Nuclear, at present, consumes too many UPS to be used late game. My idea was to make a massive building (secondary containment) which would ideally function no different than the reactors today (IE: uses fuel at a fixed rate, takes fuel in, outputs depleted fuel, so using a factory as a base template would be easy). The catch is that secondary containment would, depending on its level, have either 3, 4, or 5 module slots.
- Module slot 1 would only hold 'reactor pressure vessel' modules. These would affect the type of fuel needed (fuel rod bundles or liquid fuel) and maximum temperature.
- Module slot 2 would only hold 'heat exchanger' modules. These would affect maximum (inlet) temperature and thermal efficiency. IE: 1GWth in may only yield 800MWth out.
- Module slots 3-5 would hold turbines. Slot 3 would always be the 'High Pressure turbine'. Module slot 4 would be 'intermediate pressure turbine', and module slot 5 would be 'low pressure turbine'. Each turbine would determine how efficient the thermal to electrical energy conversion was. IE, if the heat exchanger gives you 800MWth, and your turbines total to be 45% efficient (maximum possible, ever), then you'd get 360MWe to the grid.
Alternatively, if you can understand what I'm trying to do and see a better way to do it, let me know. My core idea is to get nuclear down to using a minimum of UPS (0 or near 0, similar to solar) and yet maintain a material and build complexity that still maintains some challenge.
In my model the UPS gain is because nothing is being heated. There is no heat transfer, just heat math. There is no water or steam being moved around, we hand-wave that away with module slots. These changes remove the majority of the UPS hit. Besides, most (real) reactors are closed-loop anyway. The offshore pumps we use in current nuclear only condense the steam in the power loop back into water, and such a heatsink isn't, strictly speaking, needed. You could do it entirely closed loop with air, if you didn't mind the safety hit. And my idea is that we don't care...given how much we pollute anyway. :p
