Ethanol fueled boiler in 1.6?

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Reciprocaterman

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm figuring if I have two regular sized Forestry multifarms making oak trees I should be able to produce enough ethanol to self sustain a Railcraft steam boiler. Am I right? I know I'm going to have to use applejuice to ramp up the biomass production, but with standard oak saplings would it be enough?
 

Algester

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Jul 29, 2019
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now depends on how much power are you consuming in your base if your really lacking and a full scale boiler isnt cutting it you may need to get another farm max size I might add and another boiler just to power up your base else breed trees where you can extract more juice from those saplings because I know ethanol by default config is nerfed
 

Omicron

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Jul 29, 2019
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Apple oak is a terrible choice for biomass production. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it produces mulch for the fermenter. Discounting that, vanilla Minecraft alone has better trees for biomass production, even when missing the bonus from juice. As for Forestry, many trees easily out-produce apple oak on base traits alone, and crossing traits will again improve this dramatically. Some of the best trees are really easy to get, too.

Reference: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/treealyze.png

A good setup would be a small papaya orchard providing juice and mulch for one or more tree farms with willows. If you lack the means to breed them, sugar maple will do well as a second best choice (unless it actually breeds off of willow, I forget - use NEI Addons to check breeding paths and requirements). That's all on base traits, with no more than 3 breeding cycles for any tree and without worrying about trait crossing.

The juice output of a papaya orchard is mind-shatteringly insane, especially if you make sure to grow your trees so that each has at least 3 pods on it.
 

Sarda

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Jul 29, 2019
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Its been so nerfed that you'll spend more energy making the ethanol then you'd get back from the boiler in a closed ethanol loop, just use charcoal or planks.
 

Omicron

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Jul 29, 2019
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Unqualified as always, Sarda. Why don't you either make a serious attempt to answer the OP's question or abstain from posting entirely, instead of spreading made-up rumors unasked? You're in no way adding value to the discussion at hand nor the community as a whole.
 

Sarda

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Jul 29, 2019
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Unqualified as always, Sarda. Why don't you either make a serious attempt to answer the OP's question or abstain from posting entirely, instead of spreading made-up rumors unasked? You're in no way adding value to the discussion at hand nor the community as a whole.

Didn't I prove your half-ass math wrong in the other thread? I seem to remeber you saying "But no, it works if as long as your missing half the loop, you don't need a fertilizer supply!" or something like that.

Edit: Yup, yes I did. On page 2 at the top and you didn't even bother responding to it.
 

MigukNamja

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Jul 29, 2019
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Reciprocaterman,

Both Omicron and Sarda are correct. In light of the recent 4x / 0.25 Ethanol fuel nerf, it's not worth doing Ethanol with vanilla trees like the Apple Oaks.

For a simple setup with vanilla saplings, you can either turn the Oak wood into Oak planks and burn the blanks in a solid-fueled boiler or else turn the Oak wood into charcoal and burn that. TE3 has a Sawmill that turns 1 Oak wood into 6 Oak planks, plus provides a small % of sawdust to eventually turn into charcoal. That's the most efficient setup with just Apple Oaks.

If you don't want/need the apples, you can use Birch, Spruce, or even Jungle.

As for Ethanol, I highly recommend breeding better trees. It's not tough once you get a few mechanics down pat. See Omicron's advice above and my signature (also based upon Omicron's advice ;-))
 

Omicron

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Jul 29, 2019
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Didn't I prove your half-ass math wrong in the other thread? I seem to remeber you saying "But no, it works if as long as your missing half the loop, you don't need a fertilizer supply!" or something like that.

Edit: Yup, yes I did. On page 2 at the top and you didn't even bother responding to it.

Largely because you were once again, as always, a.) completely ignoring numbers given in the very post you quoted in favor of your own made up ones, while at the same time b.) displaying such an utter lack of comprehension of the most basic concepts of biomass production that I'm wondering if you ever even built a fermenter in the past year, and c.) doing it in an inane manner that basically said "I didn't read your post to the end because you clearly don't play the game right". And don't get me started on lack of research. 0.75 buckets of biomass per willow "tree", really? The concept of a sapling must be foreign to you. And 2 MJ/t for a Buildcraft pump - much less three of them, for two multifarms and a fermenter? There's so much wrong with your "calculation" in that post, I frankly didn't know where to start responding. And I honestly have better things to do with my time than getting into internet slapfights with people who can't even look up a number on a wiki without jumping to a false conclusion.

Like, for example, I prefer to play Minecraft instead. Where I use Forestry and Railcraft in every single map I play, including the latest versions on 1.6.4. And in none of these worlds have I ever required some kind of MFR composter scheme to keep my farms stocked with fertilizer. I don't even run MFR in my packs. Not even once, not ever. It still works, it still turns a very healthy profit, and it still doesn't run out of fertilizer. I don't know what you're building, but if you are similarly "gifted" with your builds ingame as you are with your argumentation on the forum, then it doesn't surprise me that it fails you.

And now, because I really do have better things to do and the rest of the community really doesn't deserve to be polluted with this tripe, welcome as the sole member of my ignore list. Feel free to spread your ignorant nonsense wherever you like. I'll just have to undo the damage by giving people proper answers and tools like the tree performance chart I linked above. Something which, despite repeatedly showing it to you, you have yet to even acknowledge exists. Probably because it doesn't happen to match up with the fantasy image in your head.
 
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Sarda

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Jul 29, 2019
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Largely because you were once again, as always, a.) completely ignoring numbers given in the very post you quoted in favor of your own made up ones, while at the same time b.) displaying such an utter lack of comprehension of the most basic concepts of biomass production that I'm wondering if you ever even built a fermenter in the past year, and c.) doing it in an inane manner that basically said "I didn't read your post to the end because you clearly don't play the game right". And don't get me started on lack of research. 0.75 buckets of biomass per willow "tree", really? The concept of a sapling must be foreign to you. And 2 MJ/t for a Buildcraft pump - much less three of them, for two multifarms and a fermenter? There's so much wrong with your "calculation" in that post, I frankly didn't know where to start responding. And I honestly have better things to do with my time than getting into internet slapfights with people who can't even look up a number on a wiki without jumping to a false conclusion.

Like, for example, I prefer to play Minecraft instead. Where I use Forestry and Railcraft in every single map I play, including the latest versions on 1.6.4. And in none of these worlds have I ever required some kind of MFR composter scheme to keep my farms stocked with fertilizer. I don't even run MFR in my packs. Not even once, not ever. It still works, it still turns a very healthy profit, and it still doesn't run out of fertilizer. I don't know what you're building, but if you are similarly "gifted" with your builds ingame as you are with your argumentation on the forum, then it doesn't surprise me that it fails you.

And now, because I really do have better things to do and the rest of the community really doesn't deserve to be polluted with this tripe, welcome as the sole member of my ignore list. Feel free to spread your ignorant nonsense wherever you like. I'll just have to undo the damage by giving people proper answers and tools like the tree performance chart I linked above. Something which, despite repeatedly showing it to you, you have yet to even acknowledge exists. Probably because it doesn't happen to match up with the fantasy image in your head.

TLDR Version: "I didn't even attempt to make a test system myself but I'm absolutely sure in my smugness that I am correct. Despite the fact I've never used or created a closed loop Ethanol system or even looked at the mods that make it possible I can tell you with sure certanty that It would not use power greater then or equal to the boiler output to maintain. I reject your reality and substitute my own! Good day, sir!"

It is possible now since those early 1.6 days to make a much more efficient system then before, so if you use ExtraUtilities, Thermal Expansion and a lot of other stuff that didn't exist at the time I did that test build you can now build a closed Ethanol loop that's slightly under the boiler's output, but that efficiency also extended to the Solid Boiler which I've streamlined to the point I can run a Solid 36HP with a fuel surplus costing only 9MJ to power everything required to run it. You will never even come within 10x that with Ethanol.
 
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Tyrindor

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Jul 29, 2019
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To simply answer the OPs question: Yes, 2 max sized multifarms with Apple Oaks can fuel 1 36HP liquid boiler with ethanol, but it can also power 3 36HP solid boilers. A single apple oak tree farm can nearly power two 36HP solid steam boilers with charcoal made from the wood, uses a lot less power to do so, and can also use the new firestone item that will heat the boiler up 40x faster than liquid boilers.
 
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Algester

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Jul 29, 2019
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To simply answer the OPs question: Yes, 2 max sized multifarms with Apple Oaks can fuel a 36HP liquid boiler with ethanol.
however theres still the fact how much he's consuming on the liquid boilers still needs to be answered... breaking even on just a single boiler is a bad thing. but yur answer is what the OP's question asks then yes... in fact the OP may have an influx of steam from it...
 

Tyrindor

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Jul 29, 2019
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however theres still the fact how much he's consuming on the liquid boilers still needs to be answered... breaking even on just a single boiler is a bad thing. but yur answer is what the OP's question asks then yes... in fact the OP may have an influx of steam from it...

In my test world I made a liquid boiler and the power needed to make ethanol was definitely lower than the power generated. However: A) Solid boilers can be powered up fast with firestones, B) 2 tree farms can power 3 36HP solid boilers but only 1 liquid boiler, C) Your going to get more power out of solid boilers because it takes less power to turn wood into charcoal

What i'm planning on doing in my new 1.6 world: Make 2 max sized farms powering 3 Solid 36HP boilers and 1 Liquid 36HP boiler. Unless I can figure out what else to do with the massive amount of saplings you get from 2 tree farms... Either way, 72 industrial steam engines producing 576 MJ/t is going to get me by for a very long time.
 
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Algester

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Jul 29, 2019
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In my test world I made a liquid boiler and the power needed to make ethanol was definitely lower than the power generated. However: A) Solid boilers can be powered up fast with firestones, B) 2 tree farms can power 3 36HP solid boilers but only 1 liquid boiler, C) Your going to get more power out of solid boilers because it takes less power to turn wood into charcoal

What i'm planning on doing in my new 1.6 world: Make 2 max sized farms powering 3 Solid 36HP boilers and 1 Liquid 36HP boiler. Unless I can figure out what else to do with the massive amount of saplings you get from 2 tree farms... Either way, 72 industrial steam engines producing 576 MJ/t is going to get me by for a very long time.
what to do with massive sapling count... direwolf made a dirt generator with them... IF you have IC installed that is