Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

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aeros1
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by aeros1 »

Well there are plenty of reactors that make U235->U238 reaction. But fast neutron ones allow reverse process(pretty complex) U238->U235 till nonradioactive or low radioactive isotopes mostly remain. There can be some stray radioactive isotopes but those would be uncomparable to modern direct cycle nuclear wastes.

I think VVER-1200 is first planned and in production commertial use rebreeder reactor of full cycle (Though not sure, but replacement of fuel, is manual and not inside station). And indeed it is possible to create full cycle in factorio in one building aglomerating 2 reactors in one and assuming fuel slowly burns until stone remains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER

True about suits to protect from dust. But hint, most radioactive is Gamma radiation, but usually more or less safe values can be reached after several hours to several days of cooling down in wet storage. (gamma shields are pretty thick too, but in nuclear objects, and never protect fully), Most common ones are beta and alpha radiation. Beta radiation stopped by santimeters of shielding ,while alpha radiation is stopped by a sheet of paper. Shields most likely would be blown off by alpha and beta radiation(provided shield can stop such small particles, not saying alpha and beta radiation is not electrical charge friendly (though if it is kinetic shield than maybe). Gamma radiation well fotons are not well known in reacting with anything, but matter. So maybe there could be radiation shielding which is tunned to stop small particles and replenishes its integrity fast enough, but suit seems most practical or more early solution, especially if you cooldown worked out fuel in wet storage before pack it up.

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by afk2minute »

aeros1 wrote:Well there are plenty of reactors that make U235->U238 reaction. But fast neutron ones allow reverse process(pretty complex) U238->U235 till nonradioactive or low radioactive isotopes mostly remain. There can be some stray radioactive isotopes but those would be uncomparable to modern direct cycle nuclear wastes.

I think VVER-1200 is first planned and in production commertial use rebreeder reactor of full cycle (Though not sure, but replacement of fuel, is manual and not inside station). And indeed it is possible to create full cycle in factorio in one building aglomerating 2 reactors in one and assuming fuel slowly burns until stone remains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER

True about suits to protect from dust. But hint, most radioactive is Gamma radiation, but usually more or less safe values can be reached after several hours to several days of cooling down in wet storage. (gamma shields are pretty thick too, but in nuclear objects, and never protect fully), Most common ones are beta and alpha radiation. Beta radiation stopped by santimeters of shielding ,while alpha radiation is stopped by a sheet of paper. Shields most likely would be blown off by alpha and beta radiation(provided shield can stop such small particles, not saying alpha and beta radiation is not electrical charge friendly (though if it is kinetic shield than maybe). Gamma radiation well fotons are not well known in reacting with anything, but matter. So maybe there could be radiation shielding which is tunned to stop small particles and replenishes its integrity fast enough, but suit seems most practical or more early solution, especially if you cooldown worked out fuel in wet storage before pack it up.
So thats what i was saying (without going deep into radiation types). If radiation (gamma, because other is quite easily shielded with just armor mass) is so high that it visibly damages you withing seconds\minutes of exposure time then you are dead. We also have neutron radiation which is even harder to shield against, but shields can do it sure.
Shields (mk1\2) work by magic, they protect against fire, poison, bullets, lasers, etc. No way they can be penetrated by radiation. If you ask realism then these shields should be removed from the game (will not happen).

BeCurieUs
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by BeCurieUs »

I think going the shielding route doesn't make very much since in that we never run the risks of electrical shock or other health aspects of chemically reprocessing sulfuric acid or anything in the entire chemical chain which use super caustic and harmful chemicals. Unless you want to turn the game into a death trap, I don't think harming the player with radiation is much in step with the spirit of the game. I have had entire areas dedicated to storing sulfuric acid, never once crossed my mind to be worried. Creating a radiation danger creates a nuclear exceptionalism which casts a shadow over it unlike all the other technologies in the game without adding much. Plus people that work in nuclear plants today don't get significantly more dose (if any) than normal members of the public. We can just assume the plant is being run like a normal nuclear plant just like we assume the chemical processing plant is a normal one instead of Texas City (home of one of the largest non-nuclear explosions of all time).

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by BeCurieUs »

And to add, a fast reactor doesn't drive the uranium backwards in atomic weight, it drives U238 to Pu239, which then can fission rather well in the fast spectrum. Not sure what you are talking about with U238->U235, cause that just doesn't happen. I mean, uranium decays into U234 via alpha decay, but that isn't U235 :D.

Also, fission drives things to be MUCH MORE RADIOACTIVE, not less. High level actinides are relatively stable, lasting 10s or hundreds of thousands of years half life speaking. Fission product stuff has half life on the order of microseconds, seconds, hours, days, years (and a few that last millennia). Fission products are MUCH more radioactive than transuranics, just for a shorter period of time, centuries instead of millennia. And spent fuel is still hot enough after days that the gammas would kill you in seconds of un-shielded exposure.

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by aeros1 »

BeCurieUs wrote:And to add, a fast reactor doesn't drive the uranium backwards in atomic weight, it drives U238 to Pu239, which then can fission rather well in the fast spectrum. Not sure what you are talking about with U238->U235, cause that just doesn't happen. I mean, uranium decays into U234 via alpha decay, but that isn't U235 :D.

Also, fission drives things to be MUCH MORE RADIOACTIVE, not less. High level actinides are relatively stable, lasting 10s or hundreds of thousands of years half life speaking. Fission product stuff has half life on the order of microseconds, seconds, hours, days, years (and a few that last millennia). Fission products are MUCH more radioactive than transuranics, just for a shorter period of time, centuries instead of millennia. And spent fuel is still hot enough after days that the gammas would kill you in seconds of un-shielded exposure.
It is not direct process but end result is uranium 235. I just don't remember straight process but I think it is 5 or 6 step process through different radioactive isotopes. so process practically goes over and over until all nuclear fuel burns int onofissionable isotops. Which https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downl ... EA_eng.pdf (or maybe one more reactor) Btw strange probably new prototype or I mixed names. (Now it is named Brest.) Can't find inglish variant only this. U(238,92)+n(0,1)->U(239)->(beta-)Np(239,94)->(beta-)->Pu(239,95)-(Alpha+)>U(235)

Last reaction is kinda slow in normal fission (4 years for having mass, compared to days for other). But fast neutronium reactors allow to speed up process. So if they implemented they could take Pu-239 and change it to U235, if there is Pu-239 in acceptor/recipe slot.

Ratzap
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by Ratzap »

Why Uranium? Thorium is much more common and makes more sense to use (though technically it's a breeder process going through U233).

You could have water reactors with Uranium first then Thorium liquid salts with more research.

BeCurieUs
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by BeCurieUs »

Alpha decay is related to its halflife, not really fission. Some people call it fission, but those people are not nuclear engineers. Neutron capture and subsequent decays take billions of years to get appreciable amounts. I think you might be misinterpreting something here :D. For fast reactors, Plutonium breeding via U238 capture as well as Pu239 and heavier isotopes are being burned to very light isotopes like barium and krypton. Any other isotopes via decay of uranium and plutonium are going to be in microgram quantities. (the half life of Pu239 is 24,110 years!)


Thorium doesn't make "more sense to use" and isn't much more common in high grade ores. In fact, uranium, being water soluble is found in much higher deposit concentration per unit mass than thorium. A normal thorium yield from a high yield ore might be 7-15% thorium by mass, and a really good uranium ore can be upwards of 12-20% by weight. Average crustal abundance is not really a good metric for determining how available a material is, it is how concentrated a deposit is. That is why we call rare earths rare, they aren't actually that rare, just not in very large concentrations. Similar too, for thorium. Not rare, but also not as great of ores as uranium. This is an oft used thorium talking point that doesn't really stand up and doesn't really add much to our game play either! Having to manage 2 new types of ore for a fuel cycle sounds like a nightmare! Fast breeder with uranium would be as much complexity as I would like to see introduced, and even then, that is likely going to far. Already you are adding 2 different nuclear sources whereas everything else just has one.

afk2minute
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by afk2minute »

I would like to explain (once more) that it does not matter how element will be called.
Swapping uranium for thorium (and vice versa) will not change anything for the game as the complexity of the process\power output\how rare is the element etc. will be corrected to fit the game and its balance.
Even if we would have some fantasy book name for this element it doesnt matter at all...

BeCurieUs
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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by BeCurieUs »

Ya, I mostly agree with that, though, the game does try and stay pretty close to accurate. We still have plastic, sulfuric acid, hydrocarbons, ect :D...well, and a portable MR fusion, but BESIDES that :D

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by afk2minute »

BeCurieUs wrote:Ya, I mostly agree with that, though, the game does try and stay pretty close to accurate. We still have plastic, sulfuric acid, hydrocarbons, ect :D...well, and a portable MR fusion, but BESIDES that :D
Sure i will prefer that too (using normal names rather than some fantasy), Just used it as an a "stronger" example.

And for the mr. fusion, well its past 2015 in the game i guess, so its allright....

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by bobucles »

The name is just a sticky note slapped on the resource after everything is said and done. Keep in mind that this is a game and the important considerations are whatever provides a challenging and satisfying puzzle for factorio.

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by InsaneFox »

With regards to the BeCuriUs's post, I like the idea of enrichment and mining uranium with sulfur and scouting it out with tools (armor mounted, tools, I hope) but I think the power plant should have the steam generators built into it as a crafting material since we'd be expecting some massive energy output from this device and Factorio's fluid mechanics won't be the best for such a high-throughput tubing. It should probably work more like a chemical plant with water as its input and maybe nuclear waste as its output.

With regards to comments about nuclear waste and waste disposal
As another commenter has said this is not a waste management game, if it exists, it must have a purpose for crafting something, anything, otherwise we have a trivial storage mechanic that doesn't add anything fun or interesting to the game. Paint the walls so they glow in the dark, throw it at biters in an effort to kill them with cancer (because clearly smog and industrial wastes aren't doing the trick), it cannot simply be a waste product, it has to be a useful component somehow.

As for the reactor, itself, having it always burning fuel as previously mentioned in someone else's comment is more than enough complexity for a nuclear reactor in Factorio. Giving it a wind up and wind down or emergency shutdowns or anything else like that makes the reactor obsolete as it requires either a backup generator fit to keep the factory running and ends up only saving fuel on that device or enough accumulators to keep the factory running for either a trivial amount of time, or to make it less space efficient than solar panels. A wind up wouldn't really add anything either because you'll have already had another power system in place when you build the reactor, it just means you need to wait before you decommission the old power source

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by 3trip »

I agree with the above, this is not a waste management game, Call the leftovers isotopes. use them for research and allow refining them into depleted uranium for bullets and/or plutonium for nukes. As mentioned before, if you're building an ICBM, the rocket should be the cheap part.

what if you can turn isotopes into either plutonium, or depleted uranium, but not both? Balance it righ for an average amount of reactors to power an average factory, your choice could be limited to, enough DU bullets, enough nukes or not enough of each.

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

I'm not a huge fan of the refueling part and the gamma ray searching by foot. I think the refueling part should be completely left outside as it isn't really helpful from a gameplay perspective, but the gamma ray part could potentially be a part of it. Here are 4 ways this could be done:

1) Armor module to give you uranium visibility for personal use
2) Some new type of drone that can scan the ground for uranium
3) Upgrade for radars, that allows the player to switch scanning mode, either regular or scanning for uranium. In case the entire generated map has already been scanned for uranium, it should just follow the regular radars, to scan the new chunks for uranium at the same time.
4) AFTER you research the missile, add one more research to allow you to make an uranium searching satellite that will do the same as the radar, but automagically. This could potentially add more late game gameplay elements that would help keeping the interest of the player high.
(all of these with new researches of course).


Apart from these, I really like your idea, especially pumping sulfuric acid in the ground for extracting the uranium. Also having to fabricate the uranium into rods( uranium steel rod) before putting them into the power plant is a good idea that was suggested in another topic.

As for the waste, it could be put into barrels and then just added into existing magazines to add extra damage, or damage over time from radiation. In terms of waste disposal if the bullets idea doesn't happen, it's pretty easy, just put the barrels into a chest and shoot it, so I think a use for the waste would be better, instead of just creating a burden for the player.

As an addition, there could be cooling towers that need constant pumping of water, needed to cool the nuclear reactor. The amount of cooling it would need should depend on the amount of power it produces, more power means more cooling needed. So this requires 2 temperature values, 1 for the water( the higher the better) and one for the reactor itself. If that second value surpasses a specified upper threshold the nuclear reactor should blow up, creating an explosion destroying everything around it in a specified area and causing a global evolution variable increase( and potentially an increase in the pollution area as well). So this is a mechanic that simply adds to the complexity of the system and that can be easily mitigated with careful planning or with just putting the reactor far away so it doesn't destroy much if it explodes.

Also I think the uranium deposits should work the same way oil works, providing more uranium at the beginning that slowly depletes over time and ends up with a low constant value.

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Re: Nuclear Power from a Nuclear Engineer

Post by Grossen »

I couldn't really read the whole thread but I got a few basic idea on which I agree, maybe make a summary:

- Reactors should use a lot of water, 3pumps, that would make them a 5x5 building.
- We need cooling towers because they add to the puzzle and look cool, give that power-plant aesthetic, you could maybe use cooling towers to reuse some of the water so you need only 1-2 pumps.
- The actual power generation units should be high performance steam turbines, not regular steam engines, as far as I know they use water above 100 degrees Celsius
- I like the downtime period idea, and could be nicely combined with the slow start-up of the process
- Radioactive waste management could make a nice puzzle, trough my idea would imply new game mechanics like: Radiation, that would maybe attract aliens(if they manage to get the source it would add to their evolution factor?) and/or damage buildings. Objects that can not be destroyed or radiation spills to discourage players from simply removing the waste. Special containers for storing radioactive materials to bring radiation to a minimum. This way the player must use up space to store and secure the waste.
- Maybe make it impossible for players to transport radioactive materials in their inventory, this way he is forced to do a logistic setup for handling it.
- Craft-able waste payload in order to allow players to dispose of the nuclear waste by launching it into space.

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