mensreaMC
commented
10 years ago REVISION 1 -formatted according to the standard -clarified that this is a supercritical fueled plant, as there are still subcritical, gas turbine, ICE's and CHP plants which need designed -basically organized things better -still need energy values of propane and biomass. for biomass I will likely just look at how much power some incinerators are capable of producing, as determining how much energy this or that plant or waste product could generate would be insane -then again I am mildly insane -added some general ideas regarding how the plant should behave in various biomes, but its just a rough idea of things so far and I need to do research to determine what the real figures should be
INTRO
This article covers super-critical steam plants, which burn a fuel of sorts to generate steam, which in turn is channelled into a turbine chamber and used to spin up generators. The boiler system is designed to enable players to deploy realistic fuel based power stations. The systems are supercritical which means that the water is under too much pressure to become steam; instead it remains a fluid that is extremely hot. The supercritical water goes through a nozzle into the normal pressure turbine chamber(s) where it expands rapidly, driving a turbine with great force. These types of plants are the norm for fossil fuel fired power stations in the modern era. With substantial capital investment super-critical plants can be made into ultra-critical plants, which can reach even higher efficiencies
DETAILS
I.the supercritical steam plant can be powered by many different fuels which in turn have different energy ratings -efficiency range is from 40-50% -values are derived from the HHV in the fuel appendix
A.light sweet crude 1.1 barrel of light sweet crude is worth worth 680.8 kwh
B.natural gas 1.1 tank of natural gas is worth 115.2 kwh
C.propane 1.1 tank of propane is worth 297.6 kwh
D.biogas 1.1 tank of biogas is worth 86.4 kwh
E.coal 1.1 unit of coal dust would provide 40.8 kwh a.every 10 pieces of coal burned results in 1 unit of fly-ash being deposited in the output slot
F.hydrogen 1.1 tank of hydrogen is worth 170.8 kwh
G.kerosene 1.1 barrel of kerosene is worth 659.2 kwh
H.ethanol 1.1 barrel of ethanol is worth 416 kwh
II.the plants are made up of the following blocks
A.[fuel name] fuelled super-critical control block -plant will only burn the fuel it was designed for but fuels of an identical state of matter (gas, liquid, solid) should be able to be swapped in a trivial crafting reaction -example: the player picks their Natural gas fuelled super-critical control block up from the workshop. they need it to be fuelled by propane though, so they place it in a crafting grid and the output is a Propane fuelled super-critical control block. if they were to place it in the crafting grid again the output would be a Biogas fuelled super-critical control block, then crafting the Biogas fuelled super-crit would take them back to the Natural gas fuelled super-crit.
1.scans for biome
2.Scans large area (50x50x20) when placed for turbine chamber blocks, generator blocks, component blocks, mechanism blocks, motor blocks, condenser blocks and pipe blocks and then determines if it has what it needs to function based off the number and/or rating of the turbine chamber blocks
a.generator block(s) and turbine chamber block(s) ratings must match -example: the user tries to pair a turbine rated for 1000 kw with a 2 mw generator. the ratings do not match so the combo does not work. they must either use a 2 mw turbine and 2 mw generator or a 1000 kw turbine and 1000 kw generator -example: the user tries to pair a turbine rated for 1000 kw with 2 500 kw generators. the ratings do not match the combo does not work. they must either use two 500 kw turbines and two 500 kw generators or a 1000 kw turbine and 1000 kw generator -if the turbine chambers and component blocks are tool steel grade or better then the plant gets a 5% efficiency bonus to electricity output -if the turbine chambers and component blocks are titanium grade or better then the plant gets a 10% efficiency bonus to electricity output
b.For each turbine chamber there must be 6 component blocks -if the turbine chamber block is rated less than 1000 kw only 4 component blocks are needed -if the turbine chamber block is rated less than 500 kw only 2 component blocks is needed
c.for each turbine chamber there must be 1 mechanism block -if the turbine chamber block is rated less than 1000 kw no mechanism block is needed
d.for each turbine chamber there must be 1 motor of at least 100kw -five 2 mw turbine chamber blocks will accept 1 motor block rated 500 -ten 2 mw turbine chamber blocks will accept 1 motor block rated 1000 -twenty 2 mw turbine chamber blocks will accept 1 motor block rated 2 mw
e.For each turbine chamber there must be 6 condensers -double the number of condensers for hot biomes, halve the number of condensers for cold biomes
f.For each turbine chamber there must be 4 pipes
3.turbine block max rating(s) determine how much energy the plant can possibly produce a.plant will ideally only use as much fuel as its able to effectively utilize (though some waste will happen due to uneven and fractional numbers). otherwise the onus of rationing the correct amount of fuel to prevent waste will fall on the user -example: 100 2 mw turbine/generator block pairs (with a collective max output rating of 200 mw) could effectively utilize up to 100 stacks of coal; burning more than 100 stacks would produce more steam than the plant could efficiently turn into electricity and so would be a waste
4.Scans large area (50x50x20) when activated by redstone or after a successful burn cycle for the same conditions it scanned for when initially placed a.if the conditions are not met then the block does not initiate a burn cycle
5.Features large input and output grids (10x10? more?) for fuels and empty tanks/barrels/ash/fly ash a.Alternatively, features a large internal tank for holding liquid and gaseous fuels, so the player can hold filled barrels/tanks, right click the control block and thus load it with said fuels while the empty barrels/tanks are returned b.Could be connected to a hopper to auto-feed fuel in the top and a chute on the bottom to get rid of empty barrels/tanks/ash/fly ash
6.Fuels are burned in batches for one hour, then another batch is accepted a.plant must be activated initially by supplying a redstone signal to the control block. after initial activation the plant will run until its out of fuel. this makes it so fuel can be burned in batches, otherwise it would automatically burn any fuel the user placed in its input and potentially have to keep track of way too many things at once -example: the player loads 100 stacks of coal into the control block and 30 stacks is the max it can actually use so it only burns 30 stacks over the course of an hour. during this time the control block will output 200 mw every second (in this instance). once its burned up another 30 stacks would be loaded and burned until all the coal was used up, at which point it would have to be reloaded with coal and provided a redstone signal to initiate it
7.Features a "heat up" % readout, after running 4 times at the plants max rated capacity it will be at 100%. anything less than 100% cuts down on the total output of the plant by the difference (if its 50% heated then there will be a 50% loss of electricity production) -or running 8 times at half rated max capacity -or running 16 times at quarter rated max capacity a.loses 1% every 10 minutes when not being used b.heats up twice as fast in hot biomes, loses heat twice as fast in cold biomes
B.Turbine chamber block 1.Stainless steel, tool steel or titanium
C.Generator block
D.Component block 1.Steel, stainless steel, tool steel, tungsten or titanium
E.Mechanism block 1.bronze, brass, iron, steel, stainless steel, tool steel, titanium, tungsten
F.Motor block 1.rated at least 100 kw
G.Condenser block
H.Pipe block 1.Steel grade or better