Stirling Generator

1st Official Post

    I thought it would be cool to have a Stirling Generator/Machine, that produces EU/kU and works by changing the temperature of Liquids/Fluids.


    Basically how it would work:
    The Stirling Machine has 4 internal/external tanks.
    In tank 1, you put a warm/hot fluid.
    In tank 2, you put a cold fluid.


    The machine generates energy by taking warm fluid from tank 1 and putting the corresponding cold fluid into tank 3 and taking cold fluid from tank 2 and putting the corresponding warm fluid into tank 4.
    Of course there have to be some restrictions, for example that the temperature of the (warm->)cold fluid you get can not be higher than the temperature of the (cold->)warm fluid.


    So you could make energy from cooling down lava into phahoehoehoehoehoe lava and simultaneously heating up water to springwater.

    • Official Post

    You can already generate hU from this, which is the only logical power source it would create. You can just convert the hU into EU or kU instead of having separate generators to bypass the conversion process.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post

    The liquid heat exchanger does exactly what you described

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    The liquid Heat exchanger generates hU by cooling down a liquid, so basically, it outputs Thermal Energy by taking that Thermal Energy out of the liquid.
    The Stirling Machine would work similar to a real Stirling Engine : It outputs Kinetic Energy by taking the Thermal Energy out of one liquid and putting a part of it back into another liquid to also get rid of the poduced entropy.


    A Stirling machine would have a higher efficiency than the thing you described, because then you can also use the (cool->)hot liquid for something else.

    • Official Post

    What about just a Stirling Engine which just turns HU into KU?


    Bonus: Addition of water into a stirling engine/generator increases efficiency, converting hU to EU/kU slightly more efficiently, while consuming water.




    Also... The whole hU <-> hU <-> EU <-> hU needs to change.
    1 ku = 1 hU = 1 EU , the difference would be how efficient you can do those conversions via machines.

    Good idea. Instead of having to put 2 liquids into the stirling generator,
    just put in hU and a coolant.


    Idea: input a coolant and hU, heat up that coolant and generate EU.


    We NEED a coolant, because a real Stirling engine also needs to be cooled or else, it won't work anymore.

    • Official Post

    The issue with using coolant coolant is you are suddenly able to use the waste heat energy to generate EU a second time, while using water and evaporating it would be more logical.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    Being able to reprocess the coolant/water would give room for higher efficiency if people bother to set it up.
    (It doesn't have to be a lot, just a bit.

    Guys, energy is energy. If the heat from the liquid is being used to create energy in one area, it can't be used later to create energy in another area.

    • Official Post

    Using coolants just improve the efficiency of energy creation, with the addition of a secondary process.
    (Most of heat -> energy via primary process (stirling), small part of heat -> energy via secondary process (fluid heatup, kinetic), rest of heat -> waste)

    • Official Post

    There's no way you'd get any reasonable amount of energy the second time unless the first was massively inefficient.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post

    the stirling engine could be a less efficient version of the hu to eu conversion.
    Stirling Generator < Stirling Engine + Kinetic Generator < Steam Boiler + Steam Turbine + Kinetic Generator


    The steam generator (please rename it to a boiler) needs to be reworked to not work only with multiples of 100/200 hu too.

    • Official Post

    It can accept non 100 hU units, the pressure bars sets that. The issue being that it's not 1 bar = 1 hU, it seems more of a complicated scale.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Chocohead

    It can accept non 100 hU units, the pressure bars sets that. The issue being that it's not 1 bar = 1 hU, it seems more of a complicated scale.

    It wastes it though because the water input and steam output is limited to multiples of 1 and 100

    • Official Post
    Quote from SpwnX

    It wastes it though because the water input and steam output is limited to multiples of 1 and 100


    Well yeah that's true. It would've helped if Thunderdark had actually finished it, the one we've got is his unfinished 3rd version.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.