Codex Energy Overview

Energy Overview

QNet makes energy in many ways: from burning fuel, from heat in the ground, from sun and wind, from gas, and later from nuclear fission, fusion and black holes. This page shows which generator fits which stage of the game, how much each one gives and how to connect them. Units (E, E/t, mB, HU) are explained in Energy, Fluids and Gases.

The energy ladder

Generator	Runs on	Output	Tier
Basic Dynamo	furnace fuel	40 E/t	I
Thermoelectric Generator	hot and cold blocks	6 E/t per matched pair, up to nine pairs	I
Stirling Generator	heat (blocks below, Heat Ports)	up to 100 E/t	I
Solar Array	daylight	6 E/t per PV Module in full sun	I
Wind Turbine	wind	up to 200 E/t per generator	I
Industrial Boiler + Steam Turbine	fuel, fuel gas or heat → steam	about 1 E per mB of steam, 25 mB/t per blade	I
Gas Engine	syngas, hydrogen, natural gas	80 E/t per cylinder	II
Gas Turbine	any fuel gas	600 E/t per coil, up to 450 E/t per blade	II
Fission Reactor	uranium fuel → hot coolant → steam	very large	III
Tokamak, Little Star	fusion	huge	IV
Singularity Plant, Hawking Reactor	compressed matter	enormous	IV–V

Two blocks make heat instead of energy: the Geothermal Heat Exchanger (ground heat, up to 500 HU/t) and the Solar Thermal Field (8 HU/t per heliostat). Their heat drives a boiler or a Stirling Generator. Fuel gases come from the Gasifier (syngas from coal and biomass) and the Gas Derrick (natural gas).

Which generator when

1. The start: one or two Basic Dynamos with coal or charcoal run the first machines.
2. Free energy on the side: a Thermoelectric Generator between lava and ice, a small Solar Array or a Wind Turbine on a hill give energy without fuel. They need space and vary with day, weather and wind, so add storage.
3. The first power plant: an Industrial Boiler with a Steam Turbine and a Condenser. It makes about two and a half times as much energy from a piece of coal as the dynamo and scales to hundreds and thousands of E/t.
4. Heat without fuel: a Geothermal Heat Exchanger deep underground or in the Nether, or a Solar Thermal Field, feeds the boiler through a Heat Port or runs Stirling Generators.
5. Gas (tier II): a Gas Derrick on a gas field, or a Gasifier, feeds a Gas Turbine for high, steady output and Gas Engines for changing loads. The turbine's exhaust heat goes into a boiler: combined cycle.
6. Beyond: the Fission Reactor (tier III) and then fusion and singularity plants.

Fuel compared

How much energy one piece of coal (80 seconds in a furnace) gives, at the default settings:

Way	Energy from one coal (about)
Basic Dynamo	64,000 E
Industrial Boiler → Steam Turbine (rated speed)	160,000 E, less the boiler's small losses
Gasifier → Gas Turbine, exhaust into a boiler → Steam Turbine	61,000 E + 68,000 E

Fuel gases in the different burners:

Gas	Boiler (HU per mB)	Gas Turbine and Gas Engine (HU per mB)
Natural gas	2	8 (compressed 10 in the turbine)
Hydrogen	–	6 (compressed 7 in the turbine)
Syngas	1	4 (compressed 5 in the turbine)

The Gas Turbine turns 0.45 of the heat into energy and gives 0.5 as exhaust heat; the Gas Engine turns 0.32 into energy. With oxygen (oxyfuel) boiler, engine and turbine get 1.25 times the heat from each mB.

The steam loop

1. Water goes into the Industrial Boiler (Fluid Input Port).
2. The boiler makes 10 mB of steam from every mB of water and gives it out (Fluid Output Port).
3. The Steam Turbine turns the steam into energy and gives out the same amount of Exhaust Steam.
4. A Condenser turns 10 mB of exhaust steam back into 1 mB of water, which goes back to the boiler.

The loop loses nothing except what Safety Valves blow off. Pipster pipes move water and steam; the turbine stops when its exhaust steam is not taken away.

Connecting generators

• Energy cables come from Pipster. QNet has no cables of its own; 1 E is 1 FE, so other mods' cables and machines work too.
• Single generators (Basic Dynamo, Thermoelectric, Stirling) and the Solar Array controller push their energy into all six neighbours and can also be pulled from on every side.
• Plants give their energy out through Energy Output Ports in their walls (in the tower of a Wind Turbine). Each port works on its outer face only. Several ports share the plant's output fairly; more ports do not make more energy.
• Consumer plants take energy through Energy Input Hatches. Each hatch lets at most its tier's rate in per tick: 1,000, 8,000, 64,000, 512,000, 4,096,000 and 32,768,000 E/t for tiers 1 to 6. For more, add more hatches.
• Storage evens out sun, wind and changing loads: the Energy Cell for small amounts, the Capacitor Bank, Battery Hall, Gravity Store and SMES for large ones.
• Generators are never paused by a Grid Monitor. When nobody takes their energy, their buffers fill: the dynamo stops lighting fuel, the gas engine idles down, the turbines speed up until the overspeed trip closes their valve, and a boiler whose steam backs up simply holds its setpoint.

Connecting heat

Heat (HU) flows only between QNet blocks and blocks of mods that use QNet's heat interface. A Heat Port gives heat out on its outer face; the receiving block is a plant's Heat Port facing it, a Stirling Generator, or another heat consumer. Heat is used in the same tick or lost; to keep it, use a heat store like the Molten-Salt Store. Details: Process heat and Heaters.

Server settings

• volt.generatorOutputMultiplier (default 1.0, allowed 0.01–100.0) scales the output of every generator and turbine.
• volt.fuelConsumptionMultiplier (default 1.0, allowed 0.01–100.0) makes fuel last shorter (higher) or longer (lower).
• Boilers and turbines can burst, reactors can melt down: what that does and how to switch it off is on Incidents and Radiation.