Tutorial / Safe, Easy, & Powerful Nuclear Reactor

So you want to make a Nuclear Reactor, but you looked at the page for the Nuclear Reactor and understood slightly less than you did from your calculus book.

Never fear: Here is a simplified and thoroughly explained tutorial on how to make a relatively simple, powerful, completely safe, and automated Nuclear Reactor.

Some notes first:

1: This is going to be time consuming and expensive. Do not attempt until you are well along in Tekkit. Don't be afraid though. It may be time consuming, but it will not be very difficult.

2: You must follow these instructions precisely. Even a small change could be catastrophic. Don't worry - You will be told what is safe to change and what would be catastrophic to change, as well as why it would be catastrophic.

3: You probably shouldn't skip sections; read the entire article. There are hints, tips, and advice throughout the entire article which can mean the difference between more power than you know what to do with and a massive crater where your home used to be.

4: If you complete this Reactor Setup, you will have 2030 EU/t at your disposal; slightly less than 4 HV Solar Arrays. While it is not necessary to use all of the power, it is recommended to get a Mass Fabricator and send the excess power to that.

Materials
First things first: What will you need to complete this setup? Note: this is a list of the components, not of the raw materials. And finally
 * 6 Reactor Chambers
 * 1 Nuclear Reactor
 * 3 Redstone Dust
 * 1 Redstone Repeater
 * 23 Cobblestone Pipe (Minimum)
 * 4 Wooden Pipe
 * 1 Iron Pipe
 * 1 Obsidian Pipe (not completely necessary - explained in "Excess Ice")
 * 4 Steam Engines
 * 3 LV Solar Arrays
 * 1 MV Solar Array
 * 1 Energy Link
 * 1 Energy Condenser
 * 1 Energy Collector Mark II (must be at least MkII)
 * 1 Glass Fibre Cable
 * 3 Levers
 * 1 Ice
 * 5 of any solid block
 * 47 Uranium Cells

The First Steps
First, we'll start with the Condenser. Place it one block above the ground you're working on. It's not vital, but it makes it look better, and it will help you get through this tutorial if you place everything exactly like it is shown, so you can compare how yours looks every step of the way.

Next, place the Energy Collector on one side (not the top or bottom), the Energy Link on the opposite side, and wooden pipes on the four remaining sides, like in the picture to the right. Place one Ice block in the top left square of the condenser. It should start creating more Ice; just leave it to do so.

Note: The side with the Energy Collector is the side where the Nuclear Reactor will go.

Also: Make sure to use regular Wooden Transport Pipes, and not the Advanced Wooden Transport Pipes. The regular pipes are bugged so steam and combustion engines can only pull one item at a time from an Energy Condenser, instead of 16 or 64 at a time like any other chest. However, the Advanced pipes are also bugged when paired with Energy Condensers, and it's a much more serious bug: The engines will pull the block out of the top left space of the condenser, which stops it from producing more of that item (obviously). So the Regular pipes are really the lesser of two evils. It's probably because the Condenser is EE, and the engines/pipes are BC, so they don't quite work together, but they do well enough.

Getting Power
Now, we will supply power to the condenser and its pipes.



Next, take your four steam engines, and surround the Energy Link so one is pointed at each wooden pipe. Place one lever on the ground directly underneath one of the side engines, then place any solid block on top of the other side engine, and place another lever on that block. Turn both levers on. Don't worry, it won't do anything.

Now, place your MV Solar Array behind the top engine, place one LV Solar Array behind each of the engines on the side, and place the last LV Solar array so that it is underneath the MV solar array, but one block further away from the condenser. Now you should have a little space which is empty on the bottom, covered by the Energy Link on one side, and covered by Solar Arrays on the top and the rest of the sides''. ''There is a grass block underneath just to clarify that there is no solar array there.

Pipes for the Ice


Place an Iron Pipe on the side of the Collector opposite the Condenser, in front. Place one cobblestone pipe in front of this iron pipe and use a wrench (or break and replace) to make sure the output is facing the cobblestone pipe. Now connect the iron pipe to the wooden pipes with cobblestone pipe as shown in the picture to the right. It is not vital to do it exactly as shown, but again, it will help you compare your design with the tutorial here.

Also, the bottom and left sides are exactly the same as the top and right sides.

Now it will Look Nuclear


Count four blocks from the iron pipe and place one block, then place the Nuclear Reactor on top of this block, and break the block. Add one more cobblestone pipe to the output from the iron pipe.



Place your six Reactor Chambers on every side of the Nuclear Reactor, so it looks like the picture to the right. The cobblestone pipe output will connect with one of the Chambers.

Are you nervous yet? Don't be, because...

Now We Make it Safe


Place your Thermal Monitor, Redstone Dust, and Redstone Repeated exactly as shown in the picture to the top right. The thermal monitor's GUI, seen to the bottom right, allows you to set whatever temperature you want. When the Reactor raises above the temperature you select, the monitor will put out a redstone signal. If you apply a redstone signal to the Reactor, it will immediately shut off all uranium cells while allowing all cooling effects to still take place.



However, the monitor will not put the signal directly into the reactor just by placing it there, so that little bit of redstone is required. This makes the reactor completely and totally safe, even if the cooling system fails, because the monitor will never let the reactor get above ~500 units of heat.

Place your third lever directly on the reactor, on the face of the chamber above the redstone repeater, as shown in the picture to the right, and turn the lever on. You can actually place this lever anywhere on the reactor, I just like placing it there because it lights up the redstone and makes it obvious whether the lever is on or off, as seen in the picture.

Excess Ice


The system we have which supplies Ice will send a bit more than the Reactor will use, so roughly a quarter of the ice will pop out and land on the ground. If you don't care about wasting the free ice, feel free to just leave it there t despawn. If you want to put that ice to use, Place an Obsidian Pipe as shown in the picture to the top right and send cobblestone pipe (or teleport pipe) to wherever you want it to go - into another Energy Condenser, for example.



Then cover the obsidian pipe as shown in the picture to the bottom right. These four blocks will bounce virtually all of the excess ice into the obsidian pipe without the use of engines.

Starting the Machine


We're almost done - now it's time to get everything going. Take your 47 Uranium Cells and 7 stacks of ice from the Energy Condenser and place them inside the Reactor in the pattern shown to the right. The two Uranium Cells in the bottom have to be separated. If they are next to each other, the Reactor will generate 2050 EU/t, which is too much even for HV cable (it can only take up to 2048 EU/t).

Note: The Uranium will not have the green bar at the bottom yet.

Also: So long as your lever is on, the Uranium will not do anything. No power or heat will be generated yet.



Go back behind the steam engines, underneath the Solar Arrays. Remember that empty space from earlier? Place one Glass Fibre Cable in that space, as pictured to the right.

IMPORTANT: Your Steam Engines will now come on and start pumping Ice. They will heat up. They will turn Red. Don't panic, this is okay - So long as you have done exactly as told and have One MV Solar Array and Three LV Solar Arrays and Nothing else supplying the Energy Link with power, the Steam Engines will heat up to red and flash yellow with every pump, just like a Redstone Engine, but much, much faster. The Solar Arrays are providing the Energy Link with exactly 88 EU/t which is evenly divided into 22 EU/t for each engine. If you look at the "Using EU as fuel" section in the Steam Engine page, you will see that this is the "Magic Number:" The most efficient a Steam Engine can possibly be and still be safe.

''' You're done now. ''' It's finished. All you have to do is flip the lever on the Reactor and it will start producing power. The condenser and Steam Engines will keep it full of Ice, which keeps it cool, and the Thermal Monitor will shut it down if it gets even a bit warm.

But Wait! It's Night Time!
The pumps are powered by Solar Panels, so obviously they won't work at night. You can't use an electric storage device, because it won't supply exactly 88 EU/t, like the Solar Arrays do. So what happens? Simple:

The Thermal Monitor will do exactly what it's supposed to do and turn off the reactor all night long. When morning comes, the solar panels will power the engines again, they'll slowly heat up to Red again, and then the Reactor will get enough Ice to stop needing the Monitor.

Obviously you can skip the entire thing by sleeping, but this proves it is completely safe. Pretty much the only thing that can endanger this is running water washing away the redstone. Admittedly, that would be pretty much catastrophic if you didn't notice until it was too late, but a few blocks in the right place, and you won't ever need to worry about that.

What to Do with All This Power?
Presumably, until now, all you've used were some Solar arrays, maybe a Geothermal Generator, or maybe even a really clever Water Mill setup. But now you're dealing with extreme voltage - even more than 512 EU/t, which is HV. The only thing that can stand up to this beast is HV cable. I would recommend just one HV cable block and immediately sending it into a HV transformer, so you can use Glass Fibre and stop losing your power. As mentioned above, now would be a good time to invest in a Mass Fabricator. This much power will raise the percentage in a Mass Fabricator by almost 4 points each second. That's roughly 25 seconds per UU-Matter, roughly 16 minutes for a stack.



The Teleporter and the Terraformer also use enormous amounts of EU, or you can hook an Energy Link to the Reactor and send all the power to a dozen Quarrys and a couple Refineries all at once.

The power is in your hands now. Have fun.