Friday Facts #164 - Nuclear power

[kovarex]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-164

[Deadly-Bagel]

soon

Aw, got me all excited for a moment there lol

[AgentDove]

just remember to keep the first power system that player builds simple.

[Optera]

I like how it looks like you cherry picked between Reactors and Uranium Power and garnished it with great own ideas, connecting reactors to add more efficiency.

[Edvard12356]

well uuh nuclear reactors (modern ones) don't really do a "big" explosion when stuff goes really wrong (like a meltdown).
maybe do it so that if stuff goes really wrong it will do a medium explosion and make so that the aria can't be accessed without proper equipment (like a powerarmor with some kind of anti-radiatorn thing).

or you can say that it is just a un-optimized "prototype" reactor.

i would also like some other ways that heated water can be used other than just running steam engines.


-The Mighty Spoon

[Redstylt]

Hello !
So impatient for the update 0.15
A little disappointed that it's only in 3 months: '(

About nuclear power, I do not think I've seen you talk about uranium? Will there be a new ore?

A leak of the visual of a reactor? ^^

Have a good day

[saturn7]

Heat transfer by train. Awesome!

Some wrong signals, and the whole factory explodes oO

[aka13]

Oh my god, its only getting better and better! New content AND optimisations AND better graphics! Truly, you guys are the shining example of how early access should work!

[DaveMcW]

well uuh nuclear reactors (modern ones) don't really do a "big" explosion when stuff goes really wrong (like a meltdown).
maybe do it so that if stuff goes really wrong it will do a medium explosion and make so that the aria can't be accessed without proper equipment

Chernobyl: steam explosion (the biggest explosion ever was also a steam explosion)
Fukushima: hydrogen explosion (they can also be quite big).

[clusterfack]

I was even considering adding option that is not realistic (at least with the current technology), but it could add a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities. Imagine that you could store the heat in some kind of item. Maybe some kind of special metal with huge heat capacity. That would mean, that you could use the logistics to transfer the heat from the central reactor place even faster using our logistics possibilities. I like the idea that the biggest possible reactor could be only done by having high capacity train stations all around transferring the heat away in a huge quantities.

I suggest the dev team watches the anime movie Steamboy.

[Proxy]

1. Mb = Megabit, MB = MegaByte

2. Why Reactor Explosions?
Reactors in RL are build in a Way that prevents any kind of Explosion in a Critical Situation.
the worse that can happen is that the Rods will Melt together into a Blob and will Destory all Normal Biological Life around it for a Long time.
The Only way a Reactor can Actually Blow up, is when it is Heavly Damaged, so that the Normal Safety Mechanisms can't work... or a Human f**cks it up.

Using the Reactors basically as a Advanced Boiler to make Steam is a Great idea. better than BigReactors with it's Reactors that simply use Fuel to make Waste and power... no Steam or anything Required.

and this Brings me back to RTGs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisot ... _generator)... which are basically Generators that will make Constant Low Power for a quite some time.

[Diablo]

We are just trying to force easy to learn hard to master again.

Usually when developers start to try and force a certain type of gameplay/gametype. It doesn't end well.

Please don't force circuit play, most people have trouble understanding the "normal" function of these items anyway, let alone you're going to attach it to a system that could potentially do something that has not been in the game before, explode when making a (potential) small mistake. (or even just not paying attention for awhile.)
Now I realize that things can blow up atm but usually this is not due to a player just playing the game.

And I can hear the protests already: "yes, but you don't have to use it..."
If it's there people will always try and use it.

I kinda like the complexity of having to use cooling towers and having to work for efficiency, but what is stopping people from just building the one reactor setup that works and just copying that design over and over again in different locations.
It would seem to me that you can never completely negate that type of gameplay. (it's not like you would ever run out of space to build.)

About the boilers though, will they now have a "direction" and in you example nothing is attached to "heated water" end, will this block steam production like in chemical plants where when a fluid can not be output the proces stops?
It all feels a little convoluted for the sake of itself.

Very curious how this will effect the player base and new players who have not had hundreds or even thousands of hours of play experience.

[ZEKE]

RTGs would be a great way to keep your factory alive if your nuclear plant goes down, or when your base just needs a spark to start the power production again. There would have to be a downside though, such as it being really expensive to make sure that people don't power their entire factories with just RTGs

[MnHebi]

I wouldn't enforce circuit play by default. I would require it for maximum output. So inexperienced people can make nuclear power, but they get less bang for the buck.

[HammerPiano]

so much hype :DDDDD
best. game. ever <3

[Proxy]

RTGs would be a great way to keep your factory alive if your nuclear plant goes down, or when your base just needs a spark to start the power production again. There would have to be a downside though, such as it being really expensive to make sure that people don't power their entire factories with just RTGs

dammit

keep in Mind that (in RL) RTGs are Low Power Generators.
they are mostly used in Space Crafts, like the Voyager 1. (not in Things with Humans around, because of the Radiation and Heat...)
and the power output depens on the Fuel.
Pu-238 with a Half Life of ~87 Years Produces a Constant Stream of 0.54 Watt per Gram for ~87 Years (after 87 Years, it would be Half that Power, and so on).
it would also Depend on the Temperature around it...
as a RTG in Cold Space makes more Power than inside a Smoky Hot Factory, Because of the Higher Temperature Difference.

this would Require the Reactors in Factorio to Throw out Waste (depening on the Fuel) as byproduct.
and one way to make this would be to make a RTG Vessel, and fill it with a RTG Fuel which would get used up like Science packs, no matter if the Power is needed or not.
an Example would be a "Pu-238 RTG pellet" which would hold ~87 Ingame Years, and something like crafting 2 of them together to get a Pack of RTG Pellets, which last the same amount of Time, but Double the Power output.

i got overwhelmed by my Love for Nuclear Science again...

[Albert]

I suggest the dev team watches the anime movie Steamboy.

we did : )
and anything from Katsuhiro Otomo

[psihius]

@kovarex

I was even considering adding option that is not realistic (at least with the current technology), but it could add a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities. Imagine that you could store the heat in some kind of item. Maybe some kind of special metal with huge heat capacity. That would mean, that you could use the logistics to transfer the heat from the central reactor place even faster using our logistics possibilities. I like the idea that the biggest possible reactor could be only done by having high capacity train stations all around transferring the heat away in a huge quantities.

I'm glad to say that you are wrong on this one - the thing you are talking about not just exists, but actually is used in real world to power solar power stations through the night Ste stuff is molten salt.

http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technolo ... gy-storage
http://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-towers ... ame-91721/
And so on. You need to scour for the info, but there are actually quite a few in operation already all over the world.
And there are a lot of nuclear reactors that use the same stuff to transfer heat from the internal loop to external loop to heat water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage

Molten salt technology

Molten salt can be employed as a thermal energy storage method to retain thermal energy collected by a solar tower or solar trough of a concentrated solar power plant, so that it can be used to generate electricity in bad weather or at night. It was demonstrated in the Solar Two project from 1995-1999. The system is predicted to have an annual efficiency of 99%, a reference to the energy retained by storing heat before turning it into electricity, versus converting heat directly into electricity.[13][14][15] The molten salt mixtures vary. The most extended mixture contains sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate. It is non-flammable and nontoxic, and has already been used in the chemical and metals industries as a heat-transport fluid, so experience with such systems exists in non-solar applications.

The salt melts at 131 °C (268 °F). It is kept liquid at 288 °C (550 °F) in an insulated "cold" storage tank. The liquid salt is pumped through panels in a solar collector where the focused sun heats it to 566 °C (1,051 °F). It is then sent to a hot storage tank. This is so well insulated that the thermal energy can be usefully stored for up to a week.[16]

When electricity is needed, the hot salt is pumped to a conventional steam-generator to produce superheated steam for a turbine/generator as used in any conventional coal, oil, or nuclear power plant. A 100-megawatt turbine would need a tank of about 9.1 metres (30 ft) tall and 24 metres (79 ft) in diameter to drive it for four hours by this design.

Several parabolic trough power plants in Spain[17] and solar power tower developer SolarReserve use this thermal energy storage concept. The Solana Generating Station in the U.S. has 6 hours of storage by molten salt.

[kovarex]

just remember to keep the first power system that player builds simple.

It stays almost the same, this is what the two screenshot with the basic setups were about.

[y.petremann]

well uuh nuclear reactors (modern ones) don't really do a "big" explosion when stuff goes really wrong (like a meltdown).
maybe do it so that if stuff goes really wrong it will do a medium explosion and make so that the aria can't be accessed without proper equipment (like a powerarmor with some kind of anti-radiatorn thing).

or you can say that it is just a un-optimized "prototype" reactor.

i would also like some other ways that heated water can be used other than just running steam engines.


-The Mighty Spoon

The reactor is done by one man, everything he make is like a prototype to use directly ...