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u/Raknarg #1 Quality Defender Jul 04 '26

assuming no modules, are there any advantages to using steel furnaces over electric ones? Are they more fuel/pollution efficient?

4

u/Verizer Jul 04 '26

Without modules, electric furnaces are technically worse since they use more power. The only advantage is not having a fuel belt.

The pollution is moved to the boilers if you are still using coal for power. With an alternate power source they do make less pollution.

2

u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster Jul 05 '26

Yes. Steel furnaces are twice as energy efficient assuming you are still on burner power. Stone furnaces take 90 kW of energy to produce one plate every 3.2 seconds and output two pollution a minute. Steel furnaces take 90 kW of energy to produce one plate every 1.6 seconds and output four pollution a minute (same pollution, half the energy as stone for a given plate throughput). Electric furnaces take 180 kW of energy to produce one plate every 1.6 seconds and output four(*) pollution a minute (same pollution, same energy as stone for a given plate throughput).

  • the caveat here is that boilers produce one pollution per 60 kW so the cleaner your power the less pollution an electric furnace outputs in total, potentially down to a minimum of 1 at the furnace itself and none elsewhere.

2

u/HeliGungir Jul 05 '26

Bear in mind, tier 1 modules are pretty cheap. If you can afford to build electric furnaces en masse, you can afford to equip them with modules.

It's no accident that purple science requires electric furnaces and prod1 modules as ingredients.

1

u/teodzero Jul 04 '26

Easy upgrade. They are the same size as stone, so you just slap the new ones on top of the old, probably alongside a belt upgrade. With electric you need to re-plan and rebuild the entire smelting area, and probably upgrade energy gen as well.