Electric energy

[ssilk]

It's FC. Factorio-Current.

[opencircut74]

It's FC. Factorio-Current.

...How is that supposed to work

[BlakeMW]

Factorio Current does whatever you need it to. It can even be transmitted wirelessly or sucked out of thin air to power transport belts and gun turrets.

[ssilk]

Exactly. It shits on real physics.

[JoneKone]

Actually the idea of an electric pole taking energy is not far off from real life. In real life, there are two kinds of electric current. Alternating Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC). Assuming that the steam engine puts out Direct Current, I can safely say that everything in the base is run off of (roughly) an 120 volt DC power supply. Now, Direct Current is continuous and loses current (amps) fairly quickly when is used to power something that is not right next to it. This would mean that the farther something is away from the source, the more current it takes to give the required amount of power to whatever it is you want to power. The amount of power an electric pole would lose would increase by the amount of things it has to power and the distance from the source. Also, Direct Current is very inefficient with the amount of electricity you can put through a certain size wire without losing too much energy in heat.

I'm afraid this description is a little off. There is no great difference in transmission losses between DC and AC at the same voltage (altough DC definitely has the advantage at higher voltages and greater distances - refer to HVDC). The primary distinction and where this common misconception comes from is that AC power is easily transformed to a higher/lower voltage, it can be easily transformed up and transmitted with low losses over a long distance, then easily transformed back down to a safe/useful voltage. But it's only a matter of easiness and efficiency at small scale - strictly speaking DC is generally superior for transmission.

For the scale of factorio, I'd be somewhat torn between DC or AC being the "logical" choice. It's small enough for DC to be viable without a whole lot of voltage conversion for transmission, and it's certainly not large enough for DC to have an advantage over AC for transmission. I imagine it'd be a DC network just because of solar panels and accumulators and stuff means he's not going to get away with a simple AC system (i.e. he needs fancy converters anyway, no simple transformers are going to cut it), also DC carries a lower electrocution hazard - not that factorio guy has the greatest survival instinct - but it doesn't hurt to make your own machines less likely to kill you.

HVDC is what they typically use for under water cables from 1 country to another.. Finland To Estonia Power cable is HVDC on both ends you need a big installation to turn it back to AC that works on HVAC power lines... The reason they use it, cause it is compact They would run huge power poles over the sea if it would be easier/cheaper..

In real aplications where you and me use AC is in a car 12v in a computer 12v 5v (and others -5v etc.) well all the electric devices use AC except for kitchen.. The point being, that Factories internaly need DC and AC, both.

NOW in a game =D making this blausible.. and I really hope they make it blausible not obviously a simulator, as it is a game and not a sim. So in game achieving this kind of thing is hard.. harder than it looks..

Especially when the game is already using most of my cpu power, it's not very future proofed engine only using 1 cpu, at least i haven't seen any other thread rice to the challenge when i really push the game.

How to push the game to the limit, pollution, push out allot off pollution from your 1 plant and the game starts to hick up. 20MB map was used to stress test the game. bobs mods pollution modules did the trick.

Power loss on Finnish power Grid
"the amount of losses in the transmission grid is over 1 TWh per year, which corresponds to approximately 1.5 per cent of Finland's total electricity consumption. Power loss will vary based upon network situation, as well as the amount of electricity corona losses due between 60-350 MW."


Edit reference http://www.fingrid.fi/fi/voimajarjestel ... fault.aspx

[stevop88]

A cool idea for nuclear energy is the waste that would be created. Just like cracking oil, you need to make use of the other products (in the case of nuclear) you would have spent fuel which you need to either contain or use. If the control of waste comes to a halt, all nuclear power will STOP, and potentially cause a melt-down. You could make barrels for storage, build storage FACILITIES and of course use it as an ingredient for devious production of goods! An idea I had was to use the waste to create ammunition of superior damage (like depleted uranium shells) and NUKES which could be used on the biters. It could be made HIGHLY affective but there's a twist, it could also potentially enable your enemies to evolve at a faster rate! On top of having nuclear power, you could make a requirement of pumping water to cool the reactors and have uranium ore processing etc etc

[steinio]

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=9502

Here viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25762&p=162637#p162637 is a similar posting. First I thought it was you but you aren't.

This mod has nearly all you mentioned.

Greetings steinio

[BrokenScience]

Are there any plans for a full sized fusion reactor? The portable one is out there for armor so it would be nice to have a version for the base. There does seem to be a lack of late game energy sources, especially green ones.

[Fortanono]

Hi, so I've been working on a power gen idea with Algae, wanted to see what you thought.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29568

[Deadly-Bagel]

Are there any plans for a full sized fusion reactor? The portable one is out there for armor so it would be nice to have a version for the base. There does seem to be a lack of late game energy sources, especially green ones.

Considering how much resource a tiny portable fusion reactor requires to construct and that it doesn't even generate as much as two solar panels it wouldn't be very efficient. Going off the solar panel to portable energy ratio (not taking size into account), making a full size fusion reactor would generate about as much as a hundred solar panels. Not sure I'd want to use hundreds of processing units on that, not to mention the number of biter nests I'd need to destroy.

You want to think less about the source of the power and more about pros and cons for using it. For example, solar panels are the "free" energy choice, pros are that you whack it down and it does its thing without needing fuel, maintenance or any sort of attention other than expansion, additionally they generate no pollution aside from the furnaces to build them. Cons are that it requires reasonably large quantities of resource to produce in any worthwhile scale (at least to start with), and enormous amounts of land which you then have to protect.

Steam engine setups are very cheap to make in comparison, don't even need copper other than for power poles, and take up far less space making them much easier to protect. The downside is they require a considerable and constant supply of fuel to run AND a source of water. Between providing fuel and that an offshore pump only services so many steam engines, expanding becomes difficult and eventually not feasible requiring you to expand elsewhere.

So when suggesting a new form of energy you need to consider why players might choose it over other sources, but also keep other sources relevant. A diesel generator is a fairly common suggestion and pretty good idea, compact and a large output but at the cost of an expensive resource (oil) and generating a LOT of pollution. Another idea might be a compact object with high output but that can only be built in particular places (such as a hydrogen deposit) which limits and directs expansion, and they could constantly trigger biter attacks to make them difficult to protect.

I've noticed uranium mentioned a few times, even by the devs, which would be a single object that perhaps just consumes uranium at a rate of power required (making expansion as simple as providing more uranium to it), but it would require a very rare resource to run and in addition to a few minor cons it would generate nuclear waste which you would then need to deal with. This is either automatically dumped and just kills the land (and eventually the player) around the reactor (maybe has an outlet that can be directed with pipes), or produces an item "depleted uranium" which you then need to deal with (maybe have limited uses such as for weapons). Either way destroying it would generate radiation or just absurd amounts of pollution which could later be tied in to "pollution over a certain value causes damage to the player and can be mitigated with filters in your power armour" which would certainly make for an interesting late-game mechanic as pollution increases exponentially.

You could argue that fusion reactors have all the pros of solar panels and simply trade the low output con with a much higher build cost, and perhaps that is something the devs will go for but it's a fairly close choice and it wouldn't be feasible until late game so you'll already need to have some sort of large scale power production anyway. More likely the "huge initial cost" option will be included in building the rocket so that you can move your solar panels to space or something which is another project the devs are already considering.

[Fortanono]

I have an interesting idea on how wind power should work.

The windmill base will be crafted with 500 wood and 50 concrete, so it cannot be automated fully. Instead of the futuristic feel it would have a rustic feel. To use a windmill, you must put Windmill Blades in it, made with 50 wood and 10 plastic bars. Each Blade put in will render 2 spinning blades on its sprite, and you can have up to 8 blades inside. A 1-blade windmill produces the same amount as a Solar Panel night and day. If you put any more in, however, it starts requiring Lubricant to function. An 8-blade windmill would produce an incredible amount of power but would go through so much Lubricant that it would pollute more than a good boiler setup due to the Chemical Plants required.

[Sascha_T]

This all sounds good ,
im looking forward to that beeing added!

[Enkal]

I think nuclear would be an excellent idea for Factorio. Nuclear in real life is very very fuel efficient and produces very low amounts of waste that is easily contained in pools of water for long periods of time.

For the game it could be cool with two techs: open fuel cycle and closed fuel cycle nuclear power.

The open fuel cycle would need: uranium ore, uranium refining (chemical plant: water, acid), fuel rod manufacturing (assembler: uranium, steel), nuclear power plant: water, fuel rods, spent fuel water pool: spent fuel, water.

Closed fuel cycle would need: ore, refining, fuel rod, power plant, fuel reprocessing plant: spent fuel ->fuel rod, spent fuel (5 % of the amount from the previous tech), fuel rods sent back to power plant.

The energy content of refined uranium should be in the gigajoule-range.

The building of the nuclear plant should have a resource range close to the rocket silo. Nuclear plants are expensive to build but provide tremendous amounts of cheap, clean, and safe electricity.

Perhaps make a previous tech with nuclear batteries, say 5 MW unit that just need water and fuel rod that connects to regular boilers.

[ssilk]

You might search this topic for "nuclear". I have done it:
search.php?keywords=nuclear&t=5&sf=msgonly
10 pages out of 22 for the total thread contain "nuclear" as word...

[Enkal]

You might search this topic for "nuclear". I have done it:
search.php?keywords=nuclear&t=5&sf=msgonly
10 pages out of 22 for the total thread contain "nuclear" as word...

I thought I'd post my thing here since it seems to be a main electricity post.

[Deadly-Bagel]

The open fuel cycle would need: uranium ore, uranium refining (chemical plant: water, acid), fuel rod manufacturing (assembler: uranium, steel), nuclear power plant: water, fuel rods, spent fuel water pool: spent fuel, water.

Closed fuel cycle would need: ore, refining, fuel rod, power plant, fuel reprocessing plant: spent fuel ->fuel rod, spent fuel (5 % of the amount from the previous tech), fuel rods sent back to power plant.

This would make nuclear energy difficult to set up but rewarding, and I'm interested by the idea of a closed fuel cycle however I still think there should be some form of waste that is difficult to deal with and can't just be plugged straight back in to the cycle. Granted, I'm not exactly read up on nuclear energy but as far as I know it does generate a fair bit of nuclear waste which we then have to do something with. Didn't America make a radioactive mountain or something?

Either just dumping the waste and letting the pollution (or another factor "radiation") rise, or properly handling it by some tedious means like spreading it out and burying it over a large area, provides a tough choice and interesting mechanics, and is a 'good' downside to nuclear power. I mean currently some players choose to stick with steam power because it's far more compact than solar and I like to see choices. Perhaps I want to build acres of solar farms because in this game I can't be bothered dealing with the extra pollution or something, it's no fun if every game plays out the same because there isn't any choice.

[raidho36]

Nuclear waste simply can not be put back into the cycle. You already used up whatever useful material was in the fuel rods, so spent rods mostly contain nuclear material that has radioactivity so low it can't be used as nuclear fuel, which also means it'll have insanely long half-life -thousands of years- before the next highly radioactive element comes out of ongoing fission reaction, and even then it'll be stretched over even more thousands of years because of very long half-life. Thus you call it "waste", there's nothing you could do to make it worthwhile and it forever will remain unusable, the only thing left to do with it is to put it in the place where residual radioactivity wouldn't cause a lot of damage, and plan to store it there for millenia.

[zebediah49]

Nuclear waste simply can not be put back into the cycle. You already used up whatever useful material was in the fuel rods, so spent rods mostly contain nuclear material that has radioactivity so low it can't be used as nuclear fuel, which also means it'll have insanely long half-life -thousands of years- before the next highly radioactive element comes out of ongoing fission reaction, and even then it'll be stretched over even more thousands of years because of very long half-life. Thus you call it "waste", there's nothing you could do to make it worthwhile and it forever will remain unusable, the only thing left to do with it is to put it in the place where residual radioactivity wouldn't cause a lot of damage, and plan to store it there for millenia.

That is... not how current nuclear tech works. A standard real-world light water reactor burns a fairly small fraction of its input fuel (something like 80%); the remaining is either reprocessed or discarded. Note that that's only the U-235 that's used; ~95% of the total material is U-238 that is much harder to use (you need a special kind of reactor design to use it, which I believe is what the higher tier research would be). For a real-world example, the CANDU reactor design is nominally capable of directly accepting and burning used fuel from light-water reactors.

Also, radioactivity and usefulness are actually not particularly correlated. U-235 -- that primary and very easy to use isotope that feeds both simple weapons and standard light-water reactors -- has a half-life of ~700M years. Most of the true waste actually has much shorter half-lives.

------

So, to give a reasonably real-world compatible reaction set:

Preparation: 10x raw uranium -> 9x depleted uranium + 1x fissile uel
Power generation: 1x fissile fuel --> 1x spent fuel
Reprocessing: 1x spent fuel -> 1x raw uranium

10% is pretty lame by Factorio standards, but it's far from completely used up.

The real tech advance would be to use a fancier reactor design, because then you can use up everything -- raw uranium, depleted uranium, spent fuel, whatever.

[raidho36]

Eh I guess I was putting it too simply.

Usefulness of nuclear fuel is its ability to produce heat, minus how much effort it takes to get it to produce heat. When fission fuel undergoes chain reaction, it eventually degenerates into the sort of fuel that's not usable. That's because in fission, nuclear number (type of element) can only go down but not up (that would be fusion), and every particle of the fuel rod will progress towards the point where it becomes the element that can't be used as fuel, and at that point the particle becomes waste. So inevitably, you're winding up with 100% of fuel becoming nuclear waste. The "reuse" process you describe is actually salvaging whatever little useful material left in fuel rods to use in making new rods, it's not the same as using waste material to produce new fuel rods. So in the chain you described, the recipe that recycles spent rods must produce 1x raw uranium and 9x nuclear waste material. I guess you put it in barrels and just having it around produces pollution constantly, and I guess there could be special "crates" (underground storages) that minimize pollution from nuclear waste.

[BlakeMW]

Eh I guess I was putting it too simply.

Usefulness of nuclear fuel is its ability to produce heat, minus how much effort it takes to get it to produce heat. When fission fuel undergoes chain reaction, it eventually degenerates into the sort of fuel that's not usable. That's because in fission, nuclear number (type of element) can only go down but not up (that would be fusion), and every particle of the fuel rod will progress towards the point where it becomes the element that can't be used as fuel, and at that point the particle becomes waste. So inevitably, you're winding up with 100% of fuel becoming nuclear waste.

From the wikipedia article on Neutron poison

In practice, buildup of reactor poisons in nuclear fuel is what determines the lifetime of nuclear fuel in a reactor: long before all possible fissions have taken place, buildup of long-lived neutron-absorbing fission products damps out the chain reaction. This is the reason that nuclear reprocessing is a useful activity: solid spent nuclear fuel contains about 97% of the original fissionable material present in newly manufactured nuclear fuel. Chemical separation of the fission products restores the fuel so that it can be used again.

Now some reactor designs do a better job of consuming reaction-dampening fission products including I believe the one Bill Gates is into (TWR design), these designs can consume a much larger fraction of the fissionable/breedable material, apparently up to 20-35%. But a process which relies on reprocessing to re-use the fuel is completely reasonable, especially if it is intended to also be able to make nuclear weapons.