[ReactorCraft] Thorium Fuel Pellets?

[ChemE]

Lol! Try putting a thorium fuel core in the nether with 2 fuel cores on each side so you form a 1x5 shape. Insulate everything, stick plutonium in the 4 fuel cores and pipe lava into the top of the thorium fuel core Yes I had a look at the code and it seems to accept any old liquid and process it as though it were LiFBe fuel.

 

[Plasmasnake]

Thanks Plasmasnake. You have gotten as far as I have. I think if you stuck the thorium fuel core in the center of a breeder reactor, then you ran it as a boiler rather than a true nuclear core since it is sucking heat from your breeder rather than fissioning its own thorium. Reika's schematic shows that we need to fill the Th fuel core with LiFBe fuel which is made in the fuel enhancer but I've not been able to make that happen yet.

Figured that part out

Put Lithium Beryllium Fluoride, Thorium Dust, and Fluorite into the Fuel Enhancer. Supply it with power and boom! You have got fluid.rc lifbe fuel. Many stacks of ingredients will be needed to make a good supply of this fuel --- something to take note of in survival.

Still can't figure how how to actually make a legit reactor with it though. I barrage the fuel core with so many neutrons and I built a giant thing of thorium cores and nothing happens. Tried building it like a HTGR, a regular fission, and a breeder, no avail.

 

[ChemE]

Oh fluorite, damn. I've been trying all sorts of different combinations of stuff in the fuel enhancer all to no avail. I didn't try putting more fluorite in the fuel enhancer since there is already LiFBe in there already. Thanks!

BTW, milk in the thorium fuel core also works just fine. Emits neutrons and everthing once it starts getting slammed by fission neutrons

 

[ChemE]

Btw, I did some measurements of what it takes to keep a 5-stage LP turbine going. I was able to keep a constant 30m^3 of steam in my steam line feeding an open grate by feeding 200mB of hot LiFBe into a heat exchanger every 4.15 seconds using a project red timer to pulse an industrial coil powering a heat exchanger. So 48mB/s of hot LiFBe = 1.95GW. Not sure what that translates to in thorium yet since I haven't made any fuel yet but I'm thinking this may be a heck of a lot more expensive to run than an HTGR.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Got lithium comin in and I've got an emerald farm already setup, now I'm just processing an entire alchemical chest worth of thorite thru my extractor. Up to 13,000+ units of flakes, so far. Think that's enough? XD

 

[Plasmasnake]

Got lithium comin in and I've got an emerald farm already setup, now I'm just processing an entire alchemical chest worth of thorite thru my extractor. Up to 13,000+ units of flakes, so far. Think that's enough? XD

There is no kill like overkill

I'd wager you'd need a couple thousand of fluorite to run a good-sized reactor. I still have zero clue on how to actually build the reactor itself --- to be honest I do think it is bugged right now. I read through the code and bombarded the cores with so many non-breeder neutrons. I tried SO many other things and still have no idea on how to make a working thorium reactor. It is possible that I missed something, but I question either if I am dumb or if this works.

 

[Pyure]

@Plasmasnake, have you been monitoring Reika's MC thread lately? Its possible your answers are there.

Once you've exhausted that option, ping him here.

 

[ChemE]

So far as I can tell you've got to get a thorium fuel core up to 638C. Once there it will convert some lifbe fuel to hot lithium beryllium fluoride and emit neutrons. It is basically a sodium heater that also puts out neutrons.

 

[Plasmasnake]

How did you heat up the thorium core?

 

[ChemE]

How did you heat up the thorium core?

Jam it next to a normal fission fuel core that you are doing a bad job of cooling off. In fact, the thorium fuel core *is* your means of cooling that other fuel core.

 

[Plasmasnake]

I can't argue with success, but doing it that feels kinda... weird to me.

I was under the impression that this type of reactor would be self-sufficient once given a jump-start of neutrons from a fission core. I initially went with breeders because the operating temperature of those is above 400C while a regular fission is 100C, but breeder neutrons are explicitly blacklisted. It seems weird that the only way thus far to get hot lifbe is to use a hot (and potentially dangerous) fission reactor and drain both its heat and neutrons. To me, why even use thorium cores at that point? Just replace the thorium cores with regular fission.

I also thought that maybe you needed an external heat source and then some neutrons to jump-start the reactor. I was going to use a RoC heater to get it to the right temperature, but the heater will not apply in this case. I couldn't chroma-magic my way out of this perdicament with a heat lamp either. After trying other things too, I don't think you can heat it up without sucking heat from a reactor.

Your way could very well be a viable way, it just does not sit well with me.

 

[ChemE]

Certainly thorium reactors are self-sufficient in real life once given a jump start by other fissile materials. Some comments Reika has made to me about these makes me think that I may not be using them correctly yet because he says they make more power than an HTGR and so far I don't find that to be even remotely the case. Unlike other fuel cores though, these do not spontaneously release neutrons at any temp, only above 638C. I've also tested quite a lot in creative to see if one thorium fuel core's neutrons affect a second thorium fuel core. I can confirm that they 100% ignore neutrons from each other. In fact they don't appear to react to neutrons at all.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I'd point that out to Reika, actually. From reading the code, it absolutely looks like the thorium cores should work with any non-breeder neutron sources, including one another.

[ETA]

Looking at the code, there's a chance that neutrons will interact in a thorium core, which is cos interpolated between the fuel core's current, minimum, and maximum operating temperatures. Any neutrons not from waste or fusion count as sources, though breeder neutrons don't work with thorium cores as of v12d; so, something from decaying waste, a fission core, or an active thorium core will work fine. The chance for spawning a neutron seems to be:

Where Tcore is the current temperature of the thorium core, and Tmin and Tmax are the minimum and maximum operating temperatures of a thorium fuel core, respectively. Thus, if your thorium core is at 600C, you would have a 15% chance of spawning a neutron whenever the core gets hit, since Tmin and Tmax are 400C and 1200C, respectively.

 

[Plasmasnake]

Well, I think it is then time to call the purple dragon himself.

@Reika - there seems to be an issue with the thorium fuel cores. They do not seem to be accepting any neutrons whatsoever. Is it a bug or are we making an error somewhere? While you are here, can you clarify whether a thorium reactor is supposed to be integrated into a fission reactor, or is supposed to be a mostly-standalone thing with only some neutrons from a fission core to kickstart it?

 

[Reika]

Well, I think it is then time to call the purple dragon himself.

@Reika - there seems to be an issue with the thorium fuel cores. They do not seem to be accepting any neutrons whatsoever. Is it a bug or are we making an error somewhere? While you are here, can you clarify whether a thorium reactor is supposed to be integrated into a fission reactor, or is supposed to be a mostly-standalone thing with only some neutrons from a fission core to kickstart it?

They need to be preheated.

 

[ChemE]

They need to be preheated.

I've tried accomplishing that in a variety of manners and have not yet found an efficient reactor design. Heaters and friction heaters from RoC don't affect thorium fuel core temperature. Ditto any neutrons from any source. I have 4 fuel cores in a line bombarding a thorium fuel core with fission neutrons and the temperature of the thorium fuel core never changes one degree centigrade.

 

[ChemE]

Being directly adjacent to heat exchangers also seems to have no affect on thorium fuel core temperatures.

EDIT: Making a loop of boilers connecting a heat exchanger and a thorium core did warm it up to 490C. It is now giving off neutrons when bombarded with neutrons from uranium in fuel cores...