#Alternate power sources: Coal furnaces/boiler/dynamo/steam/temperature differnences due to compress?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

night arrow
#

I see people talk about Wind power, solar, nuclear. - I just want to float some ideas, some of which might be picked up relatively low-effort and help make starting players' life easier.
In 3 billion years, sure we can start worrying about the climate.

What about good old fashioned combustion? Could we maybe get a furnace with a water boiler that can burn carbon to produce energy?
I'd love a nice flickering flame too, to keep warm in the cold Archean nights, producing some electricity at night, without needing to source uranium.

It might even be nice to have a water boiler and steam-engine/dynamo that might hook nicely into the idea people have for power generation with rotors/windmills or who knows; even wave/tidal power in the future. (heat could in the long term be provided by a fission reaction, solar concentrator, geothermal, pressurization/heat-exchangers in tanks)

Or even hand-cranked/player pushed yokes.
When PvP is introduced, we could then hunt other player and force them into servitude other than just hunting rocks.

image.png
obtuse ferry
obtuse ferry
#

Link is timestamped

night arrow
obtuse ferry
#

There is oxygen in water though, hydrogen engines maybe?

burnt prism
night arrow
# burnt prism This was billion years before dinosaurs and plats..so no coal... The only burnin...

What do you mean no coal? Where did it come from? Did dinosaurs operate with fusion and did they fuse all lower elements into carbon? Or did the ferns and trees do that? 🤣
Carbon certainly was already on the planet, just not in the fossilized mineral-reduced "coal" form as we know from the carbinoferous period (starting before dinosaurs)

While not usable for burning purposes, I read in earth.ini that like 20% of the atmopshere is co2. CO2 is highly water solluble and likely already then started forming into sedimentary rocks like carbonite minerals; which is probably what the "rocks" are which we pick up and contain carbon.

obtuse ferry
#

AlphaRay is right. No plants no coal
You could probably collect carbon another way (Water/Air etc), but it seems the main problem for engines in Archean is getting oxygen to burn the fuel. Why bother collecting carbon if theres a ton of methane in the aiR?
Also the ocean is full of rocket fuel so doesn't seem worthwhile trying to collect carbon out of it

#

Carbon based fuel doesn't seem easy to get in Archean earth

pallid vortex
#

It would still be very useful if we could use fuel and oxygen to produce electricity. The thermodynamics of it wouldn’t be profitable for generating power at your base, but it would be a dense energy storage for long range propeller aircraft or boats.

burnt prism
#

That's new: "An alkaline capillary-fed electrolysis cell of this type demonstrates water electrolysis performance exceeding commercial electrolysis cells, with a cell voltage at 0.5 A cm−2 and 85 °C of only 1.51 V, equating to 98% energy efficiency, with an energy consumption of 40.4 kWh/kg hydrogen (vs. ~47.5 kWh/kg in commercial elec- trolysis cells)."
https://evergreen.swiss/2024/05/15/the-future-of-green-hydrogen/

Don't know what efficiency the actual electrolyzer has - but this should be possible by guys which can travel thru space 😉

Evergreen
evergree
The Future of Green Hydrogen | Evergreen

Green hydrogen, produced through the electrolysis of water using renewable energy, is set to play a crucial role in decarbonizing various hard-to-abate...

pallid vortex
#

I think we’re talking about separate ideas. I was thinking of using a large power array at a base to generate gases, then load them onto a vehicle to store energy more densely than batteries. It’s less energy efficient but more mass efficient. Good for a plane for example.

burnt prism
night arrow
#

Hmm, I am wondering, and I never really wondered this before:

Wouldn't it be more effective to store fuel in a liquid form? Like kerosine, when for example distilled? I Japanese kamikaze submarines (manned torpedoes) used pure oxygen+kerosine to get high power and lower exhaust gasses than other torpedoes.

See this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
Sort by the last column to see energy densite- kerosene tops the list of the liquid fuels at normal atmosphere, other ones require pressurization.

Energy density

In physics, energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. Often only the useful or extractable energy is measured. It is sometimes confused with stored energy per unit mass, which is called specific energy or gravimetric energy density.
There are different types of energy stored, correspondin...

burnt prism
night arrow
stark socket
# burnt prism The hydrogen is liquid in the tank because of compression...or what you mean?. ...

It’s actually not that obvious, hydrogen critical temperature is 33K, with a critical pressure of 13 bar, so it has to be cooled and pressurized to those values to exist in a liquid state. Moreover, hydrogen atoms are basically single protons, which means they very easily escape from their container, even in H2 form which is why for rockets, H2 is stored in cryogenic tanks, which are filled right before launch and are continuously refilled until launch since some H2 is vented through the tank walls. Easier to store as a gas, but while energy density is high wrt mass, it is low wrt volume.

clever ember
#

(and volume is mass when you factor in the tank to contain it)

valid valley
#

Lots of hassle in comparison to hydrocarbons, some of which are liquid at room temperature and ambient pressure, and have much more energy per cubic meter

clever ember
stark socket
burnt prism