I'm getting enough resources in my world that I want to get into nuclear power, but being new to the nuclear thing I thought I would ask if these designs would work.
I know a breeder doubles in speed for every 3000 heat but is this relationship linear or does it jump at 3000, 6000, 9000...? In other words does the breeding go 33% faster at heat 1000? If the relationship is linear then below is what I have in mind.
First, I'll tell you what I'm looking for in a reactor and breeder. I wanted a reactor with as high efficiency as possible while being able to run a complete cycle without any parts melting, basically a Mark II-1. This was so I could set up the reactor and forget about it. Naturally Dezu's design is one of the best. I also wanted a breeder to get more efficiency out of each uranium. Again I wanted a breeder that I could set and forget and that would fully refine each empty isotope I put in within 1 cycle. Initially I was going to build two separate reactors, one reactor and one breeder, so that when the reactor was cooling down I could refine the uranium in the other. I then thought it would be a shame to waste the heat from the first reactor when I want to run a breeder so I came up with the idea below.
First I slightly modified Dezu's design to make it run a little bit hotter. Modified Mark-II-1
According to the planner, this reactor finishes its cycle with a hull heat of 6607. Before it gets much time to cool down, I change it to breeding mode. Breeder Setup
In the planner I set the starting heat of my breeder at 6000 and it says the isotope cells get to 99%. If I start this breeder soon after running it as a reactor it actually starts at ~6600 heat. If the breeder speed is linear like I'm asking above, then the extra starting heat should refine the cells all the way to 100% in one full cycle.
The idea behind this design is to be very user friendly. To go from reactor mode to breeder mode you insert another uranium cell, two depleted uranium cells, and replace 2 of the cooling cells with two more depleted uranium cells. The only other change to make is switch the external cooling from water to air (easily done with a piston above the reactor) and you've now got a slightly positive breeder, but one that can still run a full cycle safely.
In the optimal case (all 4 uranium cells in the reactor turn into depleted cells), you should be able to run a full reactor and breeder cycle netting you 13 mil EU using up only 1 uranium cell, that's efficiency of 13! In the least optimal case where you get no depleted cells you still have a basic 3 efficiency reactor.
So what do you guys think? Do these designs seem to work the way I want them to?
