ReactorCraft - Early reactors

[Pyure]

Greetings and salutations,

I've set up a couple standard fission reactors in previous worlds, but in my early/mid game I have going, I don't quite have enough refined uranium for that (I'd like 9 pellets to run a single 3x3 core cycle)

I'm considering one of the other reactor types but honestly I have only a weak idea of how they work or how to set them up properly.

Has anyone set up a breeder reactor or a pebble-bed reactor yet? Is there an alternative I'm missing that leverages the piles of "depleted" uranium I've refined so far?

I'm hoping someone is feeling verbose and will give us a good step-by-step on how to set one of these up.

I'm very familiar with the Ausyarr and Danilus videos on youtube, (and others), but they're a bit out of date, and frankly, Reika ripped them each to shreds for improper design (poor saps).

 

[ScorpioOld]

I found that the safest and the most efficient reactor is pebble-bed reactor with Molten sodium heaters. It takes some preparation to generate enough molten sodium, but then you can keep Hot molten sodium in tank and use Heat exchangers when you really need power. One heat exchanger generates 3 GW(3 turbines) power consuming 10 buckets of hot sodium per min. If you switch to Ammonia then one heat exchanger produces 6 GW (3 turbines). Also such reactor is CPU friendly.

Currently 5x5x4 structure

XHXHX
HXHXH
XHXHX
HXHXH
XHXHX

X - pebble reactor core
H - heaters

 

[Pyure]

I think what surprises me is that I thought the pebble-bed was supposed to be an early-tier reactor, but honestly, it seems to require (marginally) more setup and effort than a simple fission one. Wonder whats up with that.

Edit: I honestly also could just be totally wrong in my assumption that its an earlier-tier reactor.

 

[ScorpioOld]

I think what surprises me is that I thought the pebble-bed was supposed to be an early-tier reactor, but honestly, it seems to require (marginally) more setup and effort than a simple fission one. Wonder whats up with that.

You need neither uranium processors nor centrifuges. All what you need salt that is free and uranium. The rest is HS steel + bunch of other staff what you suppose to have if you consider power production GW.

 

[Pyure]

You need neither uranium processors nor centrifuges. All what you need salt that is free and uranium. The rest is HS steel + bunch of other staff what you suppose to have if you consider power production GW.

Ah ok, that makes a bit of sense, although the uranium processor and centrifuge are both pretty cheap/easy to make, so its rather simple to skip this tier.

Maybe I want to figure out how Breeder reactors work then, since I have a bunch of "depleted" uranium.

 

[ScorpioOld]

Maybe I want to figure out how Breeder reactors work then, since I have a bunch of "depleted" uranium.

Think in advance about extracting wastу in automated mode since breeder produces a lot of it. Try to build reactor in Taiga biome due to lower temperature you have less issues with cooling.

 

[Pyure]

Think in advance about extracting wastу in automated mode since breeder produces a lot of it. Try to build reactor in Taiga biome due to lower temperature you have less issues with cooling.

Yeah I already know how to (cheatingly) deal with waste, due to my previous fission reactors: I void it.

Good advice about biomes: I'm actually near a desert, so I'll DEFINITELY avoid building it there.

 

[Pyure]

So can anyone give me the step-by-step on how to use a Breeder reactor?

Whats required?
How does it connect together?
What's a half-decent layout?
What does it output?

 

[ScorpioOld]

1. Build electrolizer.
2. Generate a lot of salt (bucket of water) gives you salt.
3. Feed electrolizer from each side with Van de Graaff (1MW), required shaft power (262kW), frictional heater (262kW), salt from the last remaining side. Molten sodium goes from bottom, you can void chlorine coming from a top. http://i.imgur.com/ZryYti8.png
4. Collect enough molten sodium more is better.
5. Molten sodium is going to be used in sodium heater that functions as boiler in fission reactor. Therefore you are going to pump molten sodium to your sodium heaters from bottom and getting Hot molten sodium from the top.
6. Build enough breeder reactor fuel
7. Build enough breeder reactor cores
8. Build heat exchanger . You are going to pump from a top Hot molten sodium and pump out from a side sodium. At each of 3 remaining sides you can add steam boilers (each steam boiler is sufficient to drive one turbine), that is going to generate steam in the same way as you would get in a normal fission. http://i.imgur.com/71vkb5c.png
9. Start building your reactor, in fact it is not going to be sufficiently different from what you experienced with your standard fission reactors
10. More neutrons you can catch with your breeder reactor cores than more quickly you get your plutonium. This means larger reactor is better.

 

[Pyure]

1. Build electrolizer.
2. Generate a lot of salt (bucket of water) gives you salt.
3. Feed electrolizer from each side with Van de Graaff (1MW), required shaft power (262kW), frictional heater (262kW), salt from the last remaining side. Molten sodium goes from bottom, you can void chlorine coming from a top. http://i.imgur.com/ZryYti8.png
4. Collect enough molten sodium more is better.
5. Molten sodium is going to be used in sodium heater that functions as boiler in fission reactor. Therefore you are going to pump molten sodium to your sodium heaters from bottom and getting Hot molten sodium from the top.
6. Build enough breeder reactor fuel
7. Build enough breeder reactor cores
8. Build heat exchanger . You are going to pump from a top Hot molten sodium and pump out from a side sodium. At each of 3 remaining sides you can add steam boilers (each steam boiler is sufficient to drive one turbine), that is going to generate steam in the same way as you would get in a normal fission. http://i.imgur.com/71vkb5c.png
9. Start building your reactor, in fact it is not going to be sufficiently different from what you experienced with your standard fission reactors
10. More neutrons you can catch with your breeder reactor cores than more quickly you get your plutonium. This means larger reactor is better.

ScorpioOld, this is very helpful information, thanks a lot. I'll likely refer folks to this in the future.

Forgive me, I'm at work or I'd look this up myself via NEI or the guidebook, but:
6) Is breeder reactor fuel created from the "bad" (depleted) uranium dust created when isotope-centrifuging by any chance?
10) Does plutonium go into a standard fission reactor core?
xx) How much power does a breeder generate compared to a similar-sized fission reactor? I'm guessing much smaller, which would be sensible. (A 3x3 fission reactor with a single turbine seems to generate around 950MW)

 

[ScorpioOld]

6) Is breeder reactor fuel created from the "bad" (depleted) uranium dust created when isotope-centrifuging by any chance?

Yes. Breeder reactor fuel created from depleted uranium dust after centrifuging. 4 enriched + 16 depleted.

10) Does plutonium go into a standard fission reactor core?

At least when I tried it used to work. I did not notice any difference with respect to standard fuel pellets. I was rather disappointed with plutonium because it suppose to be much more active and, therefore, produce sufficiently more heat. May be I did something wrong.

xx) How much power does a breeder generate compared to a similar-sized fission reactor? I'm guessing much smaller, which would be sensible. (A 3x3 fission reactor with a single turbine seems to generate around 950MW)

This depends on the side. I did not see any significant difference with respect to conventional reactor. After all breeder reactor has own price because of plutonium. Molted sodium seems has better cooling properties and needs to operate above 300 degree, I always had issue to keep right temperature. In fact you can try to run your small breeder reactor in Nether it will be very efficient (you need line of breeder reactor cores (put one control rod to split line 2-control-2 or 2-control-3) in line 4-5 surrounded with sodium heaters), but you cannot use steam boilers there...

HHHHHH
HXXCXXH
HHHHHH

or

HHHHHH
HXCXCXH
HHHHHH

 

[Pyure]

Would this just heat up too much in a regular biome?

HHHHH
HXXXH
HXXXH
HXXXH
HHHHH

I've never bothered with a control rod or coolant because I've never had a reactor get particularly hot.

 

[ScorpioOld]

Would this just heat up too much in a regular biome?

HHHHH
HXXXH
HXXXH
HXXXH
HHHHH

I've never bothered with a control rod or coolant because I've never had a reactor get particularly hot.

You will be not able to reach 300+ degree temperature needed for sodium heaters, I guess. Plus the efficiency of conversion uranium -> plutonium will be low. But you can try to switch to conventional steam boilers, so you can skip sodium complexity and enjoy simple operation of breeder reactor producing similar power as the reactor operating at "conventional" fuel.

 

[Pyure]

You will be not able to reach 300+ degree temperature needed for sodium heaters, I guess. Plus the efficiency of conversion uranium -> plutonium will be low. But you can try to switch to conventional steam boilers, so you can skip sodium complexity and enjoy simple operation of breeder reactor producing similar power as the reactor operating at "conventional" fuel.

I'm utterly confused now. Why will your line of cores heat up better than my square? A square should create more interacting neutrons (I would imagine).

 

[ScorpioOld]

I suggested to build line of cores in Nether where temperature is already 300 degree. So you just need to generate excess of heat above 300 degree and produce sufficient amount of neutrons to keep reaction of converting uranium to plutonium.
Reaction takes place when you have emission of neutron this increase temperature of core. Neuron can be absorbed by core and re-emmit 3 neutrons. The goal of building reactor is to increase production of neutrons/fission reactions till the level of required heat you can safely dissipate.

For example you might play with http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...n01507vogji5u23opgp4yxkz6o46f2i5gosxn2ur3buv4 or http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/v3/ICReactorPlannerV3.jar

Those reactor planers are for IC reactors, but they give at least filling what you might expect.

 

[Pyure]

I've used the IC2 planner before

And yeah I know how the neutron emission works in ReactorCraft, I just misunderstood you: I thought you were suggesting that a line of reactors would generate more heat than a square.

In a square, I think fewer neutrons are "wasted" because they're more likely to hit another core.

 

[ScorpioOld]

We need to lure Reika to get info from first hands But I guess he is irritated by other discussion thread

 

[Pyure]

We need to lure Reika to get info from first hands But I guess he is irritated by other discussion thread

I'll leave him alone for now

In the meantime, argh, I fail at this.

I have my reactors in a 3x3 grid surrounded by sodium heaters. They want to heat up to only 280C. Occassionally they randomly peak up to 295 or so but very rarely.

How is this not heating up more? I'm worried a 4x4 will overheat.

 

[Pyure]

Also what's the point of creating power with hot sodium? Why not just surround the sodium heaters with steam boilers? So confused.

Actually, I give up; @Reika, if you're up to chiming in, I'm missing something regarding Breeders.

Short version:
1) How do you recommend folks get them to just over 300C?
2) Why do I bother with hot sodium instead of using steam boilers? I noticed adjacent steam boilers went to 200C, enough for steam. I destroyed them shortly after in case they were drawing away heat.

 

[Pyure]

Reika, disregard my call. I really think it just wants more breeder cores.

ScorpioOld: I had luck with my cores in a 3x4 grid. They're hovering around 340C right now; hopefully stabelized there

Edit: cancel that, don't do 3x4 unless you like steam particles coming out of your reactor...