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[digitCruncher]

I just feel suddenly quite... mad.

My current fort (which I am about to abandon, because it has done its job) is a very quiet fortress, where no ambushers or sieges have ever occured. It is 75% mountains with no trees, and 25% dry plains with low vegetation and forest.

I have 30 soldiers, all of which need steel equipment ... but I have not found any sizable lignite or bitumous coal clusters, and so I have had to rely on charcoal to make my ~100 units of steel. Thats around 400 units of charcoal. Also, I had to build beds, barrels (My farming industry was way TOO successful. I have enough food to last me around 3 years without cooking, and around another 3 if I cook the reserves. My booze supply is a little unhealthy because all my barrels were full of "Quarry Bush Leaf Roast [64]"), and bins (currently have around ~500K in clothes and cloth).

This chronic wood supply was only partially alleviated by the underground caverns and the traders. I needed more steel, and there simply wasn't enough wood to share between my massively growing stockpiles of booze, food, and clothes, as well as my expanded living quarters (ten years in, and 50% of the dwarves STILL don't have a bed to call thier own >.<), AND equip my dwarves with steel items. And then it hit me... MAGMA! Just set up some magma smelters and forges and I would have all the fuel I ever need!

Then it hit me again... my thought process went something like this:

"I have clear-cut three different forests, and am ruining the nearby economies in order to trade for more wood (I once traded ~140K of finished goods and roasts, for ~1k of wood, and a few metal bars to the humans. Tell me that didn't destroy the human local crafters economy >.>). But all I have to do to get EVEN MORE WEALTH is DIG DOWN THROUGH THE CRUST and INTO THE MANTLE, where I will use the lava itself to make metal"

And I thought all this through as if it was a completely normal thing to think.

*cries*

[KaguroDraven]

This is Dwarf Fortress, this 'logic' you speak of has no place here!

On a less silly note this is actuilly kinda funny.

[Funtimes]

I don't see anything wrong with this.

[zilpin]

Come to think of it, in Real Life this whole petrol problem would go away if we just drilled down a little farther into the mantle.

Burning natural gas for heat?  Use MAGMA instead!
Factories need fuel?  Use MAGMA instead!
Burning coal, oil, and uranium for electric turbines?  Use MAGMA turbines instead!  (hot air is hot air, after all)
Tired of invading countries to take their oil?  Use MAGMA!  It's everywhere!

It's  a good thing.

Life imitates Dwarf Fortress.

[KaguroDraven]

The problem with that is that big mineing equiptment actuilly BENDS away from the earth after about 3 or miles down, and the crust is on average 7 miles deep, due to the magnetic feild or something, I'm not 100% on what causes it but I do know that it happens.

[Dwarf]

Not mentioning that magma is quite thick and, should it cool whilst flowing/being pumped to where it is required, quite problematic.

[Quietust]

Burning coal, oil, and uranium for electric turbines?  Use MAGMA turbines instead!  (hot air is hot air, after all)

We already do that - it's called geothermal energy.

[Vehudur]

Come to think of it, in Real Life this whole petrol problem would go away if we just drilled down a little farther into the mantle.

Burning natural gas for heat?  Use MAGMA instead!
Factories need fuel?  Use MAGMA instead!
Burning coal, oil, and uranium for electric turbines?  Use MAGMA turbines instead!  (hot air is hot air, after all)
Tired of invading countries to take their oil?  Use MAGMA!  It's everywhere!

It's  a good thing.

Life imitates Dwarf Fortress.

Three problems with that, and then one thing that isn't a problem.

1.  Geology sucks.  Truthfully, after you get past a certain depth, we don't know what we'll find.  It's just best guess after the first mile or two down.

2.  With #1 in mind, in most places you have to drill down 20 miles or more, sometimes as much as 40 to actually hit magma / the mantle.

3.  Drilling is really expensive.

4.  You don't have to strike liquid magma, you just have to hit ground that is some 900 degrees (f) and you can have supercritical steam water, which is beyond useful, and very hot.  And under a lot of pressure.

The problem with that is that big mineing equiptment actuilly BENDS away from the earth after about 3 or miles down, and the crust is on average 7 miles deep, due to the magnetic feild or something, I'm not 100% on what causes it but I do know that it happens.

No, it's the simple fact that we really can't make something a straight line when it's 3 miles away and we can't see it - however, we can make drill equipment out of non-magnetic materials, such as titanium alloys, so the EM field a non-factor.

Not mentioning that magma is quite thick and, should it cool whilst flowing/being pumped to where it is required, quite problematic.

Burning coal, oil, and uranium for electric turbines?  Use MAGMA turbines instead!  (hot air is hot air, after all)

We already do that - it's called geothermal energy.

Exactly.  You don't need the magma, you only need the heat.  Water / steam is a great way to move heat around.

[NightmareBros]

This is why we should build magma rigs on active volcanos, so that the magma comes to us instead of us digging down to the magma and burning to death in the consiquent eruption because we needed to haul that sock that fell in the volcano or something.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Burning coal, oil, and uranium for electric turbines?  Use MAGMA turbines instead!  (hot air is hot air, after all)

This is why I like geothermal power. So dwarfy.

[Tsarwash]

Additionally, I think that you can create current using the difference between 1000 C rock and 20 C rock. I think it involves some kind of magic..

[meto30]

Speaking of thermal energy, I had a wild imagination. This is obviously impractical to the core, but should be fun.



...A gargantuan, miles-long Sterling engine that is powered by the thermal difference between deep rock and topside rock...

[Vehudur]

Speaking of thermal energy, I had a wild imagination. This is obviously impractical to the core, but should be fun.



...A gargantuan, miles-long Sterling engine that is powered by the thermal difference between deep rock and topside rock...

You said it's impractical yourself, so I shal not speak of it..  oops.

That, would be pure badass, to be honest.

[Bronimin]

-

[Hyndis]

Geothermal power is amazing and nearly limitless. All you do is dig a deep pit, pour water into that pit, and then when the water turns into steam use the steam to run turbines.

Limitless energy anywhere on the planet. It runs day and night, generates no pollution at all, and only requires a source of water to run. You can recycle most of the water as well. Once it runs through the turbine let the steam condense and cool back into water, then pump the water underground again.

I'm still unsure why geothermal is not used more often.