Friday Facts #420 - Fusion Reactor

[GrandMasterB]

First of all, the positive points. The design is once again fantastic! I like the style and I'm excited about a new way to generate electricity. Building nuclear power plants and enriching uranium has always been one of my favorite things to do. Even though the optimal control of chemical production has always been fun as well. But I always wished that there were even more complex mechanics.

Ultimately, I have always wished for a complex control system for the cooling and operation of nuclear power plants and other systems. Chemical reactor cooling is necessary for many exothermic reactions. And this heat could be used elsewhere. I would have really liked the addon to focus on efficiency optimization and cooling of chemical or physical systems. Instead of getting more of the same old puzzles, most of which we already know from mods.

A real new mechanic would be a coolant circuit with liquids of different temperatures. I can understand that phase changes are considered as two media. Two-phase flow simulation is very complex. But water or other coolants that change their temperature from inlet to outlet as they pass through a machine, that would be an upgrade!

The following things would then be possible:

• Optimizing mixing temperatures would be an interesting challenge.

• Waste heat usage would be exciting!

• Increasing efficiency by setting the optimum reactor temperature would be exciting!

• Nuclear and chemical reactor disasters in the event of overheating, would be fantastic!

I would also have liked the following:

• A fluid system with real conditions with pressure and temperature. So that pipes can burst or overheat.

• A mixed temperature is calculated at junctions.

• Recooling systems that cost a lot of electricity (dry cooling tower)

• Recooling systems that use less electricity but also consume/evaporate a lot of water (wet cooling tower).

• Or a simple water cooling system in which water is heated.

Instead, I get more and more of the same puzzles without any new mechanics. Even the neighbor potentiation system is the same mechanic with different numbers and different puzzle pieces.

As with the quality, the game is not expanded with new mechanics, there are simply many new variations of the same mechanics.

[Kilumanjaro]

Since we are going with toroidal plasma generation, any chance for the rather bland and uninterestingly named "Fusion Reactor" to be a Tokamak in game?
Let's pay some respect (of homage if you will) to the irl people actually working towards this reality.

[T.Shirt]

The Fuel Cells for the fusion reactor are Blue. The reactor glows Pink. So if the reactor blows up is there a gender reveal party or something?

[T.Shirt]

can we get a line-art mod looks like an old sci-fi film

This! I want to see what this looks like.

[LZZ]

Can´t wait for the evaporation tower.

But evaporation towers require air so they won't work in space. I guess in space cooling down must be done by emitting infrared light, since vacuum does not conduct heat. On the other hand, having a infrared cooling system on atmosphere seems stupid, so my guess is that we're going to have two options for cooling.

Also evaporation towers must be high and large so they're going to be a challenge to add without blocking the user from view. It would also be very strange to put them in a hole, because it would hurt the airflow.

[FasterJump]

How much more power can fusion generate? Let's compare it with Fission.

Base power: fission 40MW, fusion 100MW
Number of average adjacent reactors in ideal (near-infinite) setup: fission 3(+300%), fusion 4 (+400%)
Average energy generated per reactor: fission 160MW, fusion 500MW
Energy necessary to produce/transform inputs: very low for fission, unknown for fusion (I also expect a production chain larger than uranium power cell).

In term of size:
The fusion reactors are larger than the fission reactors, but the generators seems to take less space than the turbines (and doesn't need fluid storage tanks). I imagine that for the same number of reactors, a fusion setup would use about 20% less space than the fission setup, but produce 3.125 times (or +212.5%) more power. In term of footprint, that would be roughly 4 times more efficient.

Edit: corrected errors

[WitcherThe]

I daresay that 1-3 millions temperature is very cold for fusion reaction to accur. For industrial reactor it should be 100+ MK. At least for D-T fuel, although we don't know what "power cell" consists of...

[Lord Bumbleton]

The Fuel Cells for the fusion reactor are Blue. The reactor glows Pink. So if the reactor blows up is there a gender reveal party or something?

That’s how all the new genders were made.

[ombus]

Also forgot.. if the fusion power cell is that with the blue color.. i guess the ammo we saw on the space age logo photo is some kind of fusion ammo ?

[BrainGamer_]

Base power: fusion 40MW, fission 100MW
Number of average adjacent reactors in ideal (near-infinite) setup: fusion 3(+300%), fission 4 (+400%)
Average energy generated per reactor: fission 160MW, fusion 500MW

You mixed up fusion and fission in a couple places here

Base power: fission 40MW, fusion 100MW
Maximum usable neighbour bonus: fission +300%, fusion +500%
Average energy per reactor: fission: 160MW, fusion ?? not really sure what layouts would allow for max but getting higher than +300% neighbour bonus on average should certainly be doable (so above 400MW per reactor)

In term of size:
The fission reactors are larger than the fusion reactors, but the generators seems to take less space than the turbines (and doesn't need fluid storage tanks). I imagine that for the same number of reactors, a fusion setup would use about 20% less space than the fission setup, but produce 3.125 times (or +212.5%) more power. In term of footprint, that would be roughly 4 times more efficient.

Again mixed up fusion and fission. Fission reactors are 5x5 (25 tiles) while fusion reactors are 6x6 (36 tiles).
Fusion generators and steam turbines are the exact same size (3x5, 15 tiles) but fusion generators have a way higher power density (~8.6x).
Fission doesn't require fluid storage tanks at all but it does require 16 heat exchangers (2x3, 6 tiles) per reactor (160MW average).

So accounting for heat exchangers and turbines a fission plant needs ~535 tiles per reactor for 160MW of power (only counting reactor, heat exchangers and turbines) -> ~3.34 tiles / MW
Meanwhile a fusion plant needs 256 tiles per reactor for 400MW of power (this assumes that the cooling building (5x5, 25 tiles) can process 100MW worth of coolant) -> 0.64 tiles / MW
=> a fusion setup is ~5.22x more power dense than a fission setup

[CPU_BlackHeart]

Very happy to see an official Fusion Reactor, been going to mods for something like this quite a good bit, but it did always strike me as odd that we don't have a different early-mid game power source. Sure solar is a thing, but solar requires a lot of space and if you're using something like Rampant or doing a challenge run with 800% Biters/Base, you're not going to have a lot of space to work with. It also always struck me as odd that we immediately move from burning coal in boilers to nuclear power.

Why not also officially add some other environmentally friendly power generation like hydro or wind, same as solar, requires a ton of space to maintain and be productive. But more importantly, Oil, Light Oil and Heavy Oil. Heavy Oil has its use in making Lubricant, but perhaps another boiler could be added that uses liquid Light Oil to provide stronger power generation as a sort of medium between Coal and Nuclear? Oil is quite an important thing in the midgame of Factorio and it'd be nice to more uses of the Light/Heavy products and power generation is the most obvious thing.

[Koub]

The fusion is such a big step up I kinda regret the reactor in action isn't a bit more spectacular. Would be even more unrealistic, of course, but realism is not the main driver for me playing Factorio .
Also mostly older people will remember this :

best fusion ever

fusion.gif (6.45 MiB) Viewed 2214 times

[gGeorg]

Also forgot.. if the fusion power cell is that with the blue color.. i guess the ammo we saw on the space age logo photo is some kind of fusion ammo ?

I bet my dinner its wolfram ammo.

[Terrahertz]

Also forgot.. if the fusion power cell is that with the blue color.. i guess the ammo we saw on the space age logo photo is some kind of fusion ammo ?

I bet my dinner its wolfram ammo.

Tungsten, Wolfram is the german name for that element in English it's tungsten, I believe after the swedish tung sten (heavy stone).
The german name goes back to it's discovery, it was eating into tin ores like a wolf, making them harder to process.

[Splitframe]

Since we are going with toroidal plasma generation, any chance for the rather bland and uninterestingly named "Fusion Reactor" to be a Tokamak in game?
Let's pay some respect (of homage if you will) to the irl people actually working towards this reality.

+1 to including Tokamak somewhere in the name or description.

[Sliverious]

Very interesting FFF! Fusion seems like an interesting new challenge. An often heard complaint about the old nuclear reactor setups was the huge UPS drain (albeit due to fluid updates that should be fixed in 2.0), how do these new reactors perform? What kind of UPS is to be expected from the 1.4TW setup in the FFF?

The fusion is such a big step up I kinda regret the reactor in action isn't a bit more spectacular. Would be even more unrealistic, of course, but realism is not the main driver for me playing Factorio .
Also mostly older people will remember this :

best fusion ever

fusion.gif

The question then becomes, gogeta or vegito?

[Toastinator]

SO COOL! I'm Excited to check this out!

I could be wrong, but once you see this, you cant UNSEE it. Shouldn't all of the Fusion Generators Rotate the Same Direction With Respect to their Rotation?

For example: Fusion Generators Facing North/South or East/West of their Fusion Reactor, should have Opposite Rotation. In the FFF, it looks like all the Vertical and Horizontal Generators are Rotating the Same Direction. Like they are Tied together with a Drive Shaft. Since they are not Visually Tied together in that way. Once Rotated, The Rotation should be Opposite.

I could be WAY wrong. Just a thought! Anyways, Keep up the good work! 10/21/2024 Cannot come fast enough!

[CyberCider]

But more importantly, Oil, Light Oil and Heavy Oil. Heavy Oil has its use in making Lubricant, but perhaps another boiler could be added that uses liquid Light Oil to provide stronger power generation as a sort of medium between Coal and Nuclear? Oil is quite an important thing in the midgame of Factorio and it'd be nice to more uses of the Light/Heavy products and power generation is the most obvious thing.

Did you really forget solid fuel

[X3KJ]

Did you really forget solid fuel

Solid fuel feels more like a step child and unnecessary overhead, considering oil can burn by itself. I like the Power generation mechanic in the game "Captains of Industry", where there is a boiler for solid matter (coal, wood, ...) and for fluids (light and heavy oil and hydrogen). Hydrogen, NH3 and Fertilizer production chain is what i would like to see for factorio too (after all, we will be farmers on Gleba soon^^).

[MeduSalem]

Did you really forget solid fuel

Solid fuel feels more like a step child and unnecessary overhead, considering oil can burn by itself. I like the Power generation mechanic in the game "Captains of Industry", where there is a boiler for solid matter (coal, wood, ...) and for fluids (light and heavy oil and hydrogen). Hydrogen, NH3 and Fertilizer production chain is what i would like to see for factorio too (after all, we will be farmers on Gleba soon^^).

I would have replaced Solid Fuel with a Diesel recipe that can be distilled from the other things a long time ago.

But I think one issue is locomotives which don't support fluid input.