problem if you add a bunch of thermoplates alternating with tiles/doors. It's still the heat capacity that matters more - even if you equalize the temperature immediately, the 5 times difference in capacity and 5 times difference in average geyser output means that you essentially get only 1/25 of "cooling"

[Gurgel]

15 hours ago, DrSugarFreeman said:

Oh... well then I guess I'll just keep the CO2 sealed up then. Damn. I was thinking I had the resources for a really neat cooling system.

The output is just too low for that. But CO2 is useful in some applications, so putting a storage cavern around that geyser to have some handy can be worthwhile. 

Easiest cooling is cold slush at -10, also very nice are polluted water vents at 30C. Both will have enough output to make them very handy. 

[DrSugarFreeman]

9 hours ago, Gurgel said:

The output is just too low for that. But CO2 is useful in some applications, so putting a storage cavern around that geyser to have some handy can be worthwhile. 

Easiest cooling is cold slush at -10, also very nice are polluted water vents at 30C. Both will have enough output to make them very handy. 

Well I'' not be short of CO2, seeing as I just found a second geyser. Ugh. I can't even use these things yet. I'll keep them in mind but I'm not sure Slicksters even use that much CO2.

 

And what would I do with the polluted water? Its not like Im getting a net increase of water. Doesnt the Skimmer do liquid 1:1?

[mathmanican]

8 minutes ago, DrSugarFreeman said:

Well I'' not be short of CO2,

You can get way more co2 from meteors in space than pretty much any other resource. When you finally decide how you want to use your co2 and think you have run out, space meteors are your friends.

[PhailRaptor]

14 minutes ago, DrSugarFreeman said:

Doesnt the Skimmer do liquid 1:1?

Yes, the Skimmer converts 1:1 between clean Water and Polluted Water.  As does the Water Sieve, so you can loop it.

That's why I suggested working with an Aquatuner/Turbine setup, to more effectively cool the Water from the Water Geyser.  Set up a loop from the Skimmer, into a radiator in the pool under the Geyser, to an Aquatuner in a Turbine's steam chamber, then Sieve it back to clean Water and return it to the Skimmer to repeat.