Trying to get an easy self sustainable energy source

[Skaruts]

I was trying to create an energy generation loop using a redstone cell and electrical engines, so that I could have a self sustaining source of power.

A friend of mine made this with magmatic engines that are fed with lava from a tank that is in turn filled by several magma crucibles that are in turn fed by the redstone cell that is powered by the engines. This cycle works well, but not only the engines can only output 4MJ/t, it also requires gathering more netherrack every once in a while.

With electrical engines I thought it's possible to do it with a solar panel per engine, but that's a bit costly as an upgraded engine will take 21EU to run properly (minimum of a Hybrid Solar needed). So I was trying to avoid these for now.

Any ideas? I hope I'm being clear about what my goal is. This would be easier to set up than biogas stuff and all that, I believe.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ewsmith]

electrical engines run on ic2 power. redstone energy cells hold buildcraft power. you would have to convert the buildcraft power to ic2 power. there are only indirect ways to do this (magma crucible and geothermal generator for example). I tend to have solar panels and a source not affected by solar cycles (water tower or nuclear plant). My energy storage tends to fill faster in the day than at night, but it never stops filling.

Edit: just remembered blutricity (rp2). You can convert blutricity to buildcraft power through the blutricity engine. It is quite the power hog though.

 

[Mero]

Use mining turtles to gather netherrack and deposit it in an enderchest. There are numerous way to remove the netherrack from a chest in the overworld and run it through the magma crucible and do it that way.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Here is a guide for MJ production, including several renewable resource options.

Ultimately, you are going to want to go with boilers, which means either biofuel or tons of peat, depending on your preference for solid or liquid fuel.

 

[Skaruts]

Edit: just remembered blutricity (rp2). You can convert blutricity to buildcraft power through the blutricity engine. It is quite the power hog though.

Sounds like something I may go take a look at, at least. I'm still a complete layman in regards to rp2.

Use mining turtles to gather netherrack and deposit it in an enderchest. There are numerous way to remove the netherrack from a chest in the overworld and run it through the magma crucible and do it that way.

That's exacly what I'm trying to avoid. Turtles require maintenance, or a complicated program to make them run on their own forever, which isn't easy to make. For having trouble setting something up I'd rather build a biofuel facility. Besides, even though the nether is infinite, in practice netherrack is still a finite source of lava, as there will be a time where the travel for the resource will not pay off in income. I'm looking for a power source that I can just set up and forget about it forever.

 

[Peppe]

Electrical engines convert EU to MJ's at a very poor rate -- and the upgrades do not improve the conversion ratio. Solar panels/other renewable EU sources are the only way that cycle would work and at least in the mindcrack pack renewable energy sources are reasonably expensive making any EU to MJ conversion impractical.

If you want MJs railcraft boiler is one of the best options. If you don't like boilers for some reason you can run other engine types off some automated fuel source of your choice. Combustion engines using bio-fuel are actually more efficient than all but the 3x3 boilers. Biogas engines are close to that efficiency. The small 1-2 MJ/t engines are ok, but probably not worth the effort to run large amounts.

Either way one of the easiest sources for fuel is to automate any forestry farm -- make a fuel out of the farm products. Biofuel, charcoal, peat, etc whatever you like. If you have gregtech methane from a rubber tree farm is a good option. Steve's carts can automate some of these farms better/faster as well, but costs about the same.

Outside of a large boiler you won't get the most out of the fuel, but an array of basic engines running directly off renewable fuel from a farm will still get the job done.

 

[Antice]

If you want to simplify the farm. go with biogas engines and biomass. just skip the whole refining step as that does not add all that much value.
engines are a bit buggy when it comes to chunk loading. this makes combustion engines suddenly explode even when the water source is directly below the engine if you stray to far away from them.
Bioas engines suffer from the same buginess, but they at least cannot explode on you when they do bug out. (the conductive pipe might tho, but that will only destroy the pipe, and not your entire power room)

If you don't mind having a slow, but ultra reliable system, then i recommend peat. use an extruder and a pulverizer for the sand. dirt is recycled from the peat farm itself. with excess dirt dumped or recycled as needed. 10 peat engines per peat farm is doable, and they can be stacked 3 high if i recall correctly. power them by using steam from a boiler instead of peat fired engines for bonus efficiency.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

If you want a constant low level power supply, a bucket of milk will make 40kMJ in a biogas engine and a deployer+bucket can auto-milk cows.

A constant high level you'll want to go nether diving, and set yourself up with a T5 blaze spawner. Set up the soul cage over some flowing water, and it'll auto collect the rods- which can run a large boiler.

 

[Democretes]

Build a large LP boiler, construct a small tree farm using Steve's carts, turn wood into charcoal to power the boiler. Boom. Profit. And lots of it.

 

[5argan]

Build a large LP boiler, construct a small tree farm using Steve's carts, turn wood into charcoal to power the boiler. Boom. Profit. And lots of it.

I'd rather sawmill the logs into planks to gain a 12.5% efficiency boost as well as producing some sawdust.

 

[urmamasllama]

my favorite though it takes some maintenance is to use alumentum to power a solid boiler then i use a magma crucible and geothermals to power my ic2 machines

remember to have a chest next to your boiler as it will automatically pull from adjacent inventories and to put hoppers on your crucibles

 

[5argan]

sadly theres no way to autocraft alumentum I know of

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Arboretum + Logger -> Fermentor -> Still(s) -> Boiler. Turn saplings into biofuel for your boiler. Probably the most efficient use of materials you'll never have another need for. In your spare time, if you want a second boiler, turn all the logs into charcoal. Power two large boilers off of one arboretum. Peat from your Peat Bog can supplement the solid fueled boiler when you run low on charcoal.

 

[Icarus White]

What, is nobody going to mention the Blaze Spawner route?

If your mod pack works with Soul Shards, you can produce a Blaze Spawner anywhere, such that the Blazes will drop stuff even when killed by the environment (read: water), by slaughtering hundreds of them. (There's also a special weapon that will help you get there faster.) Given that each rod burns for 6000 EU (I don't recall the MJ value), this is one of the simplest and most compact setups possible - although admittedly you'll need to find a diamond and burn some soulsand for the Soul Shard. Still, I personally find the idea of fuelling my boilers with the souls of angry Blazes very satisfying, considering how many times they've killed me and how tricky they can be to find.

(Yes, yes, diamonds are technically renewable - in fact, the easiest way to do that involves GT and blaze powder, hilariously - but I'm not sure soulsand is.)

 

[wolfpax181]

Like Icarus White mentioned, I use a tier 5 blaze spawner that fills all my energy needs. The spawner is in a room that has water that washes the rods into an obsidian pipe. From where they go off to power my Railcraft boilers and good old IC2 generators. A 5 high stack of generators surrounding copper wire feeding into a MFSU covers nearly all my energy needs on the IC2 side.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Blaze shard takes a bit of effort to collect, but you can run 2x36HP+36LP boilers or 5x36LP boilers per shard, so you come up trumps with the ratio of effort to energy.

generally a 9x9x5 room with a water source in each corner a transposer in the middle of the floor and the soul cage 2 blocks above that is your best bet.

Keep about 6 relays full of coal coke on the side per HP boiler to cover heatup costs.


If there's a way to automate alumentum production, a charcoal factory (for potentia) and an igneous extruder (cobblestone-fractus).

Alumentum has about 6.4k heat- so you could double the efficiency. (meaning 5x36HP boilers, as the cost of the aura)​

 

[Metroflame669]

A good sustainable sourse of energy is using peat in a boiler. If you make a peat bog, an arboretom and a wheat farm you can self sustain peat (the ratios might not be correct, just add mor of one farm). Just pipe the peat into a boiler and use a few aquaues accumulaters to suply water. There you go, a self sustaining BC/IC2 power genorator. plus its fun to build.

 

[DR3ADLORD]

Steve's Cart farm would be easiest IMO. Easy to make and automate. You can even speed up the rate at which you get trees by adding a fertilizer module (doesn't need to be filled to work but its an option) This way you can produce both biofuel for a liquid boiler and charcoal for a solid boiler (or through a sawmill like someone suggested).

 

[wolfpax181]

If there's a way to automate alumentum production, a charcoal factory (for potentia) and an igneous extruder (cobblestone-fractus).

Alumentum has about 6.4k heat- so you could double the efficiency. (meaning 5x36HP boilers, as the cost of the aura)​

Love the idea, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that. It'd be wisps and giant zombies as far as the eye can see from the damage to the aura.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Love the idea, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that. It'd be wisps and giant zombies as far as the eye can see from the damage to the aura.

Not if you have Alembics and Tallow Golems to handle the excess essences.