Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

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septemberWaves
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Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by septemberWaves »

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Just finished setting up this new coal gasification plant. I've finished green science and am working on a logistic railway to prepare for complex circuit boards and blue and py science. This facility requires 30 raw coal and a little under 800 oxygen per second at peak production, and outputs large quantities of syngas, with a substantial amount of ash as its major byproduct, and a small amount of iron oxide. Alternatively, it can also supply coal gas, tar, and flue gas, depending on what is being consumed. The last thing I still need to do is set up some logic to prevent voiding of excess gases when all gas tanks are full.

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by DarkShadow44 »

Can you share a save/blueprint so we can take a closer look? :D

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by septemberWaves »



Hopefully this works, I've not uploaded blueprints to this site before.

The only modded entities, unless I'm missing something, are from Pyanodon's mods and Logistic Train Network.

Since I don't know whether blueprint strings preserve train stop names, the stations from left to right are as follows: oxygen requester; high priority iron oxide provider; high priority ash provider; flue gas provider; coal gas provider; tar provider; syngas provider. Raw coal input is by belt.

It is also worth noting that this facility isn't really made to be directly replicated wherever it may be needed. It fits into a region defined not by any standard of tileable factory construction, but by the surrounding terrain (in particular, I wanted to avoid covering up a rather large oil field to the immediate north). The station is also not standardized. The reason I do this is because I wanted to try to design a more organic factory shape; I've been placing things wherever they seem to fit, rather than in any particularly organized manner. So while this was built to a set ratio (specifically, it was built to consume an exact amount of raw coal as maximum input), the actual layout may not be useful for everyone.

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by BlueTemplar »

Landscape-hugging FTW !

Lol, and I'm mid-green science, and still on a "single" Destructive Distillation Column !
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 12-27-09.png
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 12-27-09.png (5.14 MiB) Viewed 2827 times
(Using (non-)pY Pollution & Energy.)

BTW, why not syngas with oxygen ?
EDIT : you are, but it's very hard to see on that screenshot, maybe "turn the lights on" when taking one ?
Also, I'm now using most of my flue gas to make sulfuric acid... (though I might need it for ash soon, and maybe even use extra for biomass ?)

----

(I was recently figuring out how to get more coal out of a coal megamine than I put in, then realized that it was a losing proposition, better look at power itself !)
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 10-00-06.png
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 10-00-06.png (166.11 KiB) Viewed 2827 times
324 MW in, 1 TW out.
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)

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septemberWaves
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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by septemberWaves »

You are right about the second screenshot. Apologies for the darkness, I took the first one and only a few minutes later had the thought to also take a screenshot with the alt view enabled. But yes, I am using oxygen for syngas.

Previously my coal gasification was limited to a couple of isolated 3 - 2 - 1 setups consuming a single belt of raw coal, but this is the first one that uses oxygen to improve yield. I only really started with the railway after completing most green research, though that's more because I spent so much time focusing on early green science setups and improving my existing systems that I was almost done with green science by the time I wanted to move on to the logistic railway in preparation for red circuits and blue science.

Looking at that helmod page of yours, you could probably extract a bit more power by converting the coke oven gas and coal dust to syngas and using that for combustion mixture (that is, assuming this isn't already what you're doing).

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by BlueTemplar »

As you can see, I'm not.

In my case at least, the coke versions of combustion mixtures are quite inefficient :
viewtopic.php?p=538403#p538403
(Especially after unlocking coke oven gas ?)

(I kind of forgot about the biomass ones as I hadn't researched composting at that point.)

Now that I have red circuits, and therefore not only access to Heat Exchanger, but also Combustion Turbines 2 (almost, just need to prioritize that 100 green science tech), I'm going to look at them again !
(I shouldn't forget about modules too..?)

Converting coke oven gas, even the cold one, to syngas seems like a really bad idea, ignoring the flue gas and the power requirement, I lose 60% of the energy !
Maybe it gets better with conversion to combustion mixture in turbines 2 ? Will have to check again.

Coal dust to syngas seemed to be pretty inefficient too -
(but really handy, I used it for my zinc outpost before I unlocked the zinc megamine, which only needs drill heads)
- but I'll have to re-check this too !

Yeah, the number of available power options literally EXPLODES during green science, doesn't it ?
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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by septemberWaves »

How do you get Helmod to show power output, by the way? I've not yet encountered that feature.

As for the efficiency, I admit I don't actually know how energy efficient coke oven gas conversion to syngas is, having not looked into it myself; it just seemed like an obvious potential option. A while ago I set up some steam engines using coke from green science production and syngas from early coal gasification, and I've not yet even seen consumption peak above half of what my current setup can produce, so I haven't needed to look into better methods yet. I've simply had other priorities. Is coal dust conversion to syngas any better than doing that with the coke oven gas?

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by BlueTemplar »

How do you get Helmod to show power output, by the way? I've not yet encountered that feature.
Use the "Select energy" button. (Looks like an IRL atomic plant's cooling tower.)

Thing is, coal dust is a byproduct of making hot coke oven gas from coal... well until the Heat Exchanger, which seems to obsolete the hot coke oven gas from coal and petrochem, and at which I now have to look too !

(I've used to directly burn coal dust, but I've started to stockpile it recently for all those other uses.)

Oh, and I forgot about this "offshoot" of my power plant, burning cold coke oven gas, which I should probably relocate now :
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 16-17-47.png
Screenshot from 2021-07-24 16-17-47.png (5.15 MiB) Viewed 2781 times
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by kingarthur »

BlueTemplar wrote:
Sat Jul 24, 2021 2:21 pm

Thing is, coal dust is a byproduct of making hot coke oven gas from coal... well until the Heat Exchanger, which seems to obsolete the hot coke oven gas from coal and petrochem, and at which I now have to look too !
It does not. It will extend your existing sources It doesn't create any

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Re: Late-earlygame coal gasification plant

Post by BlueTemplar »

I should have said "almost".
Still, turning 100 cold coke oven gas into 95 hot coke oven gas is a massive boost.
Now just need to find a good way to replace the lost power from not burning that gas (and converting that coal), lol !
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