Generators should cause heat!

[1031mtm]

I was playing yesterday and built a generator indoors in the winter... and I thought... why not have this generator also produce excess heat. If it did, I could build a few vents going into one of my more complex structures and send hot air through the building in the winter. You then could also have vents that attach to the outside and you could keep the temp inside the generator area cool enough during the summer. Now I know that you could just build the generator outside, but it's still a neat idea. There could also be a frozen or overheating debuff for the generator where it works slower or needs repair, rendering it more important to keep it warmer or cooler in the different seasons.

[Thane]

They do. Not much but my generator rooms are frequently above 50C.

[1031mtm]

They do. Not much but my generator rooms are frequently above 50C.

Does that include the chem fuel generator? Because I haven't seen any sort of heat being dissipated from the machine. However, if this is true, I would want the heating to be higher.

[bobucles]

But generators do make heat. Box them in a room and you'll see it easily go 10-20C above everything else.

[5thHorseman]

They do. Not much but my generator rooms are frequently above 50C.

Does that include the chem fuel generator? Because I haven't seen any sort of heat being dissipated from the machine. However, if this is true, I would want the heating to be higher.

The one that generates chem fuel, or the one that uses chem fuel to generate power?

Because the second one generates heat and the first one uses space magic so doesn't need to follow our thermodynamic laws.

[Kirby23590]

Hmmm...

We will see, but it's hard to tell when the room is boxed away to keep from raiders banging in and breaking them.

I prefer the little heaters since they are less ugly to look at (At a colonist's view point). Maybe some generators can help heating up a hallway in a really cold biome. In-fact they do create heat and i had to keep a door open because my colonists were complaining that it was too hot and one of them had a heatstroke from that room, with like 8 generators in a small room.

[deshara218]

chemical generators don't necessarily generate heat IRL. We treat them as if they're diesel engines combusting fuel but that isn't what "chemical generators" are

[bobucles]

It's pretty clear that chemfuel is a volatile exothermic compound. Boomalopes go BOOM, they do not fizzle, pop or freeze. The closest RL equivalent is a simple petroleum generator which very definitely makes heat.

[OFWG]

chemical generators don't necessarily generate heat IRL. We treat them as if they're diesel engines combusting fuel but that isn't what "chemical generators" are

It doesn't matter, every reaction will generate at least a little waste heat. It's the law of entropy.

Edit: AileTheAlien corrected me that entropy and heat are not equivalent. I still believe that waste heat is necessarily produced in the case of energy generation though.

[AileTheAlien]

It doesn't matter, every reaction will generate at least a little waste heat. It's the law of entropy.

The entropy of the total system goes up, but the single room with a chemical reaction is not guaranteed to have its temperature go up. For example, an endothermic reaction such as a giant chemical ice-pack, would be cooling the room housing a Sterling engine powered by its reaction. The extra heat in this case would be in the factory producing the chemical pack.