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So eh, i build a little roof over my asteroid, and shortly after it would all be 300ish degrees Celsius warm.

 

Not knowing any better i went on to test if i could use the heat for anything

 

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I build this little thing, honestly expecting it to lose and not getting a go on at all.20180731125451_1.thumb.jpg.cec777d1bb457ef413000938f302b749.jpg

Well to my surprise it would gather thermal energy rather fast, and within a cycle of me turning water on, it would also run.

Then it went on to run close to half a cycle, before running out of thermal energy.

 

This cycle would repeat with less then a cycle interval, which made me think it might not be such a silly thing after all. I also don't like to use the solar panels, too much garbage needs cleaning, this was showing to be a promising alternative for me.

 

So i went on to build a machine slightly more complex, in the hopes that i could gain even more power, 

20180801002339_1.thumb.jpg.6f175c3f6d49b6e372b0782426a13f71.jpg 

 

This thing was born, and it behaved pretty much like the first one, it would run for close to half a cycle, with just about half a cycle to regain thermal energy.

This was now getting there, I felt like, this thing can actually power my entire base and i'll still have enough power. 

Well, Steam turbines, their awesome, but their awesome side is also kinda their drawback. They produce tons of power, but also have a rather long downtime.

What to do ? Ofcourse make batteries, make battery bank, Obviously. Well okay.20180801074124_1.thumb.jpg.4db7be2333d704a804bc8d0a2a225a19.jpg

Batteries are nice, but this battery bank not only stores electrical power, but also thermal energy and steam pressure.

 

After putting the battery bank on i can now say my base is entirely powered by steam turbine.

In fact the setup works so great that i'm able to control the turbines with a smart battery, just like i would any other generator.

 

 

I hope some of you guys can find some inspiration from my experiences. I'm sure happy for this machine, especially because i don't have to deal with solar panels AND still benefit from being on the surface.

 

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1 hour ago, leoroy said:

Since you're loosing the steam, what's the water consumption?

2kg/s

36 minutes ago, Jumpp said:

What's the virtue of using all those smart batteries instead of regular? Is it just about the slightly less heat & runoff per J stored, or is there something more going on?

The smart batteries can be made out of steel, making them able to run at up to 275c.

Even at just 2,5w heat, they still contribute a tiny little bit to the thermal energy supplied to the turbine.

Figured i could atleast try to "regain" some of that lost power from the energy runoff. 

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14 hours ago, Jumpp said:

What's the virtue of using all those smart batteries instead of regular? Is it just about the slightly less heat & runoff per J stored, or is there something more going on?

 

13 hours ago, SkunkMaster said:

The smart batteries can be made out of steel, making them able to run at up to 275c.

Another benefit he missed is that over time a regular battery loses more wattage to decay than a smart battery. Sure it stores less but it also loses less meaning less wastage.

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1 hour ago, SkunkMaster said:

You're welcome to show of your own designs, if you think you can do better :)

Can you recycle the cold steam to reinject it at the start of your setup so you don't waste water in the process ? So you only need water to start the system. And once it is filled, it runs only from the heat the new regolith gives ? I'm just making guesses. I don't know exactly how it works but that seems to make sense in my head.

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Just now, Christophlette said:

Can you recycle the cold steam to reinject it at the start of your setup so you don't waste water in the process ? So you only need water to start the system. And once it is filled, it runs only from the heat the new regolith gives ? I'm just making guesses. I don't know exactly how it works but that seems to make sense in my head.

You can, you can also move down the steam using auto doors. 

Using doors is... a sad way imo. 

using aquatuners and maybe a couple of weezes to offset the cooling needed could be done. But that would then require you to resteam the water, requiring even more power.

I'm at cycle 1200+, and i'm still to take use of my second steam geyser, not to speak about the burrowed steam geyser i also have. 

 

In my opinion this game is about adaptability, and since i have no need to be conservative with water, i didn't see the need to reuse the water when it was more energy efficient for me to just vent it.

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2 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

You can, you can also move down the steam using auto doors. 

Using doors is... a sad way imo. 

using aquatuners and maybe a couple of weezes to offset the cooling needed could be done. But that would then require you to resteam the water, requiring even more power.

I don't like the doors solution too. I feel the same about waterlock neither.

But you already steam some water at the start of your setup. So if you collect the output of you whole build with the input when you have enough water inside, you should never need more water. Unless there is some deletion unintended somewhere.

I know you have a surplus of water but it's noob questions so I know it's doable or not if you say so ^^

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1 minute ago, Christophlette said:

I don't like the doors solution too. I feel the same about waterlock neither.

But you already steam some water at the start of your setup. So if you collect the output of you whole build with the input when you have enough water inside, you should never need more water. Unless there is some deletion unintended somewhere.

I know you have a surplus of water but it's noob questions so I know it's doable or not if you say so ^^

like i said you can condense and resteam it if you like, but that would require using aquatuners and some weezes to offset the cooling needed.

 

This will then require power for the aquatuners, taking away from the power that is generated by the turbines.

 

If you want to be conservative with water, sure you can do it.

 

That all said, it's hard to say if it is worth it or not, since you can use that same energy to make more water instead. Sometimes with lower power requirements.

 

So to answer your question in short, yes you can.

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14 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

like i said you can condense and resteam it if you like, but that would require using aquatuners and some weezes to offset the cooling needed.

 

This will then require power for the aquatuners, taking away from the power that is generated by the turbines.

But... Why condense the the steam when you can just put it next to the water input of your build ?... I don't get it. Maybe I misunderstood something important.

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2 minutes ago, Christophlette said:

But... Why condense the the steam when you can just put it next to the water input of your build ?... I don't get it. Maybe I misunderstood something important.

cause the water input is in the bottom of the turbine build, and the steam is put out in the top ? 

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Just now, SkunkMaster said:

cause the water input is in the bottom of the turbine build, and the steam is put out in the top ? 

A pump will suffice to get the steam to the bottom I think or 2 because the input takes 2kg/s. Not an aquatuner that pumps 1200W.

But well, I think I'll stop asking questions about the build. I sense a bit of irritation.

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5 minutes ago, Christophlette said:

A pump will suffice to get the steam to the bottom I think or 2 because the input takes 2kg/s. Not an aquatuner that pumps 1200W.

But well, I think I'll stop asking questions about the build. I sense a bit of irritation.

can't use pumps inside the steam build, they only take 125c and the steam is a minimum 200c+

And even if they could take the heat, i would need 4 pumps (1 air pump takes 500g/s)

 

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12 minutes ago, Christophlette said:

Oh right I forgot about the 125°C limitation and I thought the steam was colder at the end. My bad.

And yes 4 pumps, so 960W and that's pretty heavy.

The most efficient way is to  condense and resteam. Unless ofc you're okay with doors. 

 

but doors have the problem that you can't stack a turbine with them, or atleast it's not practical.

If you condense and resteam you can stack as many turbines as you like.

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You can use the one-tile neutronium exploit to trick the Steam Turbine into believing the steam is very hot. Then use barely hot steam to activate the turbine. If you manage it carefully, the temperature stays below the 125 oC of a gold amalgam gas pump overheat limit. Then the hot regolith can be used to make more steam from water, but no need to overheat past the pump limit.

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@SkunkMaster and @Christophlette

 

Lets be honest, with the current design of the Steam Turbine, there really isn't a practical way to use it without using some kind of 'exploit' to get it to work in a decent way.  Covering up most of the bottom of the turbine so only one tile is exposed.. is technically an 'exploit' too, yet people obvious do it.  Using the one tile of neutronium?  Definitely an exploit, as Alex_D mentioned.  Using a door pump?  'Exploit' as some say.  There's also the trick of 'exploiting' falling liquids to work as a air pump, as has been shown in other threads in the past..  Or, having a pocket of high pressure lighter gas (Like oxygen) sitting over the top of the turbine to push the steam back down.

 

Really, the only non-exploitative way of using the Steam Turbine is to, as it's been pointed out, either eject the used steam into space (Yeah, right.  No way I'd be ejecting 10KG/s of possible water into space!) or try to condense it back to water. (Ha!  Condensing 10KG/s of steam, funny!  Where is that heat suppose to go?  PH20?  Then what?  Through 'exploitative' water sleeves? :D )

 

So yeah, lets be honest, any practical fun way to use the Steam Turbine pretty much requires you to use some kind of 'exploit' to make it work.  That's not going to change unless they change the design of the turbine, or give us better tools to manage it.  After all, the Petro generator is far more easily to set up.  It's just a 'bigger' Natural Gas generator so the Steam Turbine, in comparison, shouldn't be too much more complex to setup.  I can understand that it needs to be more complex, however, since it basically gives you 'free' power from what would be wasted heat.

 

In any case, I have been thinking that, despite the temp limit on gas pumps, there could be a 'legit' way of using them for a Steam Turbine but, of course, as it's been mentioned, using 960 watts for 4 gas pumps is quite high.  (This is, of course, assuming you're covering most of the bottom of the turbine)  But, it can work, it would just need some more tweaking then this proto-type I came up with.

 

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As you can see, the steam is still quite hot when being injected back into the main steam chamber, even though the pumps are being liquid cooled by a slick of 50Kg oil.  The pumps are near their over-heating temp.  Too much steam in the top chamber and they start to over-heat.  Too little and the steam starts to condense to water as it touches the oil.  The And gates you see behind the pumps are merely as a temp-shift plate 'light addition'.  (Obviously, you wouldn't want actual temp-shift plates because they'd be 'touching' the layer of steam, and you don't want that.

 

So, it's possible with the current pumps, just.. not terribly practical.  :D

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@SkunkMaster@Christophlette

Here's the work of @wachunga who tried to build a steam turbine the "proper" way with condensation and reheating. It's unfortunately infeasible to build in survival and requires significant aquatuner work so in order to be power positive it has to be gigantic.

If you want a minimum space solution that doesn't vent the water and is easy to build, you can use a steam turbine like I use in my Glass Refinery Turbine or Meteor Magmaficator. It uses two high pressure gases fighting each other to satisfy the Turbine's pressure requirement and the steam just recirculates itself. Is it "exploity"? Sure, but considering the alternatives, at least it doesn't use doors or infinite waterfalls. :)

For me, the primary purpose of Steam Turbines in my save is not power, because I have enough other ways to solve that. I use them to get rid of extreme heat from the metal refinery, kiln, glass forge and melting regolith into magma. But I do like efficiency, so I'll build them in the most optimal way I can.

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Funny enough, for the heck of it, I decided to try and come up with my own condensing turbine build.  When only trying to condense 2KG/s of steam, it's much more reasonable.  It's hard to say, but the aqua-tuner maybe runs for half the time while processing PH20, but it isn't enough to keep the main tank of oil cool on its own.  So, separate cooling for that is needed.  I'd say a slush or normal PH20 geyser could supply the necessary extra cooling, or some other means.  It certainly isn't as heat efficient as a recirculating door-pump system, or using the trick that Sevio mentioned, but it works and you save your steam.  Less power though, obviously.

 

5b650aa1bef1e_CondensingTurbine.thumb.jpg.761a3a0a4d44dee95617c62cd449edbf.jpg

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The problem is not the condensing of the water, it's the power needed to reheat it after it's run through a turbine, if run at 10kg/s. 

 

If the condensing of the water actually was the only problem, then it would only be a matter of stacking enough turbines to offset the power needed for the condensation part.

 

I've argued several times that each vent on the turbine should represent a given amount of energy the turbine would produce, say 1kw / vent, this would make the steam turbine a much more flexible solution, while also improving on the design aspect of the turbine it self. Not only would it have a variable power output, that could be controlled based on heat energy available, it could also be used to control how much power is produced based on needs.

 

I reckon thou that the 2kg/s is too much for each vent, and that 2kw / 2kg/s sec seems reasonable. That's just my impression, given that the turbine build i presented isn't THAT overpowered. In comparison the ngg setup was super easy to setup, super easy to control and gave you unlimited power. - And fortunately the ngg loop was also changed.

With the turbine, the amount of thermal energy needed, just to keep 1 vent heated, is hard to achieve without some larger setup, taking lots of things into account and what not. And even then it wouldn't run all the time, it wouldn't run perfect, and if it did then it was because you where conservative and only used 1 or 2 turbines. 

 

So, i would reckon that 2kg/s for 2kw/s is rather balanced, considering how much work goes into this, and how complex it is to begin with. It is truly a late-game powerhouse, and should, in my opinion, also be handled as such.

 

 

 

19 hours ago, Sevio said:

@SkunkMaster@Christophlette

 

If you want a minimum space solution that doesn't vent the water and is easy to build, you can use a steam turbine like I use in my Glass Refinery Turbine or Meteor Magmaficator. It uses two high pressure gases fighting each other to satisfy the Turbine's pressure requirement and the steam just recirculates itself. Is it "exploity"? Sure, but considering the alternatives, at least it doesn't use doors or infinite waterfalls. :)

Honestly out of all the problems the turbine has, the gas bubble is the worst, in my opinion. 

The 1 tile for 1 vent i somewhat see as balanced, compared to the massive heat it takes to run, like you mention. Now if it supplied 8kw, like it did initially, THEN the talk would be entirely different, and maybe 10kg/s wouldn't be THAT far away from what is actually balanced. 

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