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:

Item	Fuel value	Fuel value per raw total	Fuel value per stack	Fuel Value per rocket	Vehicle acceleration	Vehicle top speed	Train max speed1
Wood	2 MJ	2 MJ per wood	200 MJ	1 GJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Coal	4 MJ	4 MJ per coal	200 MJ	2 GJ	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	12 GJ	120%	105%	272.2 km/h (~75.6 m/s)
Carbon	2 MJ	1 MJ per coal	100 MJ	2 GJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Rocket fuel	100 MJ	0.8 MJ per unit of crude oil2	2 GJ	10 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	12.1 GJ	250%	115%	298.1 km/h (83 m/s)
Yumako seed	4 MJ	80 kJ per crop4	40 MJ	400 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jellynut seed	4 MJ	80 kJ per crop4	40 MJ	400 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Tree seed	100 kJ	50 kJ per wood	1 MJ	10 MJ	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Yumako	2 MJ	2 MJ per crop	100 MJ	2 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jellynut	10 MJ	10 MJ per crop	500 MJ	10 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Spoilage	250 kJ	250 kJ per crop5	50 MJ	500 MJ	50%	50%	129.6 km/h (36 m/s)
Yumako mash	1 MJ	2 MJ per crop	100 MJ	2 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Jelly	1 MJ	4 MJ per crop	100 MJ	2 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Biter egg	6 MJ	6 MJ per egg	600 MJ	3 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 m/s)
Pentapod egg	5 MJ	5 MJ per egg	100 MJ	1 GJ6	100%	100%	259.2 km/h (72 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.

⁽⁴⁾ This assumes the "cost" is what would have been gained if all seeds were planted and the grown plant was harvested, i.e. 50 yumako or jellynut.

⁽⁵⁾ Fuel value per raw for spoilage varies a lot on the item spoiled and if they were made using the biochamber's 50% base productivity. 250 kJ assumes spoilage directly from yumako or jellynut crops. This is can go as high as about 2.43 MJ per crop using nutrients from bioflux (60 nutrients from 4.16 yumako and 1.66 jellynuts with 3.21 nutrients spent running biochambers).

⁽⁶⁾ These products spoil, and thus are usually not suitable fuels to move between planets.

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 GJ	400 GJ	Nuclear reactor	40 MW	1 per 200s2
Fusion power cell	Fusion fuel	40 GJ	2 TJ	Fusion reactor	100 MW	1 per 400s2
Thruster fuel	Fluid1	50 kJ		Thruster	0.3 MW - 6.0 MW	6/s - 120/s2
Thruster oxidizer	Fluid1	50 kJ		Thruster	0.3 MW - 6.0 MW	6/s - 120/s2
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⁾ 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.

² Most of these fuel consumers increase their fuel consumption rate with quality. However, because the biochamber and captive biter spawner are crafting machines, quality versions of them do not consume fuel faster despite their faster processing speed. They instead become more fuel efficient, producing more output for the same amount of fuel.

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)

How quality affects burn time depends on the kind of machine in question. Crafting machines do not increase energy consumption with higher quality. As such, crafting machines that run on a fuel, like the stone furnace or biochamber, do not change their burn time with quality.

Inserters like the burner inserter do not increase their energy consumption per-swing, but they do swing faster. As such, higher quality burner inserters can consume more fuel based on this.

The burner mining drill does not get faster with quality, so it does not consume more energy. The car and tank vehicles do not change their energy consumption with quality.

All other entities which use fuel do scale their energy consumption, and thus burn time, with quality. This includes locomotives.

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
    

    
    Heating tower
    
    Stone furnace
    
    Steel furnace
    
    Locomotive
    
    Car
    
    Tank
• Electric system
• Nuclear Ratios