I was hoping for something more in-depth. Also, not nonsense.

[Krid]

This game is kind of a mess.
Aside from the question of who paid the trees weekly upkeep before humans came along, its presentation of nuclear power is stupid - nuclear power releases no pollution into the environment during normal operation. In fact, it never releases pollution into the environment unless there is a massively traumatic event, which are rare enough that they can be counted on one hand and nearly every person can recite the entire list from memory.

I was hoping for a simulation, not a glimpse into the mind of some undereducated, naive environmentalist-wannabe.

[AndersSchm]

Good review.

[TekDragon]

I'm always a fan of "deeper" simulations, but I think you're missing the point of nuclear power in video games.

When a nuclear power plant goes tits-up in video game, if it were even remotely related to real life, then it would be immediate game-over, the game would uninstall itself, your credit card would be charged $100,000, and you'd never be able to play again.

But it's not realistic. When a nuclear plant explodes in a video game we reload from an earlier save and keep playing.

The only way for a developer to properly encompass the devastating consequence of a nuclear plant failure is to spread those risks into the day to day operations.

[Krid]

If it were even remotely related to real life, then a reactor going HEARTS-up would be either:
A: A tiny but expensive mess.
Ex1: This was the case with three mile island, where there was literally zero impact on the surrounding environment but the melted reactor was a pain to clean up
Or B: A large mess that sticks around for awhile as well as a tiny but expensive mess.
Ex1: This is the case for Chernobyl (where the soviets damn near intentionally blew up their reactor then decided to entomb the reactor but do absolutely nothing to clean up the mess); the surrounding areas are back down within the marginal background radiation envelope. While Pripyat's radiation levels are slightly higher than they were before the disaster, they're currently roughly the same as current levels in NYC (and far below Chicago).
Ex2: This is also the case for Fukushima. Cleanup measures are underway, but political, economic, and managerial competence barriers are preventing them from making progress as fast as they should have been.

The funny part? If you averaged the total ecological impact of every nuclear disaster over the total hours of reactor operation, the damage per hour of operation would still be orders of magnitude lower than even a 'clean' coal plant. If you switch your focus from ecological damage to human health and mortality then coal fares even worse.
If you switch from hours of operation to KWh of production then the numbers get even WORSE for coal.
If you then factor in externalized requirements, such as fuel extraction and transport, coal _continues_ to get worse.

And, to bring the sheer irony of it all into perspective? Coal contains uranium at about ~1ppm. Until very recently the uranium in coal was released directly into the environment when the coal was burned for power.
If you burned coal, then took that uranium that was in the coal and used it in a nuclear reactor, you would get more power out of the nuclear reactor than you got from burning the coal power.

On an unrelated note, your implication that god blew up the planet and uninstalled the universe immediately after Chernobyl is disquieting, as it speaks of an unhealthy mind at work.

[Weizen1988]

Originally posted by Krid:

This game is kind of a mess.
Aside from the question of who paid the trees weekly upkeep before humans came along, its presentation of nuclear power is stupid - nuclear power releases no pollution into the environment during normal operation. In fact, it never releases pollution into the environment unless there is a massively traumatic event, which are rare enough that they can be counted on one hand and nearly every person can recite the entire list from memory.

I was hoping for a simulation, not a glimpse into the mind of some undereducated, naive environmentalist-wannabe.

This sounds more or less accurate doesnt it? Nuclear power plants, aside from going critical and all that, -are- relatively pollution free arent they? I have little real knowledge on the matter, i lived in the vicinity of one and was generally assured it was completely safe unless a meltdown occured though.

On the other point, Tree upkeep is kinda ridiculous, while there -are- trees in reality that require upkeep and watering (if we put them somewhere a tree should not be: a pot, an improper or marginal environment), trees have been happening since long before people watered them or gave any ♥♥♥♥♥ about their existance.

[Gast]

Not considering the radioactive by-product, then no, the nuclear fission itself doesn't cause much pollution/green house gas - if any - compared to coal, gas and oil power plants.
However the mining of uranium is a huge environmental problem and it's the reason many countries don't exploit their uranium ore deposits.

[Krid]

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

This sounds more or less accurate doesnt it? Nuclear power plants, aside from going critical and all that, -are- relatively pollution free arent they? I have little real knowledge on the matter, i lived in the vicinity of one and was generally assured it was completely safe unless a meltdown occured though.

It is. In real life.

In THIS GAME, however, putting down a nuclear power plant causes so much pollution that it destroys the entire map within about 10 seconds.

Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Originally posted by Gast:

Not considering the radioactive by-product, then no, the nuclear fission itself doesn't cause much pollution/green house gas - if any - compared to coal, gas and oil power plants.

The only greenhouse gas emissions for nuclear are from things like the fuel burned to transport materials and construct the plant.

As far as radioactive by-products go, those are only a problem in places where is that nobody wants to be the one to decide what to do with them. France decided ages ago to do reprocessing, and they don't have any problem with nuclear waste in spite of nuclear being their primary energy source.

Originally posted by Gast:

However the mining of uranium is a huge environmental problem and it's the reason many countries don't exploit their uranium ore deposits. :conwayshrug:

Mining it isnt that much of an environmental problem, people are just too terrified of The Green Menace to allow it in places where what the people want matters, and in places where the people don't matter the ones doing the mining don't give a damn about doing things right. Such is life.

[[TE] Kuraudo]

I hate this stupid trend that we've had in videogames for uranium reactors to have completely reo-tarded gameplay dynamics like the ones described. This seemed interesting because I like infrastructure management, but I feel duly warned.

Thanks.

On the subject of uranium reactors....

Liquid Thorium Nuclear power: thorium is everywhere, the reactor has zero risk of meltdown, the process produces at least 1000 times less waste than uranium, and the waste is only radioactive for a hundred years.

Why don't we use them? You can't really make bombs out of the byproducts without crazy technology and even then the bomb might pre-detonate :(

SO IN SHORT, CLEAN, SAFE, EFFICIENT, INEXPENSIVE THORIUM POWER HAS NO PLACE IN VIDEOGAMES BECAUSE I LIKE NUKING THINGS.

[thundercactus]

Actually the reason north america does NOT use liquid thorium reactors;
Firstly, most nuclear power plants are old. Cold war era old. And thus weaponizing the byproduct of said reactors was politically sought after.
As such, the liquid thorium reactor idea was shelved.
There are some good reasons to start up thorium reactor research and construction like those stated above. Availability of fuel, less harmful byproducts, and I believe they're also good at breeding Pu-238, which happens to greatly benefit space exploration.
Pu-238 is the best fuel for use in radioisotope thermoelectric generators for long range probes and satellites, and we're in very short supply of it. If you don't know what RTG's are, I highly recommend you look them up. One of the coolest and most innovative idea's for a 'battery'.

[thundercactus]

Also, what would make this a bit more realistic, would be placing a growing demand on energy required.
If all we had to do to save the environment is put up islands full of solar panels and wind farms, we'd of done that already.
Unfortunately, having lacked efficient green tech in the past, coupled with a massive growing need for energy consumption that stereotypical green energy producers would never be able to match, the only real solutions were polluting plants.
More tech into green energy research, now we find out there are things like LFTR's and fusion. Of course, anytime you throw the word "nuclear" in, ignorants get all upppity.

[Krid]

While Thorium is the hero our energy production needs, since we already have spent uranium fuel kicking around it would be best to build Integral Fast Reactors so we can eliminate that waste by converting it into energy.
Kill multiple birds with one stone, ya'know?

[thundercactus]

Yeah.
So this is little more than a sit and wait game, also serious lack of dead birds around the wind turbines. Seriously, they should paint them red. I'm amazed how much blood you can see on them from half a mile away. They also don't work very well in that close proximity, especially on what I assume is a just-above-sea-level island.
Basically a grow-at-your-own-pace energy industry, with drastic and ridiculous environmental consequences. And in an environment that bounces back from overpollution in mere days.
This has nothing to do with anything really. Money grab.

[PH4T3 <*.*>]

You are close. Only 3rd generation reactors have 0 pollution. They actually take the waste from prior generation reactors (the most common kind that nearly every country uses) and turns that into fuel for the 3rd generation reactors. Unfortunately, no one is building those.

[FevNoobs]

I studied about energy and hoped that this game would be something good. Not that I expected much from a 5$ game but, man, even with 5$ you still could have done better.
Hopefully this game's concept (building energy related business to make money) will be implemented in other games. If made right, I would even pay 40-50$ for it.

[Chairman Wang]

Originally posted by TekDragon:

I'm always a fan of "deeper" simulations, but I think you're missing the point of nuclear power in video games.

When a nuclear power plant goes tits-up in video game, if it were even remotely related to real life, then it would be immediate game-over, the game would uninstall itself, your credit card would be charged $100,000, and you'd never be able to play again.

But it's not realistic. When a nuclear plant explodes in a video game we reload from an earlier save and keep playing.

The only way for a developer to properly encompass the devastating consequence of a nuclear plant failure is to spread those risks into the day to day operations.

Lets take this frome a game mechanic stand point. The enviromental cost of a nuclear power plant is a series of tradeoffs in real life. Its advantage is that it gives relatively clean power in large amounts. The risk associated with that return is that if it has insufficient cooling, bad things happen. This risk/reward mechanic is not present here as far as I can tell by watching videos of this game. Simcity does a much better job of how it all works out. Also, how is game over the same as nuclear power plant exploding. The obvious example of an exploding nuclear reactor did nothing more than fill the area with radiation. World still spinning, most people don't even know or care. I'm all for the enviroment but lets not be extremists :P

[olenananas]

Originally posted by Chairman Wang:

Originally posted by TekDragon:

I'm always a fan of "deeper" simulations, but I think you're missing the point of nuclear power in video games.

When a nuclear power plant goes tits-up in video game, if it were even remotely related to real life, then it would be immediate game-over, the game would uninstall itself, your credit card would be charged $100,000, and you'd never be able to play again.

But it's not realistic. When a nuclear plant explodes in a video game we reload from an earlier save and keep playing.

The only way for a developer to properly encompass the devastating consequence of a nuclear plant failure is to spread those risks into the day to day operations.

Lets take this frome a game mechanic stand point. The enviromental cost of a nuclear power plant is a series of tradeoffs in real life. Its advantage is that it gives relatively clean power in large amounts. The risk associated with that return is that if it has insufficient cooling, bad things happen. This risk/reward mechanic is not present here as far as I can tell by watching videos of this game. Simcity does a much better job of how it all works out. Also, how is game over the same as nuclear power plant exploding. The obvious example of an exploding nuclear reactor did nothing more than fill the area with radiation. World still spinning, most people don't even know or care. I'm all for the enviroment but lets not be extremists :P

No. Just. No.

If a nuclear plant has insufficient cooling, it shuts down and _nothing_ happens. And I mean literally nothing. The plant provides no energy, the grids probably go down because of that, but nothing else -- done. You can check this from anywhere you like (probably with the exception of Greenpeace's info).