How to Cool Your Regolith to Generate Steam Power

[Tonyroid]

The truth is that cooling regolith for power is a bit questionable. It's hard to cool a lot of it and it doesn't have much heat capacity, so the power you can make is limited. BUT there are other reasons to cool it, here's one way to go about it.

 

 

[biopon]

It's much better to melt it and then use the igneous that results from it. Granted you need a volcano for it for the easiest method, but it's absolutely worth it. This contraption melts rego at very close to 20kg/sec, produces 1200C rock, which is enough to drive about 20 turbines at full tilt, feed 85 hatches, and produce coal for 10 constantly running coal gens. It uses about 700g/sec magma, but it only wears it down to 1500C, you can still do whatever you feel like with the output. I just vent it to space here. It's all pre-space stuff too, which is neat.

Cooling it makes some sense if your vole ranch is overheating, or you want to send it down to the base to make ceramics with, but you don't need to cool it that much  

[Tonyroid]

4 hours ago, biopon said:

It's much better to melt it and then use the igneous that results from it. 

Agreed. I have a video for a regolith melter and I had a cool idea yesterday for a whole new approach to melting it. I think I can make 125kw of regolith power. It's completely ridiculous.

[biopon]

1 minute ago, Tonyroid said:

I think I can make 125kw of regolith power.

Wouldn't you need like 8 conveyor lines full of regolith for that? I don't think you get anywhere close to that from the sky.

[Yank31]

6 hours ago, biopon said:

to make ceramics with

Wh...huh? Can you make ceramic with regolith? I'm confused.

[biopon]

1 minute ago, Yank31 said:

Can you make ceramic with regolith?

Use it in a clay farm for filtration. So just very indirectly. Sorry for the confusion.

[Yank31]

Oh yeah, gotcha. No worries

[Samson.ONI]

6 hours ago, biopon said:

It's much better to melt it and then use the igneous that results from it. Granted you need a volcano for it for the easiest method, but it's absolutely worth it. This contraption melts rego at very close to 20kg/sec, produces 1200C rock, which is enough to drive about 20 turbines at full tilt, feed 85 hatches, and produce coal for 10 constantly running coal gens. It uses about 700g/sec magma, but it only wears it down to 1500C, you can still do whatever you feel like with the output. I just vent it to space here. It's all pre-space stuff too, which is neat.

Cooling it makes some sense if your vole ranch is overheating, or you want to send it down to the base to make ceramics with, but you don't need to cool it that much  

That's the most compact regolith melter I've ever seen, but how much of a pain in the ass is it to build in survival?

[biopon]

1 minute ago, Samson.ONI said:

how much of a pain in the ass is it to build in survival?

Trivial. Hardest part is tapping into your volcano, and not letting your dupes trap themselves while building it. And it's cheap too. 

 

[Tonyroid]

2 hours ago, biopon said:

Wouldn't you need like 8 conveyor lines full of regolith for that? I don't think you get anywhere close to that from the sky.

Bro. You've nearly got it figured out.

[CipherLoco]

9 hours ago, biopon said:

It's much better to melt it and then use the igneous that results from it. Granted you need a volcano for it for the easiest method, but it's absolutely worth it. This contraption melts rego at very close to 20kg/sec, produces 1200C rock, which is enough to drive about 20 turbines at full tilt, feed 85 hatches, and produce coal for 10 constantly running coal gens. It uses about 700g/sec magma, but it only wears it down to 1500C, you can still do whatever you feel like with the output. I just vent it to space here. It's all pre-space stuff too, which is neat.

Cooling it makes some sense if your vole ranch is overheating, or you want to send it down to the base to make ceramics with, but you don't need to cool it that much  

For me, I have zero interest in your sandbox build so it's not much better for me, and I personally would like to cool it that much.  Thanks for posting @Tonyroid, I was looking for an awesome way to cool regolith.  Awesome video as well, especially since you took the the time to show how to build it in survival.  It's so boring seeing sandbox build after sandbox build with a few 2 second gifs to make it look cool.

[BLACKBERREST3]

On 10/19/2019 at 5:53 AM, CipherLoco said:

For me, I have zero interest in your sandbox build so it's not much better for me, and I personally would like to cool it that much.  Thanks for posting @Tonyroid, I was looking for an awesome way to cool regolith.  Awesome video as well, especially since you took the the time to show how to build it in survival.  It's so boring seeing sandbox build after sandbox build with a few 2 second gifs to make it look cool.

But most if not all sandbox builds can be made in survival. Not everyone posts on the "how to build" portion of their builds. Sometimes it is a process figuring it out though.

The build above could be explained with magma pumps.