Industrial Craft 2 - Large Power Source

[Lewis Watt]

Hey,

Recently I've been trying to create a rather large scale power source to power my current large build. From my estimations I'm going to need around 1024 EU/T plus, I've experimented with lots of sources and found several nuclear reactors would be the best solution from my limited knowledge. The problem is however, this system needs to be quite low maintenance!

I was considering using a large array of geothermal generators drawing lava from the nether but I don't want to leave a huge hole in the lava ocean which any player can easily spot (SMP server).

Can anyone else think of a better method for this?

Thanks in advance,
TOFFster

( Hope this is the right forum :S )

 

[Belone]

Well depending on the Modpack you are using you could try either using two HV Solar Arrays (each gives off 512 eu/t) or two Ultimate Hybrid Solar Panels (again 512 eu/t each). Though of course this would only give you power during the day, though with a couple more you could store the excess into an MFSU to power during the night.

 

[Lewis Watt]

Forgot to mention that I'm based completely under the surface, whilst solar panels are certainly an option with some cabling running down the middle of the base they're not ideal. Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll certainly give it a try if I can't think of anything else.

P.S I'm using the direwolf20 modpack.

 

[MilConDoin]

Steve's Carts tree farm (Track footprint at least 16x16). Fuel for the cart is charcoal produced in the next step from the sawdust.
Logs to two+ 36 boilers (logs -> planks via TE sawmill, powered via TE steam engine from the sawdust->charcoal)
Saplings to fermenter + 5 stills to 6 boilers (only if enough saplings to permafeed the fermenter. 5 stills are just barely enough for 6 boilers.)
Apples to apple juice periodically injected into the fermenter instead of water, for bigger biomass production.
Fertilizer for the fermenter produced via cobble -> pulverizer -> sand -> auto crafting table -> sandstone -> pulverizer -> sand + sometimes nitor -> saltpeter -> auto crafting table -> fertilizer
56 MJ/t (7 industrial steam engines) power fermenter + stills + squeezer (for apple juice) + fertilizer setup

This should net you over 1000 MJ/t. Produce lava with that in the magma crucibles which afterwards get burned in a big array of geothermals to produce EU.

 

[Yusunoha]

I don't know for sure, but a solar panel might only need a clear line of sight to the sky and doesn't actually need to see the sun.
so you might have your solar panel at the bottom at your base with a straight 1x1 shaft to the surface.

I never tried this but you might try it out on a test world.

 

[MilConDoin]

Another thing for solars, if you want to hide them from above:
RP2 microblocks are handled as being transparent. Put them above your light shaft and nobody can see a thing.
This can be viewed as an exploit though.

 

[K4b6]

Another thing for solars, if you want to hide them from above:
RP2 microblocks are handled as being transparent. Put them above your light shaft and nobody can see a thing.
This can be viewed as an exploit though.

true but if he really wants to hid it that means he needs silk touch or he has to find an area with ston sticking out above his base and 90+ more wires = more energy lose
so that is the very last option I would take

if you want you can use a few magma cusibles get some netherack a good 24 stacks to start sounds good for what your doing sounds good and hook that up to a tank and then feed that into the high Pressure boiler 3x3 then use the turbine to make your eu power and 6 commercial steam engines to power the magma curcibles But thats resource heavy,
less work in the end and way easier to sustain

 

[RedLion86]

Assuming you don't want to go nuclear, steam boiler + turbines is definitely the way to go if you have the materials for them. If you don't, I would try something like this:

1. Set up a tree farm, and use the excess saplings to produce biomass in a Fermenter. (1 sapling = 0.8 biomass.)
2. Use the biomass to run a Biogas Engine. (0.8 biomass = 40,000 MJ.)
3. Set up an Igneous Extruder to generate cobblestone, and pipe the cobblestone into a Magma Crucible.
4. Use the energy from the Biogas Engines to run the Magma Crucible. (40,000 MJ = 2 lava.)
5. Pipe the lava into a Geothermal Generator. (2 lava = 40,000 EU.)

You'll have to siphon off some of the BC power to run the Arboretum, Logger, and Fermenter, but you'll still be generating close to 40,000 EU from a single sapling. (By comparison, putting the biomass directly into a Bio Generator from Forestry would yield only 6400 EU.) You can put netherrack in the Crucible instead of cobblestone to produce 5x more lava, but I prefer the cobblestone method because you can just plop down an Igneous Extruder and forget about it. If you have honey or apple juice available, even better.

All of this can be automated and scaled up until you're producing all the EU you need.

 

[JMakAttak3]

I actually have been using my own lavagen system for my entire base's power, which draws a ton of both MJ and EU.
It does take some setting up, yes, but once it's running, it's excellent.

Pros:
-doesn't scar landscape
-unlimited lava
-relatively cheap
-very small system

JMak's Lavagen
First, I purebred Fiendish bees. They produce Simmering Combs.
Second, I set up an ender chest system where the bees and items are pumped out when they are finished, back near my base. Using a RP2 sorting machine, the bees are cycled back to the apiaries in the Nether. The combs, however, go into a centrifuge (unpowered, as of now). The ash (byproduct) is stored.
Third, the phosphor from the combs is sent to a squeezer. This squeezer will squeeze the phosphor and some cobble into lava. I set up a cobblegen that only runs when the inventory is getting low, and a TC3 clay golem keeps my squeezer stocked with 4 cobble (just because).
Fourth, the lava is sent around the system to 2 magmatic engines that are supplied from the product of this self-sustaining cycle; lava. Just add a few gates to make sure they only run when they "have work", and you're all set.
Fifth, all excess lava is sent to a RailCraft tank... a big one. There's lots and lots of lava with this system when it's done right, and it's always easy to add more bees to the system for a higher production rate. Personally, I've set up a beekeeping frame factory and keep my apiaries stocked with that as well, just to keep the speed up.
Sixth (optional), pump the lava to several Industrial Centrifuges... renewable copper, tin, electrum and tungsten! Yay! Use two stone golems to take out and sort these metals and hey, perfect farm. I've got barrels of all of these things now.

Good luck. ^_^

 

[Jay Cee]

true but if he really wants to hid it that means he needs silk touch or he has to find an area with ston sticking out above his base and 90+ more wires = more energy lose
so that is the very last option I would take

if you want you can use a few magma cusibles get some netherack a good 24 stacks to start sounds good for what your doing sounds good and hook that up to a tank and then feed that into the high Pressure boiler 3x3 then use the turbine to make your eu power and 6 commercial steam engines to power the magma curcibles But thats resource heavy,
less work in the end and way easier to sustain

If he leaves the solars at the bottom of a 1x1 (or however many solarpanels he will be using) and then uses a cover at the top, this negates and long distance wiring effects. But as MilConDoin stated, can be viewd as an exploit

 

[vineet]

Or install the mod power converters, to make things easier.

 

[Lewis Watt]

Thanks a lot everyone, ill have a look at all these methods in a single player creative world when I get time. If anyone is familiar with the film the Matrix or rather the series I'm making the city Zion from that. Power source is going to be underneath the area inside a 50x50 circle. How does this igneous extruded produce cobblestone?

 

[DR3ADLORD]

@Lewis Watt

It just does. It requires lava and water but it is basically a single block cobble generator but it has options to make smooth stone or obsidian at the cost of water or lava, respectively.

 

[galeas90]

If you think that the trick with RP2 microblocks is an exploit and you have access to mystcraft age, preferably with the eternal day symbol, you can have your solar panels in some secluded part of said mystcraft age with any system that can transport your EU through the ages. I can think of two systems now (but I am sure there are more): mystcraft portals with railcraft mfsu cart or enderchests with lapotron crystals.

 

[Democretes]

If you feel that microblocks are too exploity, also know that Buildcraft facades have the same transparency effect.

 

[JTTCOTE]

Ultimate Hybrid Solar Panel is the most consistent power source, and it's place-and-forget. Microblocks will let you place them wherever you want. Alternatively, biomass running a magma crucible, or magma crucicibles running on netherrack powered by magmatic engines. There really aren't very many good ways of generating power directly, but a lava lake in the nether with enderchests like Nebris's system will generate a RIDICULOUS amount of power (when his max-size iron tank is full, it would be 125 million EU.)

 

[Lewis Watt]

Ultimate solar panels aren't available in the direwolf20 mod pack to my knowledge. Haven't got round to testing these methods yet, I'm interested in the boiler idea, are there any videos etc i can watch as I honestly have no idea how to set it up

 

[Harvest88]

It's replaced with a High Voltage Solar array does the same thing only it's doesn't outputs any power at night and doesn't have a internal buffer.