Petroleum Generator

This article contains **outdated information** that is inaccurate for the current version. It was last updated for *LU-356355*. Unreflected changes in the discussed game mechanics are detailed here: **CS-442154**
This article contains **outdated information** that is inaccurate for the current version. It was last updated for *LU-356355*. Unreflected changes in the discussed game mechanics are detailed here: **CS-442154**

## Petroleum Generator

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

Petroleum generators have a high energy output but produce a great deal of waste.

### Effects

Carbon Dioxide: +500 g/s @ 110+ °C
Polluted Water: +750 g/s @ 40+ °C

### Auto In

**Green**: Enable
**Red**: Disable

## Materials

### Metal Ore

800 kg

**Petroleum Generator** uses Petroleum or Ethanol to produce electricity, and emits Polluted Water and Carbon Dioxide in the vicinity.

Polluted water and carbon dioxide are output with a minimum temperature of 40 °C and 110 °C respectively. The temperature may be higher if the building temperature is above the outputs' minimum temperature. Polluted water is emitted from the bottom-right tile of the generator (Cell of interest).

## 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:

* 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:

* 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.

Sustainability notes:

* 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.
* 1 Petrol Generator produces 450 Polluted Water kg/c cycle, which is enough to feed ~6.42 domesticated trees, the 7.2 trees requires 504kg/c
	+ Each Wild Arbor tree essentially produces 15.6 kg/c of polluted water, ~3.5 Wild Arbor trees will cancel out the water loss.
	+ If Water is still a concern. The polluted dirt from the 4 Distillers can be used to run 1.33 Sublimation Stations for Oxygen instead of Electrolyzers. Saving 600kg/c of Water per Cycle.
	+ This is also enough to feed 10.5 Pufts, producing ~500kg of Slime per cycle.
	+ Which can be refined in Algae Distiller for ~333kg/cycle of polluted water.
* 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.

Thus, the setup requires input of around 56 kg/cycle of polluted water if only domesticated Arbor Trees are used, and generates excess renewable dirt with any ratio. With supplemental wild trees it is possible to generate renewable polluted water too (although this will likely start generating heat also, if not balanced for that).

Note, however, 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).

Alternatively, Sublimation Stations can be used to feed Pufts, whose excrement can be used to produce polluted water from Algae Distiller. About 130kg/cycle of polluted dirt feeding two Pufts is needed to supplement the output of the petroleum generator to satisfy the polluted water requirement for arbor trees. This is significantly less ranching required compared to the slickster recycling option.

## 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 but still output 40 °C polluted water, assuming the engine can be sufficient cooling capacity to maintain 40 °C. 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, assuming that the building temperature remains at 40 °C. Whereas when burning ethanol, the ethanol input must be at least -44 °C 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

{\displaystyle m}

 is mass,

c

{\displaystyle c}

 is specific heat capacity, and

T

{\displaystyle T}

 is temperature:

# h
m
⋅
c
⋅
T

{\displaystyle 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:

H

o
u
t
p
u
t

=

H

p
w
a
t
e
r

H

c
o
2

=
4.17
⋅
0.75
⋅
313
0.846
⋅
0.5
⋅
383

=
1140
kDTU

{\displaystyle \begin{align} H\_{output} & = H\_{pwater} + H\_{co2}
 \\ & =4.17\cdot0.75\cdot313 + 0.846\cdot 0.5 \cdot 383\\
 &= 1140 \text{kDTU} \end{align}
}

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:

H

i
n
p
u
t

≤

H

o
u
t
p
u
t

20

m
⋅
c
⋅

T

m
i
n

≤
1160

T

m
i
n

≤

1160

m

i
n
p
u
t

⋅

c

i
n
p
u
t

{\displaystyle \begin{align} H\_{input} &\leq H\_{output} + 20 \\
m \cdot c\cdot T\_{min} &\leq 1160\\
T\_{min} & \leq \frac{1160}{m\_{input} \cdot c\_{input}}
\end{align}
}

## 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, 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 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 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.

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