With the introduction of the new Power Cell, EU can be produced from Hydrogen with greater efficiency. While looking at the recipes, I found that there’s some method to utilize this to get free energy:
Melt 3 units of Calcium Chloride in Smelter. Consumes 432HU*3=1296HU. Since the Electric Heater works at 50% efficiency, it’s 2592EU.
Electrolyze Molten Calcium Chloride. Consumes 16384EU and outputs 1 unit of Calcium and 2 units of Chlorine.
Mix Chlorine with Water in Electric Mixer. Consumes 1024EU and outputs 4 units of Hydrochloric Acid and 1 unit of Oxygen.
Mix Calcium with Hydrochloric Acid in Electric Mixer. Consumes 1280EU and outputs 2 units of Hydrogen and 3 units of Calcium Chloride, regenerating the Calcium Chloride.
Since Hydrogen produces 16EU/L or 16000 per unit in Power Cells, the 2 units of Hydrogen converts to 32000EU.
Summing up the above, such a cycle consumes 21280EU and produces 32000EU, which is a net gain, and requires only Water, which should be quite common and renewable, and produces Oxygen as a byproduct.
Before the introduction of Power Cell, even with the Turbine rate of 16RU/L, the 68.75% efficiency of the Dynamos would be enough to make this cycle unprofitable, unless Large Dynamos are used, which still wouldn’t enable a significant gain. But with the Power Cell, the gain is quite significant, as shown above.
I think so. Also, I suppose this can be used with Magnesium without modification, since they have identical chemical recipes.
I browsed through recipes related to Hydrogen and didn’t find other similar problems. Specifically, with Iron, Manganese, Silicon, Lithium, Sodium, and Potassium, the Electrolyzer energy consumption seems to be already above the Hydrogen Power Cell gain.
Wait a moment. There’s 2 recipes that produces Calcium from the Chloride, one takes Molten and the other takes Dust. The problem is with the one that takes Molten. However, if you double the duration of that one recipe, the total consumption of those 2 recipes would be the same, instead of consuming half less power if using Molten. The only point to use Molten would be because of its lower tier, and on a higher tier the overclocking penalty would cause the Molten one to be actually more expensive. Is this intentioned?
Yes the Solid one needs to cost more too in this case, because 64 is technically still achievable with low Tier. You’re supposed to melt it, that’s the only point of the solid Recipe being more expensive along with a higher rate.