Powering bee room

[netmc]

I'm working on setting up my bee room so it is self-sufficient and not reliant on outside materials. I know I have to bring over wood to make frames (or set up a mini-tree farm), but beyond that, I want to generate all the power needed from the bee output. I have of course have the standard extra bees machines. These machines will be use sporadically, so the energy can be stored up in RECs.

Seed oil for frames can be produced from Farmed bees.

My first thought for energy production is using lava from simmering combs along with TE's magmatic engines since they will self-throttle when the energy cells are full. Other thoughts have been running bio-engines off of honey. I'm not yet to oily or distilled bees yet, but that might be an idea. The down-side with combustion engines is the cool-down time when you shut them off. This of course may not be an issue.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

 

[namiasdf]

Bee weary of the amount of honey you might need to power the biogas engines. You only produce 50 mB of honey per drop and you might want to have a bunch for beeanalyzing. Especially since it doubles your DNA yields when put through the uh... DNA melter machine...

The most involved solution would be to work your way to radioactive bees and produce energy using the uranium. This would require you to convert the EU to MJ, but it'd also extend the lifetime of the project. Fuel would probably be the easiest solution, whether you choose the boiler or combustion engine route.

Bee weary of the fact that you only get 50 mB of honey per drop and you need that honey for beealyzing (breeding/DNA). I consider the extrabees machines to be quite an energy sink. Biogas engines only produce 5 MJ/t off of biomass (Not sure if it changes with honey), so you'd need a heck of a lot of those to keep up with the machines. I am not sure how energy dense honey is, but I am quite sure it does not match that of fuel/biofuel.[DOUBLEPOST=1378158891][/DOUBLEPOST]Well I posted that honey part twice...

 

[un worry]

Playing Unleashed + Gregtech - Dartcraft

I originally planned to go magmatic route for the same reason as you. My bee site was a few hundred meters from my base on the intersection of four biomes, so decided to make it self-sufficient.

But then switched I switched to charcoal for MJ. I built a tree farm to provide wood for frames, and excess logs go to coke ovens for charcoal, and the creosote for impregnating frames. Two sheep and an MFR Rancher (?) provided wool, pulverised for string.

Now that Im up to ten alvearies -- one step away from ruby bee -- I'm currently linking it by rail to main base and will focus on ore production. restricted my current world to no tesseracts or enderchests ... its been a lot of fun so far, and my goal is to get to Fusion without building a quarry

 

[netmc]

I already have 6 alvearies and 12 apiaries going producing combs with the drones going into a void pipe currently. I have plans for a total of 35 alvearies with about the same number of apiaries. I don't think honey will be a problem. But you are right about needing lots of bio-gas engines to pull it off as honey only gives 2MJ/tick for 10k ticks (a bit over 8 minutes). I am leaning towards this route, as I won't have anything else to use the honey on once my alvearies are built. I suppose I could always recycle the honey drops and turn them into scrap for my matterfab, but that seems a bit of a waste.

BTW, "bee wary" is a horrible pun.

 

[namiasdf]

Well consider that those machines can run at (iirc) 100 MJ/t or 300 MJ/t. That's 50-150 engine running off of honey.

Though with that many alvearies, you might be able to produce enough honey, consider doing some rough (or not so rough) calculations before you build all that shit and realize you can't sustain it. Nothing is worse than that. Either that, or build in stages. My current energy production set up consists of modules that contain 4 boilers >> 72 industrial steam engines >> 20 magma crucibles >> 32 thermal generators. Every time I build one of those modules, I allow it to run for a bit and look to see if my biofuel production is still netting positive. If so, I can proceed to build another module. I'm on three right now and my biofuel production is barely positive. I am hesitant to build one more.

 

[netmc]

Playing Unleashed + Gregtech - Dartcraft

I originally planned to go magmatic route for the same reason as you. My bee site was a few hundred meters from my base on the intersection of four biomes, so decided to make it self-sufficient.

But then switched I switched to charcoal for MJ. I built a tree farm to provide wood for frames, and excess logs go to coke ovens for charcoal, and the creosote for impregnating frames. Two sheep and an MFR Rancher (?) provided wool, pulverised for string.

Now that Im up to ten alvearies -- one step away from ruby bee -- I'm currently linking it by rail to main base and will focus on ore production. restricted my current world to no tesseracts or enderchests ... its been a lot of fun so far, and my goal is to get to Fusion without building a quarry

lol. I am planning to connect the two sites by train as well. I have only made one tesseract, and that was to drain out a temporary creosote tank that was in an akward location. I already have tons of cotton and wood (almost 70k) at my main base, so I will likely just ship it over. I just reached the energetic bee (redstone eol) and currently purifying the species. I recently got rusty (iron), corroded (copper), leaden (lead) and lustered (nickel). I am working towards the platiunum bee for making the bit more iridium I need for my matterfab.

My goal is not the fusion reactor (by the time I can make it, I won't need the energy), but the distillation tower.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

DW had a cute setup with a Steam Oven providing charcoal for his steam boiler. He also made a turbine, which I always felt was excessively wasteful, but eh. One 36 HP boiler can output a maximum of 144 MJ/t with enough Industrial Steam Engines. Setting up multiple should power your machines.

Of course, the problem is transmitting that kind of power. Remember that energy pipes now throttle MJ based on material used. You might end up needing to use diamond conductive pipes just to be able to handle the throughput. At least until Thermal Expansion comes to the rescue again.

 

[netmc]

Well consider that those machines can run at (iirc) 100 MJ/t or 300 MJ/t. That's 50-150 engine running off of honey.

Though with that many alvearies, you might be able to produce enough honey, consider doing some rough (or not so rough) calculations before you build all that shit and realize you can't sustain it. Nothing is worse than that. Either that, or build in stages. My current energy production set up consists of modules that contain 4 boilers >> 72 industrial steam engines >> 20 magma crucibles >> 32 thermal generators. Every time I build one of those modules, I allow it to run for a bit and look to see if my biofuel production is still netting positive. If so, I can proceed to build another module. I'm on three right now and my biofuel production is barely positive. I am hesitant to build one more.

I have my main base being powered by 2 RECs. (These are charged off of 16 Industrial steam engines--128MJ) They are more then enough for all my MJ needs (all the GT machines run directly off steam). I am able to sufficiently run my bee machines off of those. I've run out of stored power a few times if I do a lot of bee work, but even running on the engines directly isn't too bad. I will likely go for 20 bio-gas engines in total for about 40MJ of constant generation. I have my system running on a private server, and my bee area is chunk loaded, so I can generate energy around the clock.

I will likely set this up in stages as recommended, as I need to get some energy production going, but not yet sure what I need for my usage. I may do a mix of magmatics and bio-gas.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I have my main base being powered by 2 RECs. (These are charged off of 16 Industrial steam engines--128MJ) They are more then enough for all my MJ needs (all the GT machines run directly off steam). I am able to sufficiently run my bee machines off of those. I've run out of stored power a few times if I do a lot of bee work, but even running on the engines directly isn't too bad. I will likely go for 20 bio-gas engines in total for about 40MJ of constant generation. I have my system running on a private server, and my bee area is chunk loaded, so I can generate energy around the clock.

I will likely set this up in stages as recommended, as I need to get some energy production going, but not yet sure what I need for my usage. I may do a mix of magmatics and bio-gas.

Oh. Right. I forgot, not everyone is on 1.6.2 yet. I've been eyeball-deep in coding my mod pack (and on the ATLauncher, that's a pretty accurate term, even if it is only XML coding) that I forget most people are sticking with 1.5.2 for now.

Steam is a powerful technology, but it has its limitations. In the first place, you pretty much HAVE to keep it going full time. You can't not keep it going. Any steam you aren't utilizing is pretty much wasted fuel. So if you are wanting consistent power generation measured in hundreds of MJ/t, then steam is an ideal solution.

But by that same token, it is really lousy at on-demand power, because you are consuming fuel irregardless of your energy consumption, so you'll just be wasting fuel on 'standby'.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I've actually taken to solid-fueled boilers. I can keep them going with a tree farm, and I have a 4LP boiler to power the tree farm and then a full size LP boiler to power the rest of my base. I don't worry about wasting fuel, because a steam oven keeps charcoal into them forever, and once heated, they'll provide all the power I need as long as I need it. I use a half-stack of coal coke to heat them and by that point they're at full efficiency and will be well ahead on charcoal as long as I have it.

 

[un worry]

lol. I am planning to connect the two sites by train as well. I have only made one tesseract, and that was to drain out a temporary creosote tank that was in an akward location. I already have tons of cotton and wood (almost 70k) at my main base, so I will likely just ship it over. I just reached the energetic bee (redstone eol) and currently purifying the species. I recently got rusty (iron), corroded (copper), leaden (lead) and lustered (nickel). I am working towards the platiunum bee for making the bit more iridium I need for my matterfab.

My goal is not the fusion reactor (by the time I can make it, I won't need the energy), but the distillation tower.

An early goal was to breed the glowering line to glowstone. I now centrifuge the glowstone for redstone and gold (cause I'm always short of both of these) Have since bred up to Resilient, Lapis and Emerald bees, so Ruby and Diamond are on the menu for tonite. Then the ore producing bees (the breeding lines have changed in 1.5 - but the new NEI has been great help)

Do you have a good guide for the Distillation Tower? It was the only GT contraption I skipped in Mindcrack, and would really appreciate a decent article or vid -- any suggestions appreciated

 

[netmc]

Here's a short video on the distillation tower. Basically, the tower is 5 layers tall. bottom layer is 9 standard casings (3x3), 2nd layer is 8 advanced casings (middle empty), 3rd, is 8 standard casings, 4th layer is 8 advanced casings, 5th layer is 9 standard casings. The machine goes in the bottom middle of any of the sides.

I'm already centrifuging redstone into ruby dust to make chrome (from energetic line). If you don't want to use the NEI addon, the escritore mini-game will fill in the information for you as you breed each level. That is what I've been using.

I'm trying the honey in biogas engines to see how viable it is. I'm only using standard combs and dripping combs to convert into liquid honey. The rest are still going into my barrel storage for the moment. I have 5 engines going. I'll see how far I'm at in the morning. There may not be enough energy in the honey to keep everything running at the rate I'm making the combs.. Most of the other combs I produce have a very low chance of producing honey drops, so I'll see how this turns out.

 

[namiasdf]

Well, there is nothing stopping you from integrating multiple energy sources into a single system to power this. I just wanted to make clear the obvious disadvantages in use biogas engines /w honey. At the very least biomass produces 5 MJ/t in a biogas engine and a full powered fermenter (17 MJ/t) produces a buttload of biomass. If I recall correctly, my older tree farm system consisted of 10 MJ/t producing biomass and then 10 MJ/t producing biofuel. With that amount of energy, I was able to net enough biofuel to power 80 combustion engines full time.

Consider now that I have 6 fermenters running at almost full speed (100 MJ/t versus the maximum 102 MJ/t). I produce a ridiculous amount of biomass, so much that I am able to power (atm) 12x36HP steam boilers as well as 160 combustion engines full time with net positive production.

Though I am unsure as to the exact rates to which you could produce honey from honey drops, I don't know if it could ever match forestry biomass or if you can sustain something as energy heavy as extrabees.

 

[TheAwesomater]

If you wanted you could just start off with lava and then use that to power machines to help you get oily/distilled. The only problem would be getting the nether bees to work in the overworld but you could easily solve this with a glacial precipitator and acclimatiser. Seed oil/honey in biogas engines does not produce a lot of power so I wouldn't suggest doing this.

 

[netmc]

If you wanted you could just start off with lava and then use that to power machines to help you get oily/distilled. The only problem would be getting the nether bees to work in the overworld but you could easily solve this with a glacial precipitator and acclimatiser. Seed oil/honey in biogas engines does not produce a lot of power so I wouldn't suggest doing this.

I can confirm this is the case. Honey does give more power than it takes to make, but it really requires a continuous stream of combs in order to self-sustain. Looks like I will have to go with a tree farm, lava, or maybe a small boiler.

 

[snooder]

I can confirm this is the case. Honey does give more power than it takes to make, but it really requires a continuous stream of combs in order to self-sustain. Looks like I will have to go with a tree farm, lava, or maybe a small boiler.

You really have two options:
1) Get lava from your infernal/demonic bees.
2) Get fuel from your refined bees.

The refined bees aren't all that difficult to get, especially if you are at the point where you have 6 alvearies. And they produce enough fuel to power your entire base, so siphoning off a bit just for the bee room isn't real hard to do.

 

[PoisonWolf]

Fiendish Bee + Alveary + Centrifuge + Squeezer + Igneus Extruder + X amount of magmatic engines.