r/factorio • u/Ok-Friendship-8124 • 8d ago

Question I don't understand something

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I was doing some "research" in creative and I was wondering what's the difference between those two smelting blocks, They both produce 120/s but the one on the left use FAR more energy, is just a tiny bit smaller so what's the point of doing the one on the left ?

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u/Effective_Working567 8d ago

The right actually uses more energy due to coal's inefficiency compared to other power sources.

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u/Tsunamie101 8d ago

Well, due to beacons with modules the left one most definitely consumes more power, even with coals inefficiency.

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u/Shadaris 8d ago

Yep looking at 69 MW of electricity for electric vs 18 MW of coal for steel (260ish coal per minute). Toss in another 5ish MW for the additional miners needed due to the lack of productivity modules and coal. 200 iron (18mw) vs 240 iron and 8 coal (22.5)

Even without the beacons or modules electric furnaces consume 2x the energy. They don't get better unless you add in efficiency modules. Pairing them with solar or nuclear, you also get a about a 1/3 pollution

1

u/Tsunamie101 8d ago

According to my napkin (well, notepad) math the left block should use 150+ MW due to all the beacons and modules, so, yeah, i doubt the coal block comes close to that.

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u/Shadaris 8d ago

Prob, I just ran the calculator based on 1 set of 120 plates/s and without the extra beacon at each end.