Petroleum Generator

Converts Petroleum, Ethanol, or Biodiesel into electrical Power.
Produces Carbon Dioxide and Polluted Water.

Research

Fossil Fuels

Dimensions

3×4 tiles

Efficiency

Water-fuel

Since sustainable crude oil production requires water, water can be considered the base fuel for Petroleum Generator, which in turn begs for a comparison with Hydrogen Generator. However, the comparison does not turn into Hydrogen Generators' favor.

The details can be found at Hydrogen Generator#Water-fuel

Petroleum

Comparison with Natural Gas Generator which uses the same fuel source and has the same by-products, but requires a complex Sour Gas boiler:

	Natural Gas Generator	NGG, Petrol Usage Matched	Petrol Generator
Power (W)	800	12000	2000
Polluted Water	67.5	1012.5	750
Carbon Dioxide	22.5	337.5	500
Sulfur (g/s)	43.33	650	0
Mass Deleted (g/s)	0	0	750
Heat (kDTU/s)	10	150	20

Fuel consumption is scaled to account for the loss of mass from Sour Gas to Methane transition, thus the Natural Gas Generator uses (90 / 0.67 = ~134.33).
Heat does not take into account temperatures and rates of outputted products.

When compared to a Natural Gas Generator scaled up for equivalent input, the Natural Gas Generator produces 6x more power, while producing more Polluted Water compared to Carbon Dioxide.

Note, it's easier to use Power Control Stations to boost a single Petrol Generator to 3000w, compared to potentially boosting 15 Natural Gas Generators. However, considering this only reduces the gap from 6x to 4x, you likely do not need to boost the 15 Natural Gas Generators.

This does not mean that the Petroleum Generator is a bad option. Petroleum Generator can burn cold petroleum and produce energy without complex fuel processing, which makes it easier to set up.

Besides that, Petroleum Generator's ability to produce germ free polluted water is not bad. The Pincha Pepper plant requires 35 kg/cycle which is roughly 58 g/s so one Petroleum Generator can supply 12 plants.

The carbon dioxide can be traditionally fed to slicksters to regain some fuel, but it is far from sustainable (see recycling section).

Ethanol

Comparison with Wood Burner, which uses the same fuel source, and has similar by-products:

	Wood Burner	WB, Input matched (x3.33)	Petrol Generator + 4 Ethanol Distillers
Power (W)	300	1000	1040
Carbon Dioxide (g/s)	170	566.67	1166.67
Polluted Water (g/s)	0	0	750
Polluted Dirt (g/s)	0	0	1333.3
Mass Deleted (g/s)	1030	3433.3	750
Heat (kDTU/s)	9	30	38

4 Ethanol Distillers needed to run 1 PG are included.

The fuel-efficiency is comparable, although Petroleum Generator generates more useful by-products.

The Polluted Water can be used to regrow Arbor Trees.
The Polluted Dirt has a number of uses, including generating Oxygen or producing Coal via Sage Hatches.
A single Petrol Generator is easier to Power Control Station boost than 3~4 Wood Burners, for a significant +1000w Power Generated.
However, 4 Ethanol Distillers per Generator takes up a lot more space than a few simple Wood Burners.

Arbor Tree Loop

1 domestic Arbor Tree produces 333.3 kg of Wood per cycle
333.3 kg of wood feeds .55 of an Ethanol Distiller producing 166.67 kg of Ethanol
166.67 kg of ethanol feeds 0.1389 of a Petroleum Generator producing 62.5 kg of Polluted Water
62.5 kg of polluted water feeds 0.892 of an Arbor tree

This loop is water-negative. It can be made water positive with Slickster or Puft

Slickster

333.3 kg of wood feeds .55 of an Ethanol Distiller producing 166.67 kg of Ethanol and 55.56 kg of Carbon Dioxide
166.67 kg of ethanol feeds 0.1389 of a Petroleum Generator producing 62.5 kg of Polluted Water and 41.67 kg of carbon dioxide
97.2 kg of carbon dioxide feeds 4.861 Slickster producing 48.61 kg of Crude Oil
48.61 kg of Crude Oil can be turned into 24.3056 kg of Petroleum with an Oil Refinery
24.3056 kg of petroleum can feed 0.02 of a Petroleum Generator producing 9.1 kg of Polluted Water

The loop including Slickster outputs 71.6 kg of polluted water while requiring 70 kg as input. This is a 2% increase in water supply. Using Molten Slickster can increase water production even further, netting 10.7 kg of excess water, a 15% increase.

Puft

333.3 kg of wood feeds .55 of an Ethanol Distiller producing 166.67 kg of Ethanol and 111.1 kg of Polluted Dirt
101.1 kg of Polluted Dirt (after 10 kg is used to feed tree) feeds 0.169 Sublimation Station producing 66.73 kg of Polluted Oxygen
73.3 kg of Polluted Oxygen feeds 1.33 Puft producing 63.3967 kg of Slime
69.67 kg of Slime feeds 0.176 Algae Distiller producing 42.26 kg of Polluted Water

The loop including Puft outputs 104.76 kg of polluted water while requiring 70 kg as input. This is a 50% increase in water supply.

Using both Slickster and Puft at the same time is possible. Combined the loop can produce 122.96 kg of polluted water with 70 kg of polluted water as input.

Ratios:

1 Petrol Generator requires 7.2 domesticated Arbor Trees to run constantly
- Or 28.8 wild ones.
- 6 domesticated trees with 6 wild trees creates a balanced symmetry that is water positive without Slicksters or Pufts.
1 Petrol Generator produces 450 Polluted Water kg/cycle, which is enough to feed ~6.42 domesticated trees, the 7.2 trees requires 504kg/cycle
- Each Wild Arbor tree essentially produces 15.6 kg/cycle of polluted water, ~3.5 Wild Arbor trees will cancel out the water loss.
4 Ethanol Distillers provide 800 kg of dirt per cycle, enough to feed 80 domesticated Arbor Trees.
- It will keep 13.3 Compost piles occupied.

Note that if the Carbon Dioxide output from the distillers and generator are fed to Molten Slicksters, and the resulting Petroleum used to run a separate generator (fuels cannot be mixed in the same generator), only 3 distillers and 5.4 domesticated trees are needed to run the two generators a total of 100% of the time (75% of the time the ethanol generator can run, 25% of the time the petroleum generator can run). This reduces the Polluted Water input required, resulting in a net excess of 72 kg/cycle Polluted Water. This setup requires 30 happy (groomed) Molten Slicksters (4 stables), or 120 glum ones (no stables needed).

Flox and Bammoth Loop

30 kg of ethanol and 5 kg of Fertilizer (dupe farming 10+) can feed 2 domestic Plume Squash Plant

2 domestic, Farmer's Touch Plume Squash plants can feed 1 Bammoth, which produces 8 kg of Phosphorite per cycle

1.7 kg of Phosphorite is used in a Fertilizer Synthesizer while 6.3 kg Phosphorite and 3.1 kg Fertilizer can grow 1.24 Pikeapple Bush

1.24 domestic, Farmer's Touch Pikeapple bushes can feed 4.16 Flox

4.16 Floxes produce 249.6 kg of Wood

249.6 kg wood is distilled into 124.8 kg ethanol in .42 of an Ethanol Distiller

Ethanol is used to grow Plume Squash and run 8% of a Petroleum Generator

This cycle is power and resource-positive. It also produces Meat, Clay, Reed Fiber, Dirt, Polluted Dirt, Carbon Dioxide, Polluted Water, and small amounts of Natural Gas.

Attempted this loop without Fertilizer Synthesizer creates a loop that is resource-positive but consumes 20.8 kJ of energy per cycle (-34 W). Using fertilizer, per Bammoth, this loop nets between 2600 J per cycle (4.4 W) at Farming level 0 and 32.5 kJ per cycle (54.3 W) at Farming level 20.

Flox and Drecko Loop

.72 of a domestic Balm Lily can feed 1 Drecko while consuming no resources. The drecko will produce 10 kg of Phosphorite per cycle
10 kg of phosphorite can feed 2 Pikeapple Bush
2 pikeapple bushes can feed 3.33 Flox
3.33 Flox produce 200 kg of Wood
200 kg of wood runes .33 of an Ethanol Distiller producing 100 kg of ethanol
100 kg of ethanol runs 8.3% of a petroleum generator

This cycle is power and resource-positive. Generating 52 MJ of energy per cycle (86 W) per drecko. This is also positive in Meat, Reed Fiber, Dirt, Polluted Dirt, Carbon Dioxide, Polluted Water

For 100% uptime you would require 12x the previous amounts. 12 Dreckos, 24 Pikeapple Bush, 40 Flox, 4 Ethanol Distillers.

Biodiesel

Each Spigot Seal drops 50kg of Tallow when 'put down'. Thus you will need to 'put down' a Spigot Seal every 25 seconds to maintain an Petroleum Generator at 100% uptime. That's 24 per cycle.
Alternatively, you will need 960kg of Phyto Oil and 240kg of Bleach Stone using an Emulsifier.
- 960kg of Phyto Oil requires 1380kg of Slime using a Plant Pulverizer, which requires 29 Pufts to make, which requires 1450kg of Polluted Oxygen.
  - Which is 3.66 Sublimation stations running at full uptime. Which is 3660 Kg of Polluted Dirt per Cycle.
    - Luckily, the Phyto Oil production produces about 410 Kg of Dirt, to slightly offset the costs.
- The Bleach Stone would require 5.3 Squeaky Pufts, which would require essentially 4 Chlorine Geysers
  - Alternatively, a Bleach Stone Hopper could make it using 720 Kg of Salt and 12 Kg of Gold per Cycle

Heat Economy

The SHC output/input ratio for petroleum and ethanol is 1.01 and 0.72 respectively. However, as the output temperature is depending on the building temperature, it is possible to use hot input fuel hotter than 40 °C / 104 °F but still output 40 °C / 104 °F polluted water, assuming the engine can be sufficient cooling capacity to maintain 40 °C / 104 °F. Conversely, it is possible for the petroleum generator to become heat multiplying if you were to input low temperature fuel into a hot petroleum engine.

For the process to be heat negative, the petroleum input must be at least 56 °C / 132.8 °F, assuming that the building temperature remains at 40 °C / 104 °F. Whereas when burning ethanol, the ethanol input must be at least -44 °C / -47.2 °F to be heat negative. This is calculated by comparing the enthalpy of the input and output materials i.e. the total thermal energy of the input and output. This is given by the following equation, where $m$ is mass, $c$ is specific heat capacity, and $T$ is temperature:

$h = m \cdot c \cdot T$

Note that temperature must be in kelvin.

Assuming that the engine outputs the materials at its' minimum temperature the total enthalpy output is:

$\begin{aligned} H_{o u t p u t} & = H_{p w a t e r} + H_{c o 2} \\ = 4.17 \cdot 0.75 \cdot 313 + 0.846 \cdot 0.5 \cdot 383 \\ = 1140 kDTU \end{aligned}$

For the machine to be heat negative, the enthalpy of the system input must be less than the sum of the outputs' enthapy and machine heat generation. Hence the minimum input temperature is given by:

$\begin{aligned} H_{i n p u t} & \leq H_{o u t p u t} + 20 \\ m \cdot c \cdot T_{m i n} & \leq 1160 \\ T_{m i n} & \leq \frac{1160}{m_{i n p u t} \cdot c_{i n p u t}} \end{aligned}$

Carbon Dioxide recycling

Slicksters convert Carbon Dioxide to either Crude Oil or Petroleum, depending on the variety, at a rate of 2:1.

If you use the Slickster then the 500 g/s of CO₂ will be converted into 250 g/s of crude oil. Using an Oil Refinery will consume 5 kg/s of crude Oil, and produce 2.5 kg/s of petroleum and 90 g/s of Natural Gas. This means that for every second that you run the Petroleum Generator you will get enough by-products to produce another 40 W from the Natural Gas Generator and 125 W from the Petroleum Generator for a total of 165 W, a 8.25% return.

If you use the Molten Slickster then the carbon dioxide will be converted 2:1 into petroleum that can be fed right back into the generator. Every second 500 g of CO₂ becomes 250 g of petroleum that can produce 250 W of power. This is a 12.5% return without the 480 W of power consumption by the Oil Refinery and the hassle of having dupes operate it.

Without Slicksters, you will need a 1.66 Carbon Skimmers to remove the Carbon Dioxide from a Generator. With the Ethanol Route, as each Distiller also makes Carbon Dioxide, the number rises to 3.88 Skimmers.

Boiling mass deletion bug

If the generator's temperature increases past 122.35 °C / 252.23 °F, the output Polluted Water will immediately flash to Steam. Due to how the mechanics handle mixtures of different gases in motion, and especially gas sources such as the upper left tile of a petroleum generator, this results in a significant amount of steam packets being deleted.

Thus, if water output is important (such as in a closed-loop petroleum boiler), it is necessary to keep petroleum generators cooled to below 120 °C / 248 °F and to pump out Polluted Water for boiling or sieving elsewhere.

Tips

If you wish to cut out the waste management and their power cost, a Steel Petroleum Generator running at over 122.5 °C / 252.5 °F built atop mesh tiles in the void will dump the polluted water to the tiles below before vaporizing to steam, which will prevent the steam from carrying heat away from the generator. The polluted water will also leave behind clean dirt in small amounts when vaporized.

History

LU-356355: Petroleum Generator no longer requires Plastic to build.
CS-442154: Fix Petroleum Generators from getting stuck if they're supplied with mixed fuels, now they seamlessly change over.