Self sustaining oil cooker

[MTzu]

Are there any ideas for self sustaining oil cookers? By selfsustaining I mean, that you dont need to put any more heat into the system once you got it running.
In theory this should be possible, since both petroleum and natural gas have a higher specific heat capacity than crude oil. This means, that both transitions are energy positive. Therefore you should be able to cook more oil by using the heat created by cooking oil.

I experimented around with this, and I think it would be easy if the thermo aquatuner worked at 350 - 450 degrees. I just can't think of any other way of seperating heat in this game.

[Saturnus]

Been tried but it doesn't work due to the built-in phase change temperature drop. 

[Carnis]

4 minutes ago, MTzu said:

Are there any ideas for self sustaining oil cookers? By selfsustaining I mean, that you dont need to put any more heat into the system once you got it running.
In theory this should be possible, since both petroleum and natural gas have a higher specific heat capacity than crude oil. This means, that both transitions are energy positive. Therefore you should be able to cook more oil by using the heat created by cooking oil.

I experimented around with this, and I think it would be easy if the thermo aquatuner worked at 350 - 450 degrees. I just can't think of any other way of seperating heat in this game.

entropy makes it impossible.. without cheats.

We made one that uses almost nil magma with @AzeTheGreat

 

@AnotherBoris heated 1kg oil packets to 1700 C at the heat capacity of oil 1.69, then turned them into natural gas at the heat capacity of natural gas by using (<1kg packets don't boil or change state) a weird pipe-game mechanic. This produces what you are looking after, an infinite heat engine with no external heat input.

The reason any normal build DOES indeed need external energy is ofc, when the absolute temperature of your natural gas drops below 541, its no longer possible to equalize your oil temperature above 540.. needed for the boil. Entropy.

The coming rocketry update will kill oil boilers with sour gas, so I made this.. but the automation needs cleaning up, regardless, it takes magma, chunks it into 360-420kg chips, uses 1600 K of the magma's 1725C heat and produces petroleum 10kg/s.

 

[caffeinated21]

It’s weird to talk about entropy in the context of a game with its own weird physics, but the problem you’ve got is that heat flows from high temperatures to lower ones. While the oil to petroleum transition is energy positive, it doesn’t raise the temperature. As you extract energy from the petroleum you are necessarily cooling it, and that eventually brings the temp below the transition point. 

You’re right that a super-temp aquatuner would work, as the heat pump gets around this problem, but, alas, it doesn’t exist.

also, haven’t you heard: sour gas

^oops, too late

[MTzu]

1 minute ago, caffeinated21 said:

also, haven’t you heard: sour gas

I have heard. I didn't use any oil cooking in my bases so far, but I think with the next upgrade my petroleum consumption will go up by a lot. That's why I thought a oil -> petro cooker would come in handy.