Power Generation

  • In my survival world, I would like to run the Mass Fabricator non-stop, as I am ready to produce Iridium and need UU-Liquid. I produce about 300 EU/t total from my reactors, and I am not willing to build more reactors or change the layout of the reactors(I have had several nuclear meltdowns already), so how can I produce enough power?

  • In my survival world, I would like to run the Mass Fabricator non-stop, as I am ready to produce Iridium and need UU-Liquid. I produce about 300 EU/t total from my reactors, and I am not willing to build more reactors or change the layout of the reactors(I have had several nuclear meltdowns already), so how can I produce enough power?

    I'm in the same situation. I have a reactor that does 420 EU/t and is stable that has been feeding some mass fabs alongside some Advanced Solar Power solar panels. The IC2 reactors are quite underwhelming with respect to the amount of power they produce. I suppose the point is to make a riskier build that requires constant maintenance, but I haven't got the spoons to learn LUA to develop a ComputerCraft code to keep the damned things running without going BOOM.


    One thing you can do is switch over to a Pressure Vessel layout. That will turn the machine into a liquid-cooled machine that produces hot coolant. You can pipe the hot coolant to a series of liquid heat exchangers (be sure to put 10 heat conductors in each one) that will then provide heat to steam generators. Those steam gens should be set to 221 bar and 1 mB/tick of water coming through. Make sure you run DISTILLED water through or they will calcify and back up. You can make lots of distilled water with 2 electric heat generators hooked up to a steam generator and a condenser. The condenser will dumb the distilled to a drum or tank.


    Anyway, once you have enough coolant to keep the machine running on a closed loop it's a good, reliable source of power. You just hook the steam generators up to a Steam Kinetic Generator with a turbine in it. Then connect the steam kinetic gen to a Kinetic Generator and that will take the spin of the steam kinetic and turn it into EU. I get around 600-700 EU/tick this way from a reactor layout that would make 420 EU/tick as a regular reactor. Same layout. No risk of meltdown.


    Indeed, I used an RFTools Liquid Comparator or something like that...it looks to see if the IC2 Coolant level is > or = to 50% volume. If it is, it provides a redstone signal to the resdtone toggle switch for the reactor. If it dips below 50%, the reactor shuts off until it's above 50% again. This makes sure the reactor always has enough coolant to mitigate heat.


    Hope this helps!

  • I do use scrap, I have several quarries running 24/7 to produce enough scrap. Still not enough though. I've tried fluid reactors before, but the kinetic steam generators always make explosions sounds and shoot out steam particles. I will try again, and I'll post again with the results.

  • I do use scrap, I have several quarries running 24/7 to produce enough scrap. Still not enough though. I've tried fluid reactors before, but the kinetic steam generators always make explosions sounds and shoot out steam particles. I will try again, and I'll post again with the results.

    You have to ensure the reactor is making enough hot coolant to keep up with the demand from the liquid heat exchangers. That's been my big pitfall: I can't get a hot enough reactor design. But Aroma was just telling me that you can copy and paste the URL for all those dead-linked reactor schematics into the reactor design simulator and it will show the design so that's pretty awesome.

  • The reactor I use produces plenty of heat as well, but the Kinetic Steam Generators seem to be the issue. I throw in a turbine, hook up a Kinetic Generator, and give it steam and all it does is shoot out steam particles and make explosion noises. I do have a proper place for the produced distilled water to go but it will not go through the Fluid Distributers. The reactor gives ~600 H/U per tick, or at least that's what the reactor says. All the heat goes to turn distilled water into steam. The Kinetic steam generators seem to be the problem. Is there any way to convert IC2 steam to other mods' steam? Because Big Reactors has a steam turbine that might work better.

    • Official Post

    The reactor I use produces plenty of heat as well, but the Kinetic Steam Generators seem to be the issue. I throw in a turbine, hook up a Kinetic Generator, and give it steam and all it does is shoot out steam particles and make explosion noises. I do have a proper place for the produced distilled water to go but it will not go through the Fluid Distributers. The reactor gives ~600 H/U per tick, or at least that's what the reactor says. All the heat goes to turn distilled water into steam. The Kinetic steam generators seem to be the problem.

    You do have a condenser touching the kinetic steam generator right? A rather hidden requirement is that there must be a condenser touching a kinetic steam generator with steam in that will take 10% worth of the inputted steam to be turned into distilled water within it. Kinetic steam generators with superheated steam in also have a similar requirement, but they need to touch another kinetic steam generator that can accept the produced steam.

    Is there any way to convert IC2 steam to other mods' steam?

    Only in 1.10+

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • Hmm, the condensers are touching the kinetic steam generators, not sure what else this could be. And I am on 1.7.10, not all of the mods I use have been updated to 1.10.

    • Official Post

    If the kinetic steam generators have condensers, then all I can think is either the condensers can't keep up with the steam that they are being given. There isn't any other condition that would make a kinetic steam generator make an explosion, when they fill up with distilled water internally it just reduces the output proportionally. The condensers haven't filled up with distilled water in their (rather small) output tank?

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • The condensers just couldn't keep up, I added heat vents and gave them power. It seems to work without a problem now. Thanks!

  • Just curious, what is the Stirling Kinetic Generator? I saw it while looking through recipes, but I'm not sure what it does exactly.

  • Okay, and it says it produces KU as well, so it heats something else up and produces KU. Useful for me. Is it efficient though, because the stirling generator sounds similar to this but it's only 50% efficient.

  • Okay. I tried it out, and it makes this hot water stuff. I thought I might be able to boil the hot water into steam, but that proved to be false. What can I do with the hot water it produces?

  • Here's a setup which always worked for me:


    SH Steam EU System.txt


    Boiler (Steam Generator) must be set to 220 bar pressure and 1 mb/tick output. You should put 10 buckets of distilled water in it as well.


    Both fluid distributors must be set to -Concentrate- and the outlet must be set to the bottom side (shift-click with a wrench on the top side). The idea is to have all the distilled water back on the boiler.


    Condenser must have 1 Heat Vent to keep up with the rest of the system speed, also it will need a Fluid Ejector upgrade settled to eject only towards the side where the nearest fluid distributor is located (to the west side in my example). It will need power to operate, so, don't forget to put a cable to draw this power from the engine right below.


    Topmost steam turbine must have a Fluid Ejector upgrade settled to eject only towards the fluid distributor beside it, the turbine at the bottom must have another upgrade as well but it should eject (distilled water) right back into the boiler.


    You should apply 200 hu/t to the boiler in order to produce superheated steam, one heat exchanger will produce only 100 hu/t, so, you will need 2 fully operative heat exchangers next to the boiler for this to work, in my example they should be placed north and south of the boiler. Super heated steam will be produced once the boiler reaches 374 degrees.


    To set a ejector upgrade, shift click while holding the upgrade in the hand, you could use any block on the world, just make sure to click over the side you need the upgrade to eject to.


    The condenser is the key to avoid steam explosions. ;)