Experimenting with "Coupled" Oil Wells: Feeding 400°C+ Water for Instant Petroleum

[Nexto21]

Hello! This is my first-ever post on the forum.

 

I’ve always been annoyed by the need to "decouple" the Oil Well setup from the Petroleum Boiler. I am currently experimenting with feeding an Oil Well water at nearly 500°C to receive Petroleum instantaneously.

 

The hardest part, of course, is preventing the water from flashing into Steam inside the pipes. Here are a few observations so far:

 

• Pipe Mechanics: Water will not flash if the packets are 1kg or less. However, it also won't flash once it is inside the Oil Well itself; I have observed up to 4kg stored inside the building without issues.
• Heat Management: Since I haven’t incorporated a counter-flow heat exchanger yet (I was stress-testing the automation and needed to make easy changes), I required an external heat source to keep the pool from dropping in temperature.
• Energy Balance: The process is overall DTU positive, as the thermal mass factor of the conversion is approximately 1.4x.
• Heat Deletion: There is a small amount of heat deletion occurring, most likely from the Natural Gas in the room cooling the falling Petroleum by about 4-5 degrees.

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Please forgive the "messiness" of this initial build. I will post an update later with a cleaner design, an integrated heat exchanger, and a better automation layout.

 

Automation Details:

 

• Counters: The counter on the screen showing "6" is in standard mode and counts to 10. The one showing "0" is in advanced mode and counts to 1. When it ticks, it resets the Metering Valve (set to 200kg). This ensures that after ~2000kg of water enters the well, the valve shuts off until a Duplicant vents the system.
• Safety: A small circuit ensures no Duplicant can enter while there is water in the pipes, as that starts the countdown before a system reset. I also used a second set of non-automated doors to limit which Duplicants enter, as venting speed depends on the "Operatory" skill. There is a safety bypass so no Duplicant gets trapped if a new cycle starts while they are inside.
• Power: The system is self-powering. However, for safety, I’ve connected it to the main grid via a Smart Battery; even a 4-second power flicker causes the 1kg packets to stagger in the pipes, which leads to a steam explosion disaster.

[myxal]

Oooh, an emerging competitor to the petro-well series. Best of luck to your efforts.

[myxal]

12 hours ago, Nexto21 said:

The hardest part, of course, is preventing the water from flashing into Steam inside the pipes.

Overflow it into a/the steam room.

Quote

The system is self-powering.

Without plumbing overlay it's not clear to me how the heat is flowing - are the steam turbines part of the build and they're harvesting the heat from produced petroleum?

[Nexto21]

3 hours ago, myxal said:

Overflow it into a/the steam room.

Without plumbing overlay it's not clear to me how the heat is flowing - are the steam turbines part of the build and they're harvesting the heat from produced petroleum?

As predicted, the oil from the pool was indeed being sent to the steam room. I’m attaching updated screenshots of the build; these were taken for my own reference while away from the game, so they include some sections not directly part of the 'boiler well.'

 

A few updates: I’ve added diamond tempshift plates behind the AquaTuner. The petroleum at the top can now be heated up to 537°C without spiking into the sour gas range. I am currently waiting for the system to stabilize so I can measure the final petroleum temperature at the end of the heat exchanger.

 

Overall, the system is power-positive and provides cooling for any application. When paired with petroleum generators, it is also water and dirt positive. While the screenshot shows Super Coolant, the system remains net-positive even when using Polluted Water. In the new DLC, this can be built mid-game using only 1.6–1.7 tons of Iridium (for the AquaTuner, pump, and internal doors, though the latter can be replaced with automatic doors to avoid overheating).

 

The attached room shows where I dump heat from the Aquatuner. It also provides wasted heat recovery, as the petroleum leaves the main turbine room at 185°C.
On the right, the coolant goes to additionally condense a cool steam vent, which is a few screens away and not pictured.
I've disconnected the power from the main grid entirely (top right), so that system can be ignored. I initially made a mistake and used it to control the power shutoff on the left. Now, the shutoff is controlled by a battery in the steam turbine room. I plan to use its duty cycle, when connected to a known load, to measure the excess power of the system. I'm waiting for the volcano to go idle and need to make a bypass for the waste heat system so it doesn't run the petroleum generators (my water source), as they currently average about 30kDTU/s. and will change overall mesurment.