Nuclear power with steam storage tanks

[Killcreek2]

Killcreek - have you tested your design under max load? Looks like the output of 2 heat exchangers is going through a single pipe, feeding 10 turbines from a single pipeline. I think you'll hit a flow rate limit under full load.

Actually, all 4 heat ex are outputting to the same pipe going into the steam tank. Do you think I need to add a pump in between?

I have not tested it under max load yet with both cores / 16 heat ex / & preheating active [would have to disable all other power sources & build a tonne of radars].
A line of 10-4-10 coped with a single reactor cores output during my earliest tests [40mw constant max draw for 5-10min, but no preheating, so only 6.9 turbines in use].

I'm a little unsure of pipe/pump flow rates in 0.15, but 4 heat ex use half an offshore pumps worth of water/steam [600/s], and cannot output more fluid than they input [afaik], so they ought to be ok. 10 turbines can draw up to 60 steam/s each, which should be covered by a single pipe. *Assuming pipes can flow as fast as a pump can pump*.


@Distelzombie ~ Anything flammable can be used in the preheaters with no problems, but rocket fuel really does shine for efficiency: *especially* if you use prod modules to manufacture it. The burner inserters activate a lot less often to keep the boilers fed, so use less fuel themselves too.

[viveks711]

But if coal or solid fuel runs out the whole setup stops working, doesnt it? At least its the case for nuclear fuel.

That's why I have put a pump-switch hooked up to a Circuit Network between the Boilers and Heat Exchangers.

The pump switch allows me to bypass the boilers or the heat exchangers as necessary.

Here's a picture of the switch (lacking the necessary circuit network connections, but I added them later):

nuclear plant v2a.jpg

nuclear plant v2.jpg

The pump switch allows me for following modes:

1. Offshore Pump -> Heat Exchangers -> Steam Turbines (4 * 10MW = 40MW)
2. Offshore Pump -> Boilers -> Steam Turbines (10 * 1.8MW = 18MW)
3. Offshore Pump -> Boilers -> Heat Exchangers -> Steam Turbines (10 * 1.8MW + 4 * 10MW = 58MW)

I think they are reworking how the heat pipes work. I think stretching heat pipes over huge distances may not be energy efficient in the future
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44972

[MeduSalem]

I think they are reworking how the heat pipes work. I think stretching heat pipes over huge distances may not be energy efficient in the future
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44972

Yeah, saw the post of Kovarex, even posted underneath it myself.

But if he puts a limit on how far the heatpipes can transfer the heat then he will just piss off pretty much every player who needs to build a bigger power plant. (At least I would be among the first players to complain about such an arbitrary balancing change)

Because how would it be possible to build a 1-2 GW powerplant if the damn heatpipes lose all their heat within 30-60 tiles?

Would be impossible to have larger power plants then because of how it would be impossible to reach all the Heat Exchangers necessary.

Instead everyone would have to go back and resort on building 4-reactor core power plants because that's all that would be possible from then on due to heatpipe length issues.

[viveks711]

I think this is where ingenuity would kick in...
It would be interesting to see what the changes it would be and try to rework the nuclear power to get the most out of it..
I'm sure that I read it a long time back in some forum that said Nuclear power is supposed to be hard to make an efficient design when you have all that neighborhood bonus.

[MeduSalem]

I think this is where ingenuity would kick in...
It would be interesting to see what the changes it would be and try to rework the nuclear power to get the most out of it..
I'm sure that I read it a long time back in some forum that said Nuclear power is supposed to be hard to make an efficient design when you have all that neighborhood bonus.

It's already hard, if not almost impossible to do very large setup (more than 20 reactors) because of how the water supply for the large amount of Turbines becomes a problem.

If they'd put a limit on how far heat reaches down a heatpipe then you could forget about such setups anyways because you'd not be able to support the amount of heat exchangers that the reactors would hypothetically be able to support with their efficiency bonus, just because of how there's not enough space around the reactors to pack all the heat exchangers tight enough to make the most of short heatpipe lengths.

So with other words you would have to place the heat exchangers further apart from the reactors... but that would not be possible.

Limiting the heatpipe length is just a bad idea. The nuclear power setups are already balancing themselves due to the amount of Turbines necessary and hence the needed water to support them which cause all kinds of throughput issues with the current pipe mechanic.