Nuclear ideas (Thorium and others)

[BlackMoon]

Interesting, learn something new every day. So it isn't exactly that they are using the nuclear reaction as fuel, but as a method to superheat something else (looks like hydrogen). I knew about space based nuclear engines (both thermal and electric), but didn't know they ever considered them for atmospheric use. In this case, radiation in space, go!

There is no 'atmospheric nuclear rocket engine', the nerva is for space use only, AFAIK it does still not have enough TWR.

However. there IS a tested Nuclear *JET* engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_ ... Propulsion
Using nuclear reactor to heat the air instead of kerosene.

the idea was to have aircraft that could fly around for months at a time, so they could be always ready.. it was cancelled when missiles got better, but they did prove it actually would work before it got canceled.

[cpy]

Too low TWR unusable.
Try project orion

[NewSwiss]

Too low TWR unusable.
Try project orion

That may be true for the first stage, but nuclear rockets would be AMAZING for second stages. With a nuclear second stage, you wouldn't need a third stage.

[iamwyza]

Too low TWR unusable.
Try project orion

That may be true for the first stage, but nuclear rockets would be AMAZING for second stages. With a nuclear second stage, you wouldn't need a third stage.

There is that pesky minor bit that in the event of catastrophic failure you get to spread radioactive material all over the place, but hey, what do we care? We're building a factory purely to strip the planet bare right?

[bobingabout]

Even after all these sugestions, I still haven't decided what I should do with Thorium.

[T2k3]

Even after all these sugestions, I still haven't decided what I should do with Thorium.

How about a "bob's nuclear"-mod so we can go to play-testing instead of idea-crunching? I'm kinda eager to get rid of the "korvax enrichment process" in favor of something more balanced.

[Light]

Even after all these sugestions, I still haven't decided what I should do with Thorium.

Sounds like a classic case of "I shouldn't add it just because I can", especially since other mods handle nuclear material with a clear goal in mind.

The concept I was hoping for was nicely done with GotLag's mod, which removed enrichment and has recycling take center stage. However, the real interesting moment will be when Fatmice gets his wonderful nuclear mod back into action, which will involve many stages of high end power.

So yeah, I don't think there's any reason to really pursue this when others got it covered.

[T2k3]

Even after all these sugestions, I still haven't decided what I should do with Thorium.

Sounds like a classic case of "I shouldn't add it just because I can", especially since other mods handle nuclear material with a clear goal in mind.

The concept I was hoping for was nicely done with GotLag's mod, which removed enrichment and has recycling take center stage. However, the real interesting moment will be when Fatmice gets his wonderful nuclear mod back into action, which will involve many stages of high end power.

So yeah, I don't think there's any reason to really pursue this when others got it covered.

That would still leave the question what bob should do with Thorium. Given your view it either has to vanish or be converted in some process to uranium.

[bobingabout]

Well, although Thorium is in the files, it isn't enabled by default, and bobplates doesn't turn it on either, so right now you only have it if you manually turn it on.
In theory I can just leave it as it is right now, and it wouldn't effect many people. Then when someone like gotlag (Who uses my ores mod AFAIK) comes along, they can turn it on and use it themselves.

What I'm saying is, maybe I should just leave it for 3rd party modders to use for now.

What I am interested in more right now though is what I could do with fusion reactors. Right now you just build them from electronic circuits and they generate infinite power. I don't think there's anything I can do about the infinite power part, but I could make them more complex to construct. Thorium doesn't work well with fusion though, it's a fission fuel.

Also I'm interested in how these solid state nuclear reactors work, I just don't know what to search for.

[T2k3]

Well, although Thorium is in the files, it isn't enabled by default, and bobplates doesn't turn it on either, so right now you only have it if you manually turn it on.
In theory I can just leave it as it is right now, and it wouldn't effect many people. Then when someone like gotlag (Who uses my ores mod AFAIK) comes along, they can turn it on and use it themselves.

What I'm saying is, maybe I should just leave it for 3rd party modders to use for now.

What I am interested in more right now though is what I could do with fusion reactors. Right now you just build them from electronic circuits and they generate infinite power. I don't think there's anything I can do about the infinite power part, but I could make them more complex to construct. Thorium doesn't work well with fusion though, it's a fission fuel.

Also I'm interested in how these solid state nuclear reactors work, I just don't know what to search for.

Hmm i totally forgot that thorium is disabled by default. Guess since i want to get rid of the korvax process i'll get his mod for this and hope he'll incooperate Thorium some day.

For the fusion part, IIRC you need a mixture of ³H and ²H aka tritium and deuterium. That could be and angle for more complexity or you could use the heatshields (lots of em) or massive amounts of insulated wire and steel to increase the cost of building a fusion reactor.

In regards to solid state nuclear fusion or SSNF the best angle would be to take a look in LENR (http://lenr-canr.org/). For a short overview what that whole thing is about, this article here helped me: (PDF).

[BlackMoon]

Id still like a thorium nuclear fuel cell. Maybe has a different fuel value to complicate reactor management.

Id love to see alien artifacts become part of said fuel cell recipe too. Fueled by the blood of my enemies!

[bobingabout]

Okay, under the assumption that I don't want to add any additional entities (factories, reactors etc) specifically for thorium, so we're just talking about adding recipes and items to existing factories...
Anyone have any sugestions for the processing chain?

One of the changes I was thinking of doing was to add an empty fuel container for the nuclear fuel, so when you process the spent fuel cells, you get the container back to use in the next fuel cell, instead of using up iron in the process.

Also you could get other useful materials back, perhaps simulating the breeder properties inside the normal reactor, getting useful materials back from processing spent cells taken out of the reactor.

Then add other process steps, like getting plutonium from spent uranium cells for use in weapons?

I dunno what the tree should be right now, I'm just thinking up ideas based on the direction I want to try and take this.

EDIT:
Make Plutonium 238 by bombarding uranium 238 with a deuteron, a Deuterium nucleus. I wouldn't mind adding a Deuterium mining option, which itself can be used as a nuclear fusion fuel... how do you separate heavy water (Deuterium oxide) into deuterium and oxygen? Electrolysis perhaps?

[cpy]

Ok so here's the thing. Maybe instead of regular reactor fuel. {"iron-plate", 10}, {"uranium-235", 1}, {"uranium-238", 19} you use 238 9x and thorium 10x you get thorium enriched fuel cell. Resulted burned up fuel will not be regular used up cell but new thorium bred fuel. That would contain 10 uranium-233 for reality sake or just U235 since U235 have 83.14 TJ/kg and U233 81.95 TJ/kg we can assume they are pretty much same. So thorium can be breeding fuel for your reactor for abundant U235 source or 233 depends if you want new item. Basically fuel.

Second option plutonium breeding. The key to plutonium breeding is to keep rods in reactor for a short time so you wont burn up created plutonium. So again almost same recipe as regular fuel cell but {"iron-plate", 10}, {"uranium-235", 2}, {"uranium-238", 19} more uranium for higher temperatures and only 1GJ of power instead of 8 that normal one have so it will be 8-16x shorter lasting fuel that cost more U235. Resulting waste should give 1 U235 and 1 PU239.

With PU239 you have ammo that have 5x lower critical mass for chain reaction and you can create your nuke. NOT SO FAST!
The irradiated fuel is first dissolved in nitric acid at a concentration.An organic solvent composed of 30% tributyl phosphate (TBP) in a hydrocarbon solvent, such as kerosene, is used to extract the uranium as UO2(NO3)2·2TBP. So yeah it's PUREX.

We can simplify it to just nitric acid i guess.

Plutonium energy 83.61 TJ/kg so almost exactly as U235 but it's easier to go boom so there's that.

[buggy123]

With PU239 you have ammo that have 5x lower critical mass for chain reaction and you can create your nuke.

While we could just change the normal nuke recipe, i think it would be better to make a improved nuke. We have better guns, better ammo, better tanks, etc. Compared to a souped up MK3 tank, nukes start to look a little lackluster... I'm not even sure if they can kill gargantuan biters/spitters.

IMO a nuclear artillery shell would be the best option, since escaping the blast radius is already a issue with normal nukes, tanks are faster unless you have a lot of exoskeletons, and the artillery gun has a long range. Also it just seems like a more logical conclusion. Normal rocket>explosive/elemental rockets>nuclear rockets, poison artillery shell>explosive artillery shell>nuclear artillery shell.

[loganb]

Make Plutonium 238 by bombarding uranium 238 with a deuteron, a Deuterium nucleus. I wouldn't mind adding a Deuterium mining option, which itself can be used as a nuclear fusion fuel... how do you separate heavy water (Deuterium oxide) into deuterium and oxygen? Electrolysis perhaps?

In the real world, Deuterium is 1 in 6400 with normal Hydrogen. You'd do separation of water into H2O and HDO (at a rate of 1 HDO per 3200 H2O), taking advantage of the fact that the Deuterium is heavier and the Deuterated water moves slower. A chemical plant or centrifuge would thematically be the best buildings for that.

Then, to recover the Deuterium, you'd electrolyze the Deuterated Water, getting equal parts Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Deuterium. Finally, if you wanted "heavy water" for a reactor, you'd recombine the deuterium gas and oxygen in a 2:1 ratio to make D2O.

Code: Select all

Water ---(Chemical Plant or Centrifuge)----> Deuterated Water (1%) --Electrolysis--> Deuterium Gas (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Hydrogen Gas  (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Oxygen Gas    (33%)
                                       ----> Waste Water (99%)

[buggy123]

Make Plutonium 238 by bombarding uranium 238 with a deuteron, a Deuterium nucleus. I wouldn't mind adding a Deuterium mining option, which itself can be used as a nuclear fusion fuel... how do you separate heavy water (Deuterium oxide) into deuterium and oxygen? Electrolysis perhaps?

In the real world, Deuterium is 1 in 6400 with normal Hydrogen. You'd do separation of water into H2O and HDO (at a rate of 1 HDO per 3200 H2O), taking advantage of the fact that the Deuterium is heavier and the Deuterated water moves slower. A chemical plant or centrifuge would thematically be the best buildings for that.

Then, to recover the Deuterium, you'd electrolyze the Deuterated Water, getting equal parts Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Deuterium. Finally, if you wanted "heavy water" for a reactor, you'd recombine the deuterium gas and oxygen in a 2:1 ratio to make D2O.

Code: Select all

Water ---(Chemical Plant or Centrifuge)----> Deuterated Water (1%) --Electrolysis--> Deuterium Gas (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Hydrogen Gas  (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Oxygen Gas    (33%)
                                       ----> Waste Water (99%)

Wouldn't you get 66% deuterium gas and 33% oxygen? 100% pure heavy water is D2O, a mixture with 50% deuterium and 50% hydrogen would be semiheavy water.

[loganb]

Make Plutonium 238 by bombarding uranium 238 with a deuteron, a Deuterium nucleus. I wouldn't mind adding a Deuterium mining option, which itself can be used as a nuclear fusion fuel... how do you separate heavy water (Deuterium oxide) into deuterium and oxygen? Electrolysis perhaps?

In the real world, Deuterium is 1 in 6400 with normal Hydrogen. You'd do separation of water into H2O and HDO (at a rate of 1 HDO per 3200 H2O), taking advantage of the fact that the Deuterium is heavier and the Deuterated water moves slower. A chemical plant or centrifuge would thematically be the best buildings for that.

Then, to recover the Deuterium, you'd electrolyze the Deuterated Water, getting equal parts Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Deuterium. Finally, if you wanted "heavy water" for a reactor, you'd recombine the deuterium gas and oxygen in a 2:1 ratio to make D2O.

Code: Select all

Water ---(Chemical Plant or Centrifuge)----> Deuterated Water (1%) --Electrolysis--> Deuterium Gas (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Hydrogen Gas  (33%)
                                                                   ----------------> Oxygen Gas    (33%)
                                       ----> Waste Water (99%)

Wouldn't you get 66% deuterium gas and 33% oxygen? 100% pure heavy water is D2O, a mixture with 50% deuterium and 50% hydrogen would be semiheavy water.

The Deuterated Water is going to be basically 100% HDO, not D2O, since the probability that both Hydrogens are Deuterium is 1/3200^2 or 1 : 10,240,000. Thus your outputs are 1 part Hydrogen, 1 part Deuterium, 1 part Oxygen for every electrolysis.

Also, I read a little more and realized that the most common separation process is Girdier Sulfide process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdler_sulfide_process) which uses Hydrogen Sulfide Gas. So the chain could be extended to require Sulfuric Acid and Hydrogen Gas be mixed to create Hydrogen Sulfide Gas, a small amount of which would be consumed for the production of each Deuterated Water.

[bobingabout]

I would most likely go with a chemical plant (centrifuge has no fluid pipes) to split Water into water and heavy water (HDO), the problem is... do we still have the water come back out the other output? if so, what water is it? can someone just loop it back to make heavy water again?

Then the problem with electrolysis is that the machine only has 2 outputs. then again there is only 2 electrodes in the tank, so it makes sense that you'd have oxygen connect at one end, and a hydrogen deuterium mix at the other. (most likely a DH molecule, but there could be some D2 and H2s in there too), the problem then becomes, how do you separate the Deuterium from the Hydrogen when they're both gasses?

Or do we go through some other step to force a D2O fluid before electrolysis?

[T2k3]

I would most likely go with a chemical plant (centrifuge has no fluid pipes) to split Water into water and heavy water (HDO), the problem is... do we still have the water come back out the other output? if so, what water is it? can someone just loop it back to make heavy water again?

Then the problem with electrolysis is that the machine only has 2 outputs. then again there is only 2 electrodes in the tank, so it makes sense that you'd have oxygen connect at one end, and a hydrogen deuterium mix at the other. (most likely a DH molecule, but there could be some D2 and H2s in there too), the problem then becomes, how do you separate the Deuterium from the Hydrogen when they're both gasses?

Or do we go through some other step to force a D2O fluid before electrolysis?

for the loop part, why not? i mean the coal liquefaction process in the game allows that as well. That said, maybe here would be a place for pure Water (water in, pure water out).

For the "missing outputs problem", i think a separation step is the best option:

1. chem plant: water -> heavy water + (pure) water
2. electrolysis plant: heavy water -> oxygen + deuterium-hydrogen-gas-mixture
3. chem plant: deuterium-hydrogen-gas-mixture -> deuterium-gas + hydrogen

(is a bit sad that there is no gfx for a centrifuge with piping)

[loganb]

The depleted water should not be recyclable, I was going to suggest "mineral water" but then realized that's an Angel's thing. There should be a concept of a wastewater that isn't useful for anything.

To be more precise, the steps would be:

- Sulfide process that consumes water and small amounts of Hydrogen Sulfide, outputs depleted water and Enriched Water (HDO)
- Fractional Distilation where the inputs are heat and Enriched Water, and the output is Deuterated Water and depleted water
- Electrolysis where the hydrogen electrolytes preferentially, leaving D2O and Hydrogen Gas