Nuclear power in Factorio - clean or dirty?

[safan]

I don't think factorio has need for a new fuel based power source. I'd rather have more environment based ones, like windmills or water turbines.

Then we could have:
-steam = fuel based, dirty, reliable
-solar = surface based, clean, should become unreliable
-wind = surface based, clean, unreliable
-water = only on coasts, reliable

with unreliable i mean there should be overcast days, or windstills

That way you have to combine everyting, and maybe foresee that you can turn out part of your bases when there is a outtage.

Giving a new fuel doesn't add much in playability: its again: find a resource, eventualy process it, then bring it to the steam engine. The only difference is you would need less of it. And Factorio is exactly about needing moar.

[XartaX]

@Safan

Steam engines could be replaced by more modern turbines to more or less completely eliminate pollution from them (the pollution should come from the boilers burning coal. If you could heat water without using dirty fuel, like.. nuclear power, then together with modern turbines you should produce next to no pollution).

Solar is actually the one of the few energy sources publicly considered clean I support. It's actually a very efficient source, and clean to boot. It also doubles up as a good tech to look at overall due to its obvious uses for space travel.

Wind is stupid. You could cover the whole earth in wind mills and not produce enough electricity for our needs.

Water power is much more efficient than wind if you generate it in the appropriate terrain (sloping rivers, etc.), but it's still not a source you could rely on for all your needs. There's simply not enough output. But if you have terrain extremely suited for it it's worth an investment, but you'll need more sources.



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But really, nuclear power is actually just heating up water and using that water with turbines to generate electricity. It's essentially a hyper efficient burner in terms of game mechanics. Also, you can use leftover heat to desalinate saltwater

[Boogieman14]

Water power is much more efficient than wind if you generate it in the appropriate terrain (sloping rivers, etc.),

In a sufficiently large body of water, you could use Tidal Power. That could somewhat fit Factorio too, I suppose.

[XartaX]

Water power is much more efficient than wind if you generate it in the appropriate terrain (sloping rivers, etc.),

In a sufficiently large body of water, you could use Tidal Power. That could somewhat fit Factorio too, I suppose.

I actually don't know that much about tidal power, but it looks like something interesting to look into. There are tons of intersting energy sources out there, though. Another interesting one is geothermal power (especially at the sea floor).

<offtopic>
On a separate note, does anyone wanna play some multiplayer?
</offtopic>

[MalcolmCooks]

Instead of debating how clean/dirty nuclear energy is in REAL LIFE what we should be talking about is how clean/dirty it should be IN FACTORIO if it were implemented

You can even produce liquid fuel from old "spent" fuel and thus use up our current waste. In game terms this would mean you'd have to store spent fuel somewhere while you're still using solid fuel, but as you tech up and get access to liquid fuel technology you could use up what was previously just waste.

Being able to reprocess spent fuel into new fuel would be a great incentive not to just magically destroy your nuclear waste. Perhaps there should be two tiers of reactors, light water reactors that produce lots of waste and pollution, and then at a later tech level breeder reactors which are clean and can use up that waste

Also would it be possible to prevent fuel rods and waste from being kept in the players inventory? Like how some recipes can't be crafted by hand

Giving a new fuel doesn't add much in playability: its again: find a resource, eventualy process it, then bring it to the steam engine. The only difference is you would need less of it. And Factorio is exactly about needing moar.

Steam engines and boilers are quite easy to set up into a working power plant. Nuclear should be complicated, and a challenge to set up an manage. Like, having a building called "nuclear power plant" which you insert fuel and get energy would be boring and not add anything much to the game, but if you had the different components: reactor building, heat exchanges, spent fuel pools and cooling towers, and you had to connect it all together to make a working power plant, then I think it would add a lot.

Actual mined uranium, by the way, is mostly non-fissile. The fissile isotope of Uranium, U-235, only makes up less than 1% of naturally occuring uranium, so you would have to mine a lot of it, and then process it, out of which you would get a small amount of enriched uranium usable as fuel. What is left over is depleted uranium, which could be used for ammunition, armour, nuclear waste storage tanks and even reactor shielding for the second-tier clean reactors.

[bobucles]

Don't forget about the potential of a space layer! Nuclear power is extremely useful when real estate and cargo transfer are limited. You can't be hauling 20 thousand tons of coal into orbit when a few hundred pounds of uranium can do the job.

[XartaX]

Well, a game using real things should accurately represent reality, which is why reality is worth discussing. Of course you can gamify concepts so they're more entertaining, but knowing how things work in real life is the first step to implementing them in a game. Here's a nice summarium of LFTR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk (soundbytes grabbed from loads of different talks, which is why it sounds a bit jagged at some points :p)

Now that's out of the way.

If you're separating nuclear waste from pollution, then LWR doesn't really pollute. It just makes loads of waste. Of course it's also possible it'll go boom. And a breeder reactor simply means a reactor that produces at least as much fissile material as it consumes (so you can just keep throwing fertile material at it, which we have a lot more of compared to fissile material). Many old reactors are also breeder reactors, after all it was a big reason why LFTR early research was scrapped since what they chose could breed the stuff they need for nukes, environmental consequences be damned )

Maybe if you wear a hazmat suit you get a third "toolbelt" (hotkeys) where you can put dangerous materials w/o suffering radiation/damage.

Nuclear really isn't that complicated, though.

Don't forget about the potential of a space layer! Nuclear power is extremely useful when real estate and cargo transfer are limited. You can't be hauling 20 thousand tons of coal into orbit when a few hundred pounds of uranium can do the job.

Well, that's what you got solar for. It's extremely efficient in space.

[chapium]

All these posts saying nuclear energy is clean. Its only clean because we bottle up the waste and send it elsewhere.

Let's please keep that discussion out of these forums. It has no place here. Let's discuss mechanisms for adding new power generation to the game in a way that would make it fun, with some advantages and some drawbacks over the alternatives.

I think you read too much into my post. What I'm saying is a different pollution mechanic could be fun and justified in the theme of the game.

[ssilk]

You can't be hauling 20 thousand tons of coal into orbit ...

...not to mention the then also needed oxygen....

[bigyihsuan]

Why not go back to Factorio's roots and look at Minecraft mods' way of doing nuke power?

Big Reactors' way of doing power is definitely out of the question, since it's just build and go. But it's modular and you can use a huge variety of materials for your reactor.

IndustrialCraft2's nuclear reactor uses a module-based system, where the items in the reactor and their layout are important to keeping the reactor from nuking your base, while generating a huge amount of power along with it.


So I think Factorio's nuclear power should be dirty, but there are ways you can reduce it using various things like modules or coolants.

Modules, in this post, mean reactor components, like heat exchangers, vents, coolants, etc.

If a nuclear reactor gets too hot, it'll start melting down and explode, releasing a gigantic amount of pollution around with it.

If you're in need for tons of power late-game really quickly, you could build a reactor with just the bare minimum (only fuel rods) to make power without the reactor exploding. It'll be absurdly dirty and spew huge amounts of pollution, but it works.

If you can afford the resources, you could take the time to build all the modules, coolants, fuel rods, and so on to make a really efficient, clean, and safe reactor using an interface similar to the power armor's module slots.

And of course, it should be connected to the Circuit Network to allow for remote reactor control.

[Kayser]

The answer is clean.

But it serves no mechanical purpose unless solar energy is nerfed.

[XartaX]

The answer is clean.

But it serves no mechanical purpose unless solar energy is nerfed.

I'd say it does.
1) Much more compact, so you can produce a LOT more energy compared to real estate needed.
2) Some reactors could produce byproducts for weaponry
3) If actual survival ever becomes a thing, you could desalinate saltwater with it

[bobucles]

3) If actual survival ever becomes a thing, you could desalinate saltwater with it

Fresh drinking water needs to be available WAAAAAAAY before nuclear power ever becomes a thing. That won't be useful in a nuclear package except as a way of cleaning dytech industrial water.

[MalcolmCooks]

Solar power should still be nerfed as well, though. I know a lot of people would be unhappy with that, but solar power is so unbalanced with the rest of the game it feels like cheating. I feel like it's only as powerful as it is because there is currently no other second-tier power source.

[XartaX]

Solar power should still be nerfed as well, though. I know a lot of people would be unhappy with that, but solar power is so unbalanced with the rest of the game it feels like cheating. I feel like it's only as powerful as it is because there is currently no other second-tier power source.

I don't think it really needs a nerf. You could make it more tech reliant, though (so early tech solar sucks balls like IRL). An indirect nerf could just be fiddling with the biters, though. As solar uses a lot of real estate, an innate weakness is that you have to defend more ground. And yeah, more alternate energy sources.

[ssilk]

Solar power needs not to be nerfed. There are other ways to do it effectively and with high gain of game-value.

For example: We need just to assume, that the planet we are speaking here is turning around a big gas-gigant (category Jupiter or maybe a brown dwarf).

The resulting solar radiation is then changing with the planet turning around the gas-gigant, cause the gas-gigant reflects the sun on one side and is dark on the other. When the planet comes into the shadow of this gigant (a solar eclipse), it can take a day or so, before he comes out again.

I explained it also a bit as suggestion: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=6181

The one, who then still says "Solar is overpowered" has not used it.

And all we need to implement this is something, that let a modder define the radiation ( https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... e=Game-day ). And maybe more stuff, the wind, the wetness, heat etc. I would call that altogether "weather control". The rest will come with mods and if something is good it is overtaken into the game.

[Boogieman14]

Solar power needs not to be nerfed. There are other ways to do it effectively and with high gain of game-value.

For example: We need just to assume, that the planet we are speaking here is turning around a big gas-gigant (category Jupiter or maybe a brown dwarf).

The resulting solar radiation is then changing with the planet turning around the gas-gigant, cause the gas-gigant reflects the sun on one side and is dark on the other. When the planet comes into the shadow of this gigant (a solar eclipse), it can take a day or so, before he comes out again.

What you're describing here is exactly what a nerf is: reducing the effectiveness of solar power, in this case by making it less reliable. (another way of nerfing would be to reduce the power output overall, but that really adds nothing other than needing more materials and more space - no gameplay fun). I do think nerfing solar power should only be on the table when there's an alternative that doesn't require a constant massive input of materials.

[cpy]

Let's make nuclear energy realistic.
Mining = LOT of pollution (because of huge amount of waste in mining this stuff - yellow cake)
Refining = probably meh
Making Power = probably next to nothing
Problem is we don't have mechanics for storing used fuel rods and you could just shoot wooden chest and items will be gone.

Well, the thing about mining for modern nuclear reactors is that a mine the size of a football field could supply enough thorium to cover all of the worlds energy needs (currently). So no, not that much pollution :p

Thorium sure, but we still use uranium and only have 1 thorium test reactor so depends if you want to have futuristic or current reactor. I still hope for thorium in uranium mod and you could breed it with uranium to fissile state. I hope for the best.

[XartaX]

Let's make nuclear energy realistic.
Mining = LOT of pollution (because of huge amount of waste in mining this stuff - yellow cake)
Refining = probably meh
Making Power = probably next to nothing
Problem is we don't have mechanics for storing used fuel rods and you could just shoot wooden chest and items will be gone.

Well, the thing about mining for modern nuclear reactors is that a mine the size of a football field could supply enough thorium to cover all of the worlds energy needs (currently). So no, not that much pollution :p

Thorium sure, but we still use uranium and only have 1 thorium test reactor so depends if you want to have futuristic or current reactor. I still hope for thorium in uranium mod and you could breed it with uranium to fissile state. I hope for the best.

I mean, you're not wrong here. But I assume the tech potential in Factorio is ahead of our own (uhhh, laser turrets?;) ). That said, if you use MSR technology you'd need to mine a lot less Uranium too, even if you stuck on Uranium tech, since the fuel efficiency is waaay higher.

As for what I want, I wouldn't mind a tech curve where you improve your reactor tech in tiers.

[MalcolmCooks]

Solar power needs not to be nerfed. There are other ways to do it effectively and with high gain of game-value.

For example: We need just to assume, that the planet we are speaking here is turning around a big gas-gigant (category Jupiter or maybe a brown dwarf).

The resulting solar radiation is then changing with the planet turning around the gas-gigant, cause the gas-gigant reflects the sun on one side and is dark on the other. When the planet comes into the shadow of this gigant (a solar eclipse), it can take a day or so, before he comes out again.

I explained it also a bit as suggestion: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=6181

The one, who then still says "Solar is overpowered" has not used it.

Adding weather effects or eclipses like that would probably be the best way to nerf solar power actually - I think the amount of power they produce at full available output is pretty alright. What the problem is in my opinion, is that because of the day/night cycle means that daytime (full brightness) is five times longer than night-time, and the solar panels operate at full efficiency during the day, and keep producing useful amounts of power well into dusk/dawn. I would change that so night is about the same length, the power output from panels drops more quickly during dusk. Add to that variable cloud cover, occasional storms, seasonal variation of day length and even smog from pollution and you can the panels reliability enough to be an effective nerf while adding a lot to the gameplay.