So i'm trying to get the most efficient way to get the most EU out of lava. geothermal and a liquid exchanger output the same amount of EU(when an exchanger is used with a stirling generator), both 10000EU per bucket. But is there a way to get more? I came up with one that has practically no mainteance. It heats up a fermenter to ferment biomass into biogas, and using the biogas to run a semifluid generator. It gives me 1280Eu more per bucket of lava, and the fermenting process stops at exactly half so if you use more it'll give you 640EU extra(i think so). but now that i think of it you need energy to macerate plantballs into chaff and chaff into biomass but idk. can you come up with a higher EU output when using lava? 
Most efficient way of using lava?
- BoggyDG
- Closed
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Well, the available options you've got for lava power gen would be...
1. Geothermal Generator
2. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Stirling Generator
3. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Steam Setup
4. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Superheated Steam Setup
5. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Biogas SetupLike you found, 1 and 2 produce the same amount. 3 will produce more, but if you were going for that then it would make more sense to go all out and do 4. Both do carry the issue of having the running refined iron cost of turbines (but they do last an IRL day each, so it's not that high) and the potential to screw up and lose distilled water, but refined iron is cheap if you've got a quarry of some sort and automated blast furnace setup, and solar distillers can be used to top up the steam generators if they do lose a little when the chunks first load. 5 is the most interesting setup in terms of range of what you have to do. You'd need an automatic crop farm, and automated macerator -> canning machine with pump to produce the biochaff, which would hit the overall net gain of power, but even with that I'd say it would be better than 3, potentially not than 4 though.
I'd say it's down to whether you want a reliable setup of 5, or a probably higher producing 4 but with the running costs of refined iron over time.
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Well, the available options you've got for lava power gen would be...1. Geothermal Generator
2. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Stirling Generator
3. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Steam Setup
4. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Superheated Steam Setup
5. Liquid Heat Exchanger -> Biogas SetupLike you found, 1 and 2 produce the same amount. 3 will produce more, but if you were going for that then it would make more sense to go all out and do 4. Both do carry the issue of having the running refined iron cost of turbines (but they do last an IRL day each, so it's not that high) and the potential to screw up and lose distilled water, but refined iron is cheap if you've got a quarry of some sort and automated blast furnace setup, and solar distillers can be used to top up the steam generators if they do lose a little when the chunks first load. 5 is the most interesting setup in terms of range of what you have to do. You'd need an automatic crop farm, and automated macerator -> canning machine with pump to produce the biochaff, which would hit the overall net gain of power, but even with that I'd say it would be better than 3, potentially not than 4 though.
I'd say it's down to whether you want a reliable setup of 5, or a probably higher producing 4 but with the running costs of refined iron over time.
I'd choose the biogas setup because i like biogas and it seems much more reliable than a steam one. I don't want to go and fix my steam setup every time and i don't have a lot of refined iron(i have like 5 blocks, and they aren't used so much). So for me, biogas is the way to go.
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Steam setups aren't that unreliable, but if you've not got that much refined iron then biogas would be the best way to go. Also, it's much easier to expand the biogas setup just making bigger crop fields and more fermenters, expanding steam setups can be more awkward depending on how you pipe the steam into the turbines.
