Tutorial/Nuclear Reactor - Advanced Layouts

If you are looking at this page, you are probably interested in setting up a nuclear reactor system. Why did I say "system", you ask? Because nuclear reactors are the most difficult and DANGEROUS energy sources in the tekkit!!!

Questions to ask:

- How will I cool my reactor?

- What about a breeder?

- How will I protect EVERYTHING around the reactor?

- What else can I do with all this power?

BASICS:

A reactor can accept: uranium cells, depleted isotope cells, water buckets, lava buckets, coolant cells, integrated heat dispersers, integrated reactor plating, and ice.

Uranium cells: these provide the heat and the power. The closer together these are, the more heat and power there is.

Depleted isotope cells: look them up. They DO make heat, but not really any power. To recharge, they require heat, not power.

Water/Lava: Reactors can be heated/cooled by this. This applies to both inside the reactor via buckets(or cells?) and also outside, flowing over the reactor.

Coolant cells: They do exactly what they sound like they do. NOTE: must be touching either a uranium cell or a heat disperser to accept heat!!!

Heat disperser: Guess what? They disperse heat! While most effective very near uranium cells, they will accept heat anywhere in the reactor and distribute it to coolant cells or other heat dispersers.

Reactor plating: I honestly am not sure what they do. In theory, they will increase reaction by reflecting heat at other cells, and will take heat themselves to help cool the reactor. But to me personally, useless.

Ice: THE ULTIMATE COOLANT (as long as you use a WORLD ANCHOR!!! Chunk loading will screw you!). Not as good as a coolant cell by total amount cooled since ice is burned up and coolant cells are not, but as far as heat control, an automatic ice feed will allow even the most dangerous of reactors to become stable and cool. (an ice feed from an energy condenser with an energy collector using a filter to send blocks of ice to the reactor is one way to do this)

COOLING:

To cool a reactor, you can use ice, coolant cells, or water. Water cooling is a cheap way to control heat, but requires a lot of labor to keep water flowing into the reactor and still is not as effective as ice (as long as you use a WORLD ANCHOR!!! Chunk loading will screw you!).

I already told you about ice in the basics section. Same with coolant cells.

The way you arrange the coolant and uranium inside the reactor makes a big, BIG DIFFERENCE.

BREEDING:

Breeder reactors are for those who do not want to throw away near-depleted uranium cells, and thus I am not too familiar since uranium has an EMC value, and I like using the incinerator on anything that is not a fresh uranium cell. You still want to know? -sigh- ok, here we go.

depleted isotope cells that are put right next to a uranium cell will slowly recharge. This takes a really, really long time. The more heat you have, the faster those cells wil charge. Arrangement of the stuff inside makes a difference, as does everything nuclear.

PROTECTION:

THIS IS NEEDED!!!

My mom always said that it is important to use protection, uh, I mean caution, so, yeah.

WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR WORLD:

There are several ways to do this, so let's make a list:

+Forcefields: indestructible by all means, just make sure the field surrounds on all sides and there are no blocks blocking the field, since a dirt block is infinitely weaker than the field that should be where that block is! (NOTE: I do not use the nuclear forcefields. I use regular ones. Your choice, but I recomend regular)

+Reinforced stone/glass/door: a shell of this stuff 2x thick will contain even the biggest boom! Also, tnt does nothing to it. NOTE: Redmatter and Darkmatter blocks do not get destroyed, but they will not contain any explosion!

+Thermal monitor: Reactor components will contain up to 10000 heat, and will not melt down until 15000 heat, but don't push your luck. A thermal monitor will emit a redstone signal when it feels the heat of the reactor it is touching get to that temperature you set. Will turn off signal when it drops below set heat, and turn back on when it feels it again.

+Redstone: redstone power turns off a reactor, it stops it dead in its tracks! Using a thermal monitor, redstone power sent from the monitor back to the reactor using redstone will turn it off at a specific heat.

+Redundant cooling systems: If using ice or water, using more than you need is not a bad thing. Using too little, however, is. (Try piping excess back into your supply chest or condenser)

<p style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">+All of the above: A really good system can use all of this to protect your world.

<p style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;">POWER USAGE: Well, what do you do with all this power? Obviously, it can be used as a reliable power station for a server, but even then not all of your power will be fully used. So what will hog all of that? A mass fabricator! It can use 99%-100% of all energy produced by any reactor! So, if you want to divert power to your home, apply redstone power to the fabricator to turn it off, and when you have enough, turn the fabricator back on!

UU matter made can be used to make iridium, which is used for iridium plates, which is used for a quantum suit!

DESIGNS:

~120 EU infinite reactor= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixpiddrqsj7st02sl5somn68lgx7yqitd3ihiu1virjt6c00

~130 EU infinite reactor= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixqt3cuk9jgkbyxjzxzs8wd0ppxd9grhphe3mq88twjrf1a8

~160 EU 1 cycle= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixqt68ie9qbs4g7bt3yv97xtxolhfkxdh5kp6sk7s076don4

~160 EU *No water!* 1 cycle= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixqt3cuk9jhdu0fu8p4kbij8mmlgtrr46cen5ogdma92meyo

~Maximum Cell 1 cycle Breeder= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixqt3cts1ygimb2uhxz2vzj7t6x9jf6qtljcntu24ydu2cxs

~No heat gain/loss infinite breeder= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?9101qiia11xpishk9m5teqhzms476xac3=101k1010114010101001019

~No heat gain/loss infinite HOT breeder= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixqt3ctiufx1ma8sp9w6fam05sku91or4z2iscg8l1s6e5vk

~2030 EU ice cooled infinite reactor= http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/reactorplanner.html?hixuzh8xlyzo3lq8cd1ci6ihjaeigyp36urdzu07ke9kqul34