Getting started

From a new wellhead to steam in a Mekanism turbine. The wellhead's own Guide (the ? tab of its interface) walks you through the same steps and opens by itself until the well first produced steam.

1. Craft

Item	Recipe
Steel Well Casing ×8	4 steel ingots in a diamond: _S_ / S_S / _S_
Basic Geothermal Wellhead	SCS / AMA / SDS: S steel ingot, C basic control circuit, A infused alloy, M Mekanism Steel Casing, D diamond
Geothermal Logic Adapter (optional)	SRS / RCR / SQS: S steel ingot, R redstone, C basic control circuit, Q comparator

The recipes use common tags (c:ingots/steel, c:circuits/basic, mekanism:alloys/infused...), so steel and circuits from other mods work too, and a datapack can replace them.

The column takes one casing per drilled block: a wellhead at sea level (Y 63) drilled to Y −60 needs about 124 casings, that is 62 steel ingots.

2. Place and power it

Place the wellhead where you want the well: it drills straight down, under itself. Leave air above it: the top face is the safety valve.

By default, every face but the top accepts energy, water and casings, and outputs steam and debris. Steam is auto-ejected, debris is not. Change it in Mekanism's side configuration tab, or with a Configurator, like any Mekanism machine.

Connect energy (Universal Cable or any FE source): drilling costs 4,000 FE per block, and the control system 20 FE/t once the column exists. The buffer holds 400,000 FE.

3. Casings and drilling

1. Put Steel Well Casings in the casing slots (4 slots of 64), or feed them with a pipe or a hopper.
2. Set the target depth with the arrows next to the Y value (Shift: ±10, or the mouse wheel). The target is an absolute Y; the screen shows the blocks left and the casings needed.
3. Press Start drilling. The drill goes down one block every 2 seconds, takes one casing per block, puts what it digs in the debris slots, and stops at the target or when it meets lava.

Changing the target stops the drilling until you press the button again. A damaged column is repaired automatically, without the button.

4. Water

Pipe water in (Mekanism Electric Pump, any water source that pushes fluid). A well uses a little more water than the steam it makes: 5 % is lost as blowdown.

5. Heat

Steam needs heat, and heat depends on how deep the bottom of the well is. In the Overworld, the temperature is 100 °C at Y 0 and above (no steam: water only boils above it) and rises to 250 °C at Y −60, where the well makes its full 400 mB/t. Lava within 2 blocks of the bottom adds 2 °C per source block, up to 50 °C: it helps a shallower well reach full output (the output itself stays capped at the tier's rate by default).

Bottom of the well	Temperature	Steam (Basic, no upgrade)
Y 0 and above	100 °C	none
Y −30	175 °C	200 mB/t
Y −60 and below	250 °C	400 mB/t

The Nether is 180 °C at any depth but produces less (×0.6); the End has no usable heat.

6. Steam out

Connect a Pressurized Tube to a Mekanism Industrial Turbine (Mekanism Generators), a Chemical Tank or any machine that takes Mekanism steam. The steam is auto-ejected through every face but the top.

If the steam has nowhere to go, the pressure rises: the valve vents above 80 % and the control system stops production at 90 %. See Safety.