How to avoid massive coke consumption?

[Blokus]

this is apparently a update failure from 0.17 do thee math again with coke being as 5MJ and see how good turbines are

If coke were 5 MJ then indeed the mk1 turbine would be considerably better indeed, but it's not. I'm pretty sure red hot coke would still be better, though, even assuming you're rolling everything you can into fuel (so coal -> coal gas -> syngas and turn the tar into coal gas as well). Though what value should coal dust have? I do think coal dust is somewhat weirdly high.

it is 5MJ now

So now, 10 coal -> 6 coke + 40 coal gas + 50 tar -> 6 coke + 80 coal gas -> 6 coke + 200 syngas (with oxygen), which is exactly the right ratio to make 300 600C combustion mixture, which will burn in a turbine to supply about 74 MJ. Converting to red hot coke, 6 red hot coke becomes 230 MJ, which costs 24 coal, so scaling back down to 10 coal to match gives about 96 MJ. I've neglected some significant side costs, but still, it appears that even after the update, you are still better off feeding red hot coke into vanilla boilers than you are with mk1 combustion turbines fed with syngas, unless the syngas is undesired (e.g. if you want to burn the coke and syngas and siphon the tar into your chemical complex).

the tar math is bad
when you make syngas you also make TAR
NOTE with 2mk3 productivity modules you can get 1k syngas from 47-50 tar

You're right, I showed my work in case I made a mistake there. Making 200 syngas makes 60 tar, and 60 tar ultimately turns back into 120 syngas, so there is a geometric series there with a base of 0.6, thus 10 coal actually turns into 500 syngas, not 200. But now you need to make an additional 9 coke if you want to use all of that for power. In the end it's still a fairly modest improvement compared to vanilla boilers fed with red hot coke.

I do not consider any form of modules to be even remotely relevant when what I'm talking about here is the mk1 combustion turbine in the first place. The mk2 one is vastly superior but it's much later in the game.

[immortal_sniper1]

If coke were 5 MJ then indeed the mk1 turbine would be considerably better indeed, but it's not. I'm pretty sure red hot coke would still be better, though, even assuming you're rolling everything you can into fuel (so coal -> coal gas -> syngas and turn the tar into coal gas as well). Though what value should coal dust have? I do think coal dust is somewhat weirdly high.

it is 5MJ now

So now, 10 coal -> 6 coke + 40 coal gas + 50 tar -> 6 coke + 80 coal gas -> 6 coke + 200 syngas (with oxygen), which is exactly the right ratio to make 300 600C combustion mixture, which will burn in a turbine to supply about 74 MJ. Converting to red hot coke, 6 red hot coke becomes 230 MJ, which costs 24 coal, so scaling back down to 10 coal to match gives about 96 MJ. I've neglected some significant side costs, but still, it appears that even after the update, you are still better off feeding red hot coke into vanilla boilers than you are with mk1 combustion turbines fed with syngas, unless the syngas is undesired (e.g. if you want to burn the coke and syngas and siphon the tar into your chemical complex).

the tar math is bad
when you make syngas you also make TAR
NOTE with 2mk3 productivity modules you can get 1k syngas from 47-50 tar

You're right, I showed my work in case I made a mistake there. Making 200 syngas makes 60 tar, and 60 tar ultimately turns back into 120 syngas, so there is a geometric series there with a base of 0.6, thus 10 coal actually turns into 500 syngas, not 200. But now you need to make an additional 9 coke if you want to use all of that for power. In the end it's still a fairly modest improvement compared to vanilla boilers fed with red hot coke.

I do not consider any form of modules to be even remotely relevant when what I'm talking about here is the mk1 combustion turbine in the first place. The mk2 one is vastly superior but it's much later in the game.

RED HOT COKE isnt a fuel
or it shouldnt be one

[Blokus]

it is 5MJ now

So now, 10 coal -> 6 coke + 40 coal gas + 50 tar -> 6 coke + 80 coal gas -> 6 coke + 200 syngas (with oxygen), which is exactly the right ratio to make 300 600C combustion mixture, which will burn in a turbine to supply about 74 MJ. Converting to red hot coke, 6 red hot coke becomes 230 MJ, which costs 24 coal, so scaling back down to 10 coal to match gives about 96 MJ. I've neglected some significant side costs, but still, it appears that even after the update, you are still better off feeding red hot coke into vanilla boilers than you are with mk1 combustion turbines fed with syngas, unless the syngas is undesired (e.g. if you want to burn the coke and syngas and siphon the tar into your chemical complex).

the tar math is bad
when you make syngas you also make TAR
NOTE with 2mk3 productivity modules you can get 1k syngas from 47-50 tar

You're right, I showed my work in case I made a mistake there. Making 200 syngas makes 60 tar, and 60 tar ultimately turns back into 120 syngas, so there is a geometric series there with a base of 0.6, thus 10 coal actually turns into 500 syngas, not 200. But now you need to make an additional 9 coke if you want to use all of that for power. In the end it's still a fairly modest improvement compared to vanilla boilers fed with red hot coke.

I do not consider any form of modules to be even remotely relevant when what I'm talking about here is the mk1 combustion turbine in the first place. The mk2 one is vastly superior but it's much later in the game.

RED HOT COKE isnt a fuel
or it shouldnt be one

I'm using shorthand for "the output of red hot coke quenching", i.e. 40 coke+10 coal dust per 24 coal.

[mikes61293]

Not at that stage; syngas is already 600C, about the only hotter thing that's feasible to reach at that stage is acetylene, which costs too much coke to be viable.

Just in general the mk1 combustion turbine uses coal inefficiently, unless you just want to get some use out of a byproduct (for example, if you want tar, then you might be making more syngas than you need, and thus you might want to throw it into a combustion turbine). Using mk1 combustion turbines in a dedicated power facility is a waste; just use red hot coke quenching to feed vanilla boilers instead.

this is apparently a update failure from 0.17 do thee math again with coke being as 5MJ and see how good turbines are

If coke were 5 MJ then indeed the mk1 turbine would be considerably better indeed, but it's not. I'm pretty sure red hot coke would still be better, though, even assuming you're rolling everything you can into fuel (so coal -> coal gas -> syngas and turn the tar into coal gas as well). Though what value should coal dust have? I do think coal dust is somewhat weirdly high.

it is 5MJ now

So now, 10 coal -> 6 coke + 40 coal gas + 50 tar -> 6 coke + 80 coal gas -> 6 coke + 200 syngas (with oxygen), which is exactly the right ratio to make 300 600C combustion mixture, which will burn in a turbine to supply about 74 MJ. Converting to red hot coke, 6 red hot coke becomes 230 MJ, which costs 24 coal, so scaling back down to 10 coal to match gives about 96 MJ. I've neglected some significant side costs, but still, it appears that even after the update, you are still better off feeding red hot coke into vanilla boilers than you are with mk1 combustion turbines fed with syngas, unless the syngas is undesired (e.g. if you want to burn the coke and syngas and siphon the tar into your chemical complex).

Does this take into account that combustion turbines mk1 have a 42% efficiency and vanilla steam engines were updated to 100% efficiency in .17?

[Blokus]

this is apparently a update failure from 0.17 do thee math again with coke being as 5MJ and see how good turbines are

If coke were 5 MJ then indeed the mk1 turbine would be considerably better indeed, but it's not. I'm pretty sure red hot coke would still be better, though, even assuming you're rolling everything you can into fuel (so coal -> coal gas -> syngas and turn the tar into coal gas as well). Though what value should coal dust have? I do think coal dust is somewhat weirdly high.

it is 5MJ now

So now, 10 coal -> 6 coke + 40 coal gas + 50 tar -> 6 coke + 80 coal gas -> 6 coke + 200 syngas (with oxygen), which is exactly the right ratio to make 300 600C combustion mixture, which will burn in a turbine to supply about 74 MJ. Converting to red hot coke, 6 red hot coke becomes 230 MJ, which costs 24 coal, so scaling back down to 10 coal to match gives about 96 MJ. I've neglected some significant side costs, but still, it appears that even after the update, you are still better off feeding red hot coke into vanilla boilers than you are with mk1 combustion turbines fed with syngas, unless the syngas is undesired (e.g. if you want to burn the coke and syngas and siphon the tar into your chemical complex).

Does this take into account that combustion turbines mk1 have a 42% efficiency and vanilla steam engines were updated to 100% efficiency in .17?

Yes. But as was pointed out later, it's not entirely accurate because the syngas production makes tar which can be converted into more syngas. Converting all of that syngas into combustion mixture does result in more energy production per unit coal, even after taking into account the need to supplement with outside coke and the low efficiency of the combustion turbine.