Powering Factories

[The Panic Wolf]

So, I understand Nuclear Reactors are a thing, but I feel that is WAY more work to keep running than something like Coal Generators. Like, it is dangerous to be near the nuclear waste that is being made, while Coal just works.
Is it a good idea to just not use the Nuclear Reactors? I'd rather not risk radiation poisoning.
My whole factory is working just fine off the heaps of coal nodes I have found (I have like 4 within 300 meters of each other, and 3 that are within... 100 meters of each other).

[Joeyramone]

there are tons of guides on how to make nuke energy work hands free after you start it. once you scale up coal is no longer enough. esp if you consider the fact that you need coal for steel.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

I can understand you...
As it was my same concern.

Also, it's a lot of work to build nuclear. Nuclear power plants are simple, but it isn't all infrastructure (in front and behind) such power plants.

I had setup 12 nuclear power plants more for a personal goal than for real reasons... But all depends on what are your big goals.

Nuclear energy can produce tons of energy and free resources (coal) for other production uses. All depend on your planning and needs.

About radioactivity....
If well planned and used... Radioactivity is a minor issue. In my site you can walk around without protection and get very little damage. You can't sit and stay forever in certain (very limited) spot. But just going around to do normal stuff, it's Okey.

And for radioactive waste, I do a post processing and get rid of it completely... No radiation.

In the end...
Do you need nuclear? No
Just in case use some batteries.

Nuclear is bad? No, just use it at your need and discretion...

Radiation is bad? Yes if you don't handle it properly... But done right, it isn't a problem at all

[The Panic Wolf]

I'm mostly just concerned with having to get rid of the waste. I have nearly 1500 MW being generated on average (Geo Thermal Gens included with the average).
My plan isn't exactly to be gaining the most resources I can get, I wanna make the most amazing factory I can, and, well, I have stacks upon stacks of the base resources (Concrete, Iron Plates, Steel Beams, etc).
I feel that having thousands of MW of power available to me means I don't need something as expensive and demanding as a power plant. Though it did take me a bit to set up the 2nd coal power area (Mostly because I haven't set up any tubes to travel, I just run with by Bladerunners).
I get it likely makes A LOT of power, but in the end, I feel the risk is not worth the maintenance, maybe it is just because of how I am, I am just now setting up a Sulphur miner after getting oil.
This game is GREAT though, everyone makes factories in their own ways, my way may just be a little ineffective.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

bout waste...
There's an option for zero waste production pipeline.

To power nuclear power plant you need uranium and other thing to produce uranium fuels rod.

Using them will produce uranium waste....
You have two options here...
Stock waste somewhere...
Or use it to produce plutonium fuels rods...

Plutonium field rods can be destroyed (zero waste)...
Or used to power again your nuclear power plant .. in this latter case it will produce plutonium waste and you will have no option than stock it somewhere

So...
Just use uranium...
Process waste and destroy plutonium fuel rods...
Zero waste, zero radiation's

[Jack-o-Lantern]

Addendum, feel free to ad me as friend if you want to join in my world and see it in person

[The Panic Wolf]

That's all fine and dandy, but I I don't think my brain can handle doing that stuff, considering I've already achieved plenty of power being made. I'll look at doing that, but it could just be better for me to keep the coal and geo thermal gens as my main source.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

Originally posted by The Panic Wolf:

That's all fine and dandy, but I I don't think my brain can handle doing that stuff, considering I've already achieved plenty of power being made. I'll look at doing that, but it could just be better for me to keep the coal and geo thermal gens as my main source.

My offer still valid if you interested to see it in person.

Doing the same yourself... It's just your decision... As told before even myself had enough power, but decided to go nuclear just as a personal goal.

[Mister Fabulous]

If you tapped all the coal on the map, you could generate 154,500MW.

You could do that and find an alternate to use oil with iron to make steel ingots. It needs petroleum coke which it itself a byproduct (indirectly) of regular recipes an alternate as well.

I recommend dabbling in fuel. If your not into complicated setups, unlock blenders and hunt for drives until you get the diluted fuel alt that uses blenders. Very easy setup, lots of power out. You need another alt to make oil directly into heavy oil residue to get the most out of it as well, but can still get a lot of power even if you're just using the residue from the base recipes for rubber/plastic.

[The Panic Wolf]

Originally posted by Mister Fabulous:

If you tapped all the coal on the map, you could generate 154,500MW.

You could do that and find an alternate to use oil with iron to make steel ingots. It needs petroleum coke which it itself a byproduct (indirectly) of regular recipes an alternate as well.

I recommend dabbling in fuel. If your not into complicated setups, unlock blenders and hunt for drives until you get the diluted fuel alt that uses blenders. Very easy setup, lots of power out. You need another alt to make oil directly into heavy oil residue to get the most out of it as well, but can still get a lot of power even if you're just using the residue from the base recipes for rubber/plastic.

Does that include adding Power Cells to them all, and only accounting for 1 Coal Generator per node?
My 2nd Coal Power Supply has 3 nodes, but I put 4 generators, so they are probably split, but only a single split in that one, and I have made it so the petroleum is powering the coal generators, my main concern now is connecting the thermal generators, as despite the flux in generation, I try hard to not have the possibility of power generation going over the max it can handle.

[kimba-rip]

coal and fuel should be all you need, but you may need alot of them depending on your build size. nuke power is fun to do and a challenge if you are up for it....?

[The Big Brzezinski]

Sustainable nuclear power takes a lot of planning and preparation. Aside from tuning the factory itself, you'll also need to build a source of iodized filters for your hazmat suit. This is assuming you already have a developed rail network for delivering the multitude of required resources, which you will also very much need. If you've successfully learned what the game has been teaching you up to that point, you can do it.

Coal is fine. It doesn't stop being a source of power. It's main downside is that it's not very energy dense, so you need a pretty big power plant to appreciably increase your grid capacity.

[Joeyramone]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Sustainable nuclear power takes a lot of planning and preparation. Aside from tuning the factory itself, you'll also need to build a source of iodized filters for your hazmat suit. This is assuming you already have a developed rail network for delivering the multitude of required resources, which you will also very much need. If you've successfully learned what the game has been teaching you up to that point, you can do it.

Coal is fine. It doesn't stop being a source of power. It's main downside is that it's not very energy dense, so you need a pretty big power plant to appreciably increase your grid capacity.

you really dont need to worry about the rads. if you set up the plant and the waste recycling before you turn it on. youll never need to revisit.

[Virtual Ocean Horizon]

Originally posted by The Panic Wolf:

Originally posted by Mister Fabulous:

If you tapped all the coal on the map, you could generate 154,500MW.

You could do that and find an alternate to use oil with iron to make steel ingots. It needs petroleum coke which it itself a byproduct (indirectly) of regular recipes an alternate as well.

I recommend dabbling in fuel. If your not into complicated setups, unlock blenders and hunt for drives until you get the diluted fuel alt that uses blenders. Very easy setup, lots of power out. You need another alt to make oil directly into heavy oil residue to get the most out of it as well, but can still get a lot of power even if you're just using the residue from the base recipes for rubber/plastic.

Does that include adding Power Cells to them all, and only accounting for 1 Coal Generator per node?
My 2nd Coal Power Supply has 3 nodes, but I put 4 generators, so they are probably split, but only a single split in that one, and I have made it so the petroleum is powering the coal generators, my main concern now is connecting the thermal generators, as despite the flux in generation, I try hard to not have the possibility of power generation going over the max it can handle.

You can also go a step further from fuel and do turbofuel. Turbofuel setups are interesting alternative to endgame power, if you don't want nuclear. The most efficient turbofuel setups don't even need coal (so you can save it for steel), just sulfur, oil, and water. Production & logistics are arguably much simpler than nuclear, and feeding all the turbofuel to generator farms is much simpler to construct than nuclear. Plus, no unsinkable waste, and as said you can use it to make rubber or plastic.

However, its not all good. Turbofuel setups at a minimum require 2 hard drives, and the most efficient setups require several alternate recipes. The sheer size of the buildings and the number of them needed is immense and will dwarf simpler nuclear setups. Just the generators alone will take up 4 times the space of nuclear generators to get the same amount of power. This also likely means using a LOT more power slugs if you overclock your generators. This also means that turbofuel setups require massive amount of materials to construct. I'm not sure if turbofuel is more energy efficient than nuclear either.

[The Panic Wolf]

Originally posted by Virtual Ocean Horizon:

Originally posted by The Panic Wolf:

Does that include adding Power Cells to them all, and only accounting for 1 Coal Generator per node?
My 2nd Coal Power Supply has 3 nodes, but I put 4 generators, so they are probably split, but only a single split in that one, and I have made it so the petroleum is powering the coal generators, my main concern now is connecting the thermal generators, as despite the flux in generation, I try hard to not have the possibility of power generation going over the max it can handle.

You can also go a step further from fuel and do turbofuel. Turbofuel setups are interesting alternative to endgame power, if you don't want nuclear. The most efficient turbofuel setups don't even need coal (so you can save it for steel), just sulfur, oil, and water. Production & logistics are arguably much simpler than nuclear, and feeding all the turbofuel to generator farms is much simpler to construct than nuclear. Plus, no unsinkable waste, and as said you can use it to make rubber or plastic.

However, its not all good. Turbofuel setups at a minimum require 2 hard drives, and the most efficient setups require several alternate recipes. The sheer size of the buildings and the number of them needed is immense and will dwarf simpler nuclear setups. Just the generators alone will take up 4 times the space of nuclear generators to get the same amount of power. This also likely means using a LOT more power slugs if you overclock your generators. This also means that turbofuel setups require massive amount of materials to construct. I'm not sure if turbofuel is more energy efficient than nuclear either.

I'm not sure how to respond to this all, but to comment on needing a lot of power slugs.
I got like 86 power cells from my last exploration, I'm not going to run short on them.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Originally posted by Joeyramone:

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Sustainable nuclear power takes a lot of planning and preparation. Aside from tuning the factory itself, you'll also need to build a source of iodized filters for your hazmat suit. This is assuming you already have a developed rail network for delivering the multitude of required resources, which you will also very much need. If you've successfully learned what the game has been teaching you up to that point, you can do it.

Coal is fine. It doesn't stop being a source of power. It's main downside is that it's not very energy dense, so you need a pretty big power plant to appreciably increase your grid capacity.

you really dont need to worry about the rads. if you set up the plant and the waste recycling before you turn it on. youll never need to revisit.

It's necessary for construction and inspection to have iodized filter manufacturing going on, but not because you need a lot of them. It's necessary because you really shouldn't be worrying about survival time when attempting to build a friggin' nuclear power plant. Constant iodized filter production means you have as much time as you could need to get things right, even if you do occasionally have to retrieve that time from a catchment box somewhere.

Always optimize first for minimal frustration.