***Beware: this post is a doozy*** With v25 of Reika’s mods being released any day, now, solar power is about to be rendered impossible as an early-game strategy. Nevertheless, the setup I started describing in my last post not only works (assuming you have access to the materials necessary to craft it), but also serves as a useful way to introduce many of the blocks made available by Electricraft. As I mentioned before, the problem with solar power is that it doesn’t work at night. But with Electricraft, what we can do is stabilize the energy system by storing the mechanical energy the solar tower generates during the daytime in the form of a battery, which can provide that energy on demand, day or night.
Today … Electricraft!
With all the cobblestone, ore, and other goodies coming into your inventory through your boring machine, fueling your furnace operations is going to become a high priority. Fortunately, Rotarycraft has two ways to use energy for smelting purposes. A slightly later-mid-game option is the lava smeltery which cooks 18 items at a time (and quickly), but which requires both rotational power and a constant supply of lava. More practically at a relatively early stage in the game, you can use one of two heaters to heat a vanilla furnace. The one called simply the heater requires rotational power and fuel, while the friction heater requires nothing but rotational power. It is this last option that I’m going to use for this build. Furthermore, I’m going to take advantage of an option for passive power generation in Rotarycraft to power this friction heater: solar towers. This project is big, and will take two lengthy posts to describe. Continue reading
Mine, build, eat, repeat ... 