Forestry biogas engine lava question

[Lonewolf187]

Hello everyone:
I was wondering, do biogas engines use the lava in their internal storage when they use biogas for fuel when they start and stop? I was thinking of using biogas engines for my base power and was wondering if I needed to keep the engines filled with lava as well as biogas using BC gates to control the flow of power.

 

[Evil Hamster]

I think they do, but it's such a tiny amount if you put 2 buckets in you'll probably move on to a better engine before you use it up.

 

[Bahnmor]

As EH said, it just uses a tiny amount when it starts up in order to get up to temperature. If you're planning on using gates to regulate power flow and intend to stick with the biogas engines then you will need to route lava pipes for a fully automated system. Because it uses so little though, one lava pipe running down between two lines of engines will be more than enough.

You may want to look at processing to biofuel and running liquid fuelled boilers for a better BC power solution.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Yeah, I've never run out of lava from normal operation of a biogas engine. It was only when I put them in an automated system that involved a lot of starting and stopping that I had to pipe lava into them.

 

[purplefantum]

I used the biogas to opperate a boiler and pumped the steam into industrial steam engines 8MJ/t much better than even a combustion engine, and a hell of alot safer. I've got a huge surpluss of biogas so i can leave the steam engines powering 3 redstone energy cells which in turn power my base. Never have to turn them off since i'm using redstone conduits, which seem to drain excess power off the engines and stop them ever overheating, and that way I never have to turn off the boiler and wait for the long ass heat up time. I'm running just one still/fermenter into a railcraft tank, seems even one of each can produce faster than the boiler uses it up.

 

[MilConDoin]

One still can keep ~1.2 36 HP boilers running and one fermenter can keep 5 stills running (when running on fertilizer+water).

 

[purplefantum]

The whole system is fairly self sustaining. Peat farm produces dirt and peat, which is used on the tree farm. Tree farm produces sand and ash for fertiliser and saplings. My only big problem is what to do with the 600+ stacks of planks... :S Wish i could turn them into biofuel too.

 

[Spikednate12]

Turn the logs into charcoal and run in a steam engine.

 

[slay_mithos]

I used the biogas to opperate a boiler and pumped the steam into industrial steam engines 8MJ/t much better than even a combustion engine, and a hell of alot safer. I've got a huge surpluss of biogas so i can leave the steam engines powering 3 redstone energy cells which in turn power my base. Never have to turn them off since i'm using redstone conduits, which seem to drain excess power off the engines and stop them ever overheating, and that way I never have to turn off the boiler and wait for the long ass heat up time. I'm running just one still/fermenter into a railcraft tank, seems even one of each can produce faster than the boiler uses it up.

You are comparing only the output, not the input, so I will ask you for your math.
I mean, yeah, more MJ/t, but how much MJ in total for a single bucket?
How many buckets wasted initially to warm up?
What is the size of your boiler?

I do know that it is more efficient, I just mean that just taking the output into consideration does not prove anything.

Plus, boilers need a lot of resources, where a biomass engine are really cheap.


Oh, and a combustion engine can dish out 10MJ/t, with fuel, just saying.

 

[MilConDoin]

Oh, and a combustion engine can dish out 10MJ/t, with fuel, just saying.

When did they change it? Last change I know of was from 5 MJ/t to 6 MJ/t.

 

[purplefantum]

Indeed 6 MJ/t last I checked too. Well the warm up period is only a small % of the time i've been running it, taking it into consideration is pointless, 10 minutes to warm up 24 hours running, less than 1% of it's total running time, and the longer it runs, the more it offsets the warm-up cost.

Okay found out how to do the maths so lets correct this.

With an 18 LP
One bucket of bio-fuel will last 5735 ticks rounded up
4 Engines run at 24 MJ/tick.
So, one fuel last over 4 minutes and produces: 137634 MJ/fuel

 

[purplefantum]

Can't edit my previous post so i'll just say just over 3.5 buckets of bio-fuel will fill a redstone energy cell, can you manage that kind of efficiency with biogas engines?

 

[slay_mithos]

Strange, I was certain that I read that Fuel was changed to 10MJ/t to make it a viable source of energy, compared to all the "safe" sources added by different mods...

I even went to check the code, and indeed it says 6.

I would blame Direwolf20 for saying that, but it's my own fault for not double-checking anyway.
Oh, and oil is 3MJ/t.

Damn, why can't fuel be a viable source of energy?
You need engines that need to be constantly cooled, and you don't even get that much of a boost when you compare that to even seed oil and biomass.


I apologize for putting forward false and unverified data, it was definitely not my intent to trick anyone.

EDIT:

Can't edit my previous post so i'll just say just over 3.5 buckets of bio-fuel will fill a redstone energy cell, can you manage that kind of efficiency with biogas engines?

Well, you can't use biofuel in biomass engine anyway, at least you could not a few versions back.

 

[purplefantum]

No worries about the mistake, but I guess it's the material cost and time taken to setup industrial steam engines that warrant the 8 MJ/t over the simpler combustion engine cost/setup. A simple aqueous accumulator can take care of the cooling on your combustion engines, and soon the Xycraft water blocks will make it even easier, can't wait for those.

 

[silenos]

Can't edit my previous post so i'll just say just over 3.5 buckets of bio-fuel will fill a redstone energy cell, can you manage that kind of efficiency with biogas engines?

3.5 buckets of biofuel are around 11.67 buckets of biomass (10:3 conversion rate of the still) and biomass produces 50k MJ (5MJ/t over 10,000 ticks), so in total you would get ~583,327 MJ which is almost a full energy cell plus you safe on the running cost for the still

 

[MilConDoin]

Some numbers used here are wrong:
- One bucket of biofuel burns for 200k MJ (5 MJ/t*40k ticks) in a combustion engine
- Efficiency in boilers is better for the ones with 18, 27 or 36 chambers. 18: 206451 MJ, 27: 241509 MJ, 36: 290909 MJ (all rounded down)
- With combustion engines you'll need exactly 3 buckets of biofuel to fill one redstone cell. 3 buckets of biofuel are 10 buckets of biomass, which would produce 500k MJ in a biogas engine. Conversion costs ~25k MJ for a net gain of 75k MJ.

 

[Heema]

I would blame Direwolf20 for saying that, but it's my own fault for not double-checking anyway.
Oh, and oil is 3MJ/t.

I also remember DW20 saying that but you forgot that they use beta versions that aren't out yet.

 

[slay_mithos]

No, it was months ago, and BC did update more than a couple times since then.

Oh, well, when you find oil, it's not like it would hurt to make it into fuel and get a little extra from using it.