Yeah. But the cost of a SC treefarm, fermenter, a handful of biogas engines, two stills and a max size LP boiler is low too. With GT installed, the steel is likewise of minimal concern for the turbine. And that system can be extended to also produce MJ trivially. Superior in many ways, but takes more space so...
nuclear reactor vs matter fabricator
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Yeah. But the cost of a SC treefarm, fermenter, a handful of biogas engines, two stills and a max size LP boiler is low too. With GT installed, the steel is likewise of minimal concern for the turbine. And that system can be extended to also produce MJ trivially. Superior in many ways, but takes more space so...
Assuming Railcraft is installed, and since turbines were brought up that seems evident, steel is no harder or easier with or without GregTech. In fact, because the GT blast furnace cannot use charcoal for steel production and demands coal, I've yet to make a single steel piece with it and instead continue to use the Railcraft furnace.
Nukes, at base config, are completely inferior to most other options but that's not why people don't use them. They don't use them because people are lazy and nuclear power is complicated. Even modifying the config to increase the EU potential 100 fold (meaning 30000+ EU/t safely with a Mark I) would leave most people still using solar.
At base config though, they're complicated _and_ inferior by every metric.
I thought only Mark I and Mark II reactors had this problem. Are you saying Mk3 and higher also have that problem?
The absolute technical maximum capability of IC2 reactors is efficiency 7. A MarkI, 4 quad uranium efficiency 4 reactor reaches 320EU/t so unless there's some design with more than 4 quads (or uses GT Plutonium) the maximum output will be 560EU/t. Or to rephrase: "Just barely better than a one block magic solar box". And even then, both the fuel and the copper involved in making it quad cells would make it less desirable.
The update scheduled for 1.5 is supposed to refactor nukes, again, and raise that efficiency cap but that's not yet.
Why is efficiency an issue? IMO Nuclear reactors are super-efficient right now, and that's part of the problem. The other part is the very low EU/t output compared to the setup cost.
What I would like to see is a wasteful way of running your nuclear reactor, using lots of uranium an thorium, but making tons of EU/t. That way you could justify the high setup cost of the reactor, and you could make use of all that fuel that you get anyways, but can't use because right now you'd need dozens of reactors to keep up with a single quarry.
Obviously this is with the Gregtech matterfab in mind... In a vanilla IC2 enviroment nuclear power is probably OK... maybe uranium spawning could use a little nerf...
What I would like to see is a wasteful way of running your nuclear reactor, using lots of uranium an thorium, but making tons of EU/t. That way you could justify the high setup cost of the reactor, and you could make use of all that fuel that you get anyways, but can't use because right now you'd need dozens of reactors to keep up with a single quarry.
Obviously this is with the Gregtech matterfab in mind... In a vanilla IC2 enviroment nuclear power is probably OK... maybe uranium spawning could use a little nerf...
Logically, there shouldn't be any sort of "wasteful" way because nuclear physics gives you a pretty narrow range between "nuclear power" and "nuclear weapon", and we already have the ability to harness the power of fusion.
What about using nukes to mine forests? That would be extremely wasteful, but likely not a bad way to get wood.
There's nothing wrong with nuclear reactors. It's just that solar is so very OP that it's not even a consideration.
Seriously, 512EU/t from a single square meter.
If you really want some sort of reality based justifiaction, then here is an example.
You could have the ability to craft (or enrich or whatever) a super-pure form of uranium that would provide about 5-10 times as much EU/t than normal uranium, with no additional heat cost, but would require 10-20 uranium dust each.
I don't think this is more of a stretch on reality than having a solar panel that's so advanced that it produces 512 times the energy a normal panel does using the same surface area.[DOUBLEPOST=1361996890][/DOUBLEPOST]
Have you ever tried powering a matterfab with just using nuclear energy. The setup is crazy expensive. Not just compared to solar, it's crazy compared to thermal, steam and pretty much everything else.
Solar panels convert a certain amount of the solar radiation that they obtain into electrical energy. The more efficient a solar panel is, the more energy you can obtain from the same surface area. It is unlikely you'd ever see a panel as inefficient as the standard solar panel, but you might see fairly drastic shifts in solar panel efficiency over the course of your life.
That aside, some sort of magical form of uranium that magically produces more magical power is not realistic, at all. Nuclear power, as far as I understand about it, works like this: A nuclear reactor produces heat, which heats up a heat transfer system which is then used to heat up another heat transfer system (to lower the amount of radioactivity passed from the reactor onward) which then produces power by spinning turbines which run generators.
If the reactor does not produce more heat, then you aren't going to get any more power out of it. What WOULD work would be allowing for advanced reactors which could work safely at 8x the heat, but cost at least eight times more than a standard reactor. That'd give you something similar to the solar panel scaling, without adding magic (well, there is still magic as that'd mean the max. temp. would be, what, 100,000°c or so before things start melting?).
Otherwise, just build more reactors, or go with solar panels.
It's going to take 20 gas turbine generators to match a reasonable output 320EU/t reactor
or 40 semi fluid generators
or 13 geothermal generators
(all of which require fuel)
One single solar panel produces 160% of that reactors power
Real life solar panels have a lifespan. IC2 solars don't. MarkI IC2 nuclear reactors run at 0 heat. Real life reactors obviously can't. I don't really get why you don't have any problem with this, but you immediatly bash on my "magic uranium" idea, which would make it so much more people would build at least 1 reactor to use up the uranium they get from automated mining anyways.[DOUBLEPOST=1361998126][/DOUBLEPOST]
13 thermal is much cheaper, and the fuel is pretty much infinite in the nether
Real solar panels don't work at night and aren't made with UU matter either. Also IC2 nukes do generate heat they just disipate it faster than they generate it, which is how real nuclear reactors work, if they get too hot it's called a melt down. That aside, nuclear reactor are just BAD, if they at least outputted 512 EU like a solar panel can do, i'd be willing to spend the material cost and use them, but the fact is, they don't if you want to make a mark 1, which I would always do. real life reactors are Mark 1s and i'm pretty sure thier output is higher than an entire forest of solar panels.
If you want realisitc, remove solar arrays and advanced solars and crank up the output of nuclear reactors back to what they could achieve 2000+ EU/t, the options is in the IC2 config and easy to change, it's set to 5 atm, which is pathetic.
If you want realisitc, remove solar arrays and advanced solars and crank up the output of nuclear reactors back to what they could achieve 2000+ EU/t, the options is in the IC2 config and easy to change, it's set to 5 atm, which is pathetic.
You are correct, yes. This is not the topic of discussion, though, and it is something I think should be changed. Having to add new carbon plates to your solar cells would make them more logical.
You are correct, yes. I believe it has been mentioned that IC2 is going to start using reactors to produce steam in the future (I cannot remember where I heard this, so it may just be a rumor), but I doubt they'll change that design aspect as they're using magical uranium not based around reality (sadly).
Because you said this:
I have bolded the part that matters. If you had, instead, said "Well, let's add this as a way to make reactors more balanced with solar for the sake of balancing that", I'd likely have agreed with the concept, disagreed with the way you put it, and suggested something more like my magical advanced reactor idea.
I am not "bash"ing your idea for the sake of bashing on it. I am against it as a realistic concept. For balance, yes, I do think we should add a way to scale nuclear reactors to make them more attractive.
They already do according to the IC2 config, but from what I remember DW20 saying, the steam output is less efficient than a boiler by a longshot.
That is too bad, and possibly illogical so as a point of balance it may make sense to rework it so the nuclear reactors are a good bit more powerful. Even if it isn't perfectly realistic, but, instead, to make them attractive to those of us that like steam power.
Since your main reason of powering a matter fabricator is for iridium, The best way is probably to use bees 
I like my valuable bees .
EDIT: 16.5 minutes per iridium ore per bee so each bee is equal to..5892 eu/t (GT default), oh wait that's not the fastest since I'm not using thaumic bee that have fastest productivity..
I like my valuable bees .EDIT: 16.5 minutes per iridium ore per bee
so each bee is equal to..5892 eu/t (GT default), oh wait that's not the fastest since I'm not using thaumic bee that have fastest productivity..A real nuclear reactor works on steam turbines, I think a really awesome setup would be a room full of turbines running off steam generated by a reactor, make it just like a proper power plant. I could see myself using that idea.[DOUBLEPOST=1361999354][/DOUBLEPOST]My reason for using a matter fabricator, is because I want to use technology over biology, it's more of a challenge to be able to generate 8000+ EU/t than leave an automated bee setup running for abit, breeding aside, it's just a waiting game with bees once you have what you need.
Since your main reason of powering a matter fabricator is for iridium, The best way is probably to use bees
But then we have to deal with beeeeeeeeeee. Heheh.
Yes, as I stated, that is exactly how they work. I also think that we should have to deal with radioactive heat transfer loops, and have radioactive aspects spread through an improperly set up nuclear reactor (dumping the first heat transfer loop directly into your steam power system and then venting it into the atmosphere, etc).
Nice, walls made with concrete and lead panels/covers, then a nice water flow system for the venting, with some nice cooling towers, I can see it in my head and the idea is very much up my alley.
Yeah, and you'll want your cooling tower placed somewhere away from the water table so you won't end up with seepage as the tower ages--- Ok, maybe too detailed for MineCraft. But yes, actual nuclear power station elements would be interesting, make nuclear power that much more of a draw to people that want to try something different, and possible add the ability to make it an extremely powerful power production system.