Fuel

Fuel can be inserted into burner devices and burned to power them. Different fuels provide different amounts of energy, measured in megajoules (MJ).

Burnable fuel

The most common fuel type is burner fuel.

This is a list of all items usable as fuel in burner devices, ordered by fuel value:

Item	Fuel value	Fuel value per raw total	Fuel value per stack	Vehicle acceleration	Vehicle top speed	Train max speed1
Tree seed	100 kJ	50 kJ per wood	1 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Spoilage	250 kJ	250 kJ per spoilage	50 MJ	50%	50%	129.6 km/h (36 m/s)
Yumako mash	1 MJ	1 MJ per mash	100 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jelly	1 MJ	1 MJ per jelly	100 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Wood	2 MJ	2 MJ per wood	200 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Carbon	2 MJ	2 MJ per carbon	300 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Yumako	2 MJ	2 MJ per yumako	100 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Coal	4 MJ	4 MJ per coal	200 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Yumako seed	4 MJ	4 MJ per seed	40 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jellynut seed	4 MJ	4 MJ per seed	40 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Pentapod egg	5 MJ	5 MJ per egg	500 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Biter egg	6 MJ	6 MJ per egg	600 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jellynut	10 MJ	10 MJ per nut	500 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Solid fuel	12 MJ	0.96 MJ per unit of crude oil2, or 8.7 MJ per coal3	600 MJ	120%	105%	272.2 km/h (~75.6 m/s)
Rocket fuel	100 MJ	0.8 MJ per unit of crude oil2	1 GJ	180%	115%	298.1 km/h (83 m/s)
Nuclear fuel	1.21 GJ	9.68 MJ per unit of crude oil2, and 40.89 MJ per uranium ore4	1.21 GJ	250%	115%	298.1 km/h (83 m/s)

⁽¹⁾ For the purposes of in-game speed display, the game assumes 1 tile = 1 meter. I.e., a train on basic fuel travels at 72 tiles per second at full speed, and so on.

⁽²⁾ This assumes all crude oil is processed completely into solid fuel using advanced oil processing and heavy oil cracking as intermediate steps, but not light oil cracking. More efficient methods are possible; in practice, the petroleum gas is more likely to be used for something other than solid fuel.

⁽³⁾ Using coal liquefaction and heavy oil cracking, converting all light oil and petroleum gas into solid fuel. Does not include energy requirements of refining/mining.

Other fuel types

These fuels are consumed by specific entities and cannot be placed into standard burners.

Item	Fuel type	Fuel value	Fuel value per stack	Consumed by	Consumption rate (watts)	Consumption rate (items)
Uranium fuel cell	Nuclear fuel	8 GJ1	400 GJ	Nuclear reactor	40 MW	1 per 200s
Thruster fuel	Fluid2	50 kJ		Thruster	0.3 MW - 6.0 MW	6/s - 120/s
Thruster oxidizer	Fluid2	50 kJ		Thruster	0.3 MW - 6.0 MW	6/s - 120/s
Nutrients	Nutrients	2 MJ	200 MJ	Biochamber	500 kW	1 per 4s
Bioflux	Food	6 MJ	600 MJ	Captive biter spawner	100 kW	1 per 60s

⁽¹⁾ This is 507 MJ per raw uranium ore assuming that all U-238 is enriched, all depleted uranium fuel cells are reprocessed, and there is no reactor neighbor bonus.

⁽²⁾ Thruster fuel and oxidizer have a fuel value but technically do not have a fuel type. Since they can only be consumed by thrusters which require specific fluids, they are effectively their own fuel types.

Consumption

The following formula can be used to find how long a fuel will last in a device: Burn time (s) = Fuel value (MJ) ÷ Energy consumption (MW)

Trivia

• Though the top speeds given by solid fuel, rocket fuel and nuclear fuel are presented as +5%, +15% and +15% respectively, this seems to only be true for trains. The top speeds for cars and tanks are instead approximately +9.5%, +34% and +58% respectively when these fuels are used.

History

• 0.15.0:
  • Fuel type affects vehicle acceleration and top speed.

See also

• Burner devices
  • 
    Burner inserter
    
    Burner mining drill
    
    Boiler
    
    Stone furnace
    
    Steel furnace
    
    Locomotive
    
    Car
    
    Tank
• Electric system
• Nuclear Ratios