BlockFactory:Nuclear Power

Nuclear buildings with a radiation sign at night

Nuclear power is the strongest power source and the core of Epoch 5. A reactor heats Heat Pipes, Heat Exchangers turn that heat into steam, and Steam Turbines turn the steam into electricity. It needs uranium, acid, water and care: a reactor that overheats explodes.

The chain at a glance

1. Mine Uranium Ore with Auto Drills that are fed Sulfuric Acid.
2. Split it into U-235 and U-238 in the Uranium Golems Refinery.
3. Craft Uranium Fuel Cells.
4. Burn them in the Nuclear Reactor, carry the heat with Heat Pipes to Heat Exchangers, and feed their steam to Steam Turbines.
5. Reprocess the Depleted Fuel Cells in the refinery.

Uranium Ore

Uranium Ore Fields only give ore to an Auto Drill that gets 1 Sulfuric Acid per ore. The acid connection is in the middle of the drill's back, opposite the ore chute, so one pipe along the back can supply a whole row of drills. Without acid the drill shows "No Sulfuric Acid"; if there is other ore under it as well, it keeps mining that.

Acid needs Reinforced Pipes (see Fluids) and is made in the Chemical Plant (see Oil Processing). More on drills: Mining.

Uranium Golems Refinery

Uranium Golems Refinery

Epoch	5
Size	3 × 3
Energy	Electric
Power	350 kW
Speed	×1
Health	250
Research	Uranium Processing

The Uranium Golems Refinery (1 Golem + 100 Concrete + 50 Steel Plate + 100 Advanced Circuit + 100 Iron Gear) is the uranium centrifuge. A Golem is part of its recipe. It has two outputs, one per product.

Recipe	Input	Output	Time
Uranium processing	100 Uranium Ore	9 U-238 + 1 U-235	120 s
Enrichment	3 U-238	1 U-235	60 s
Fuel reprocessing	5 Depleted Fuel Cell	3 U-238	60 s

The tech tree names Golem Resonance for enrichment and Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing for reprocessing. In version 0.2.0 the refinery can already run all three recipes as soon as it is built.

Uranium Fuel Cell (research Uranium Processing): 10 Iron Plate + 1 U-235 + 19 U-238 → 10 cells. Each cell holds 8 GJ, which lasts a reactor 200 seconds.

Buildings

All four are Epoch 5 buildings unlocked by Nuclear Power, which also unlocks Reinforced Pipe T3.

Icon	Building	Size	Energy	Recipe
	Nuclear Reactor	5 × 5	40 MW of heat	1 Trapped Outlander + 100 Concrete + 80 Steel Plate + 100 Copper Plate + 100 Advanced Circuit
	Heat Pipe	1 × 1	carries heat	10 Steel Plate + 20 Copper Plate
	Heat Exchanger	3 × 2	10 MW of heat → steam, from 500 °C	10 Steel Plate + 100 Copper Plate + 10 Pipe T3
	Steam Turbine	3 × 5	up to 5.8 MW electric	50 Iron Gear + 50 Copper Plate + 20 Pipe T3

Nuclear Reactor

• It has a fuel slot and an output slot, like a furnace. Fill it by hand or with Grabbers. A Trapped Outlander is part of its recipe.
• It burns one Uranium Fuel Cell at a time at full power, whether the heat is used or not. Unused heat is wasted, so give it only as many cells as you need.
• Each spent cell becomes a Depleted Fuel Cell in the output slot (up to 50). If the output is full, the reactor loads no new cell.
• Heat connections sit on every side, on the three middle blocks.
• Neighbour bonus: every reactor that is connected directly to it through these heat connections and is also burning adds +100 % heat. Two reactors side by side make 80 MW each; four in a 2 × 2 block make 120 MW each. Fuel use stays the same.
• The model shows Warm from 150 °C and Hot from 500 °C. The highest temperature is 1000 °C. The reactor window shows the temperature in °C.
• You can stop a reactor with the on signal of the signal network. A stopped reactor keeps the rest of its cell.

Heat Pipe and heat network

Heat Pipes connect on all four sides and take shapes like normal pipes. Reactors, Heat Pipes and Heat Exchangers that touch through their heat connections form one heat network with one shared temperature. Heat Pipes glow Warm and Hot like the reactor.

Heat Exchanger

• Works only while its heat network is at 500 °C or more.
• The heat connection is at the back in the middle. Water enters on the left and right and passes through, so exchangers can be chained; steam leaves at the front in the middle.
• At full load it turns about 333 water per second into 333 steam per second and takes 10 MW of heat out of the network.

Steam Turbine

Like the Steam Generator, but much stronger. Steam runs along its right side from back to front, so turbines can stand directly in a row. At full load it uses about 193 steam per second.

Ratios

Setup	Heat	Heat Exchangers	Steam Turbines	Water Pumps
1 reactor	40 MW	4	7	2
2 reactors side by side	160 MW	16	28	5
4 reactors (2 × 2)	480 MW	48	83	14

One Heat Exchanger feeds about 1.7 turbines, and one Water Pump (1,200 water/s) feeds 3 exchangers with some to spare. Water and steam travel in any pipe tier (see Fluids).

Overheating and explosions

• If the heat network of a burning reactor stays at 1000 °C for 60 seconds and no Heat Exchanger in that network has water, the reactor explodes. As long as an exchanger has water, the reactor just stays hot.
• A reactor that is burning or still warm also explodes when it is destroyed, for example by enemies or in a raid.
• The blast has a radius of 12 blocks. It wrecks the buildings around it, including those of other teams, and can set off neighbouring reactors. Players in the radius take heavy damage. The reactor's contents are lost, and everyone in the world gets a message with the position.
• If the world setting Radiation is on (it is off by default), the explosion leaves a radioactive zone with a radius of 18 blocks for 20 minutes. It hurts players inside every second. See World Settings.

Protect your reactors with walls and towers, see Defense.

Nuclear waste

Depleted Fuel Cells cannot be thrown away and no machine burns them. Store them and reprocess them into U-238 in a Uranium Golems Refinery.

Uranium Cartridge

U-238 also makes the Uranium Cartridge (1 Steel Cartridge + 1 U-238, research Uranium Ammunition). See Weapons and Armor.

See also

• Power
• Fluids
• Golems
• Defense