Using Coolant Cells as Single Use Coolant

It was mentioned somewhere in the DDoS thread that, instead of cycling coolant between the reactor and a cooling tower, spent coolant could be destroyed and new cells made from UU-matter. I decided to give this a shot.

As a test reactor, I used this design. 16 coolant cells, the same number of quad uranium cells, 1920 EU/t, 30 seconds before things start melting. Before all the coolant cells melt simultaneously, in fact.

Based on the facts that the reactor burns 16 coolant cells every 30 seconds, and that one coolant cell requires four tin (I'm using buckets of water to craft coolant cells, not water cells, which saves a little tin), and that the standard amplified Mass Fabricator cost of one UU-matter is 166667 EU, I calculate that the reactor must generate at least 5333 EU/t, not even counting the energy required to generate scrap (or other amplifiers) for the mass fab, or that required to smelt the tin dust into ingots. Not even close to what this reactor provides. However, I didn't actually go all the way through with the calculations (without errors) until I began writing this post.
A few miscalculations and similar sorts of confusions on my part thus led me to believe that this system might actually work, so I went ahead with setting it up in a test world.

As I am using GregTech, I initially used the Matter Fabricator with its 16666667 EU per UU-matter in place of the Mass Fab, but I quickly realized that it wasn't going to come close to working. So, I switched to the Mass Fab. Cheatery, I know, but it had to be done.

The setup included several RedPower relays feeding fresh coolant cells into the reactor as they melted. This leads to no heat buildup, if everything works properly- but even if some heat does escape into the reactor hull, the Overclocked Heat Vents take care of it rather quickly. And a Nuclear Control setup shuts off the reactor automatically if something does go wrong.

I found that, as the math would've predicted had I done it correctly, the buffer of coolant cells decreased over time, which would eventually lead to the reactor running out of coolant.

In short, it seems that coolant cells make for very poor single-use coolant. This strategy would only be worthwhile if you can manage to get more than four times as much EU out of a reactor as heat. No CASUC reactors here.

That said, if anyone can come up with a way to actually generate EU using these methods, I would very much like to see it. I have a feeling that it would consist of a modified recent-generation DDoS reactor.

skavier470: I'm fully aware that the coolant cells could be cooled in another reactor and re-used- I said that I got this idea from reading the DDoS thread, did I not? My point in this thread was to test whether or not simply destroying coolant cells was feasible.
And I don't see how my work leads to a functional CASUC- the Constantly Applied Single Use Coolant costs more EU than the reactor provides, does it not?

@ShneekyTheLost: I was previously unaware of the existence of that conference, and it was indeed rather informative. However, I still haven't seen anyone test the feasibility of burning coolant.

But the question of whether or not NaK coolant cells might still work is still in the air, and I don't seem to have time now to run the math on that. I'm starting to think not... because the only ways to get potassium are from enderpearls and saltpeter, and enderpearls are rather expensive on the UU-matter. And I don't really want to power a nuclear reactor with an enderman farm. Hmm...

Seems that generating enough lava via the Lava Fabricator from Minefactory Reloaded to produce the tin necessary for my test reactor (without accounting for the EU needed to centrifuge the lava), running quad uranium cells and 10k coolant cells, would require over 42 thousand EU/t.

However, Kenken244, you probably meant draining the nether or a Mystcraft age for virtually free lava, to centrifuge into tin.

The four tin for one coolant cell thus cost 100,000 EU. Thus, running the centrifuges alone would require 2666 EU/t. Still energy-negative, but not as much so as the UU-matter route.

So that leaves us with sodium and potassium. Two sodium cells (enough for one NaK coolant cell) can be obtained from electrolyzing 8 clay dust with 10,000 EU, plus 277777 EU for the clay (ignoring maceration costs) equals 287,777 EU. Again, using the now obviously cheaty mass fab UUM cost.

For potassium: I'll assume that you have a reliable, high-output enderman farm. 65,000 EU and 16 enderpearl dust in the electrolyzer gives four potassium cells, twice as many as needed for one NaK coolant cell. So, ignoring maceration costs again, you'll need 32,500 EU for the sodium.

Thus, each NaK coolant cell costs 100,000 EU + 287,777 EU + 32,500 EU = 420,277 EU. Each of these cells lasts nearly 3 minutes (179 seconds, to be exact) in the reactor- so it must produce at least 1878 EU/t. Which it does- barely. The whole rig constantly consumes external lava, as well as uranium and enderpearls, produces copper, electrum, tungsten, nitrogen, berylium, chlorite, lithium, silicon, aluminium, and a whopping 42 EU/t.

Less if we include the energy required to macerate the clay and enderpearls, and much less if we use GregTech's matterfab instead of the mass fab.

Which leaves us with helium coolant cells. Helium, as it turns out, is best obtained from nuclear fusion. And if you've got a fusion reactor, why did you need the entirely ridiculous nuke setup in the first place?

Conclusion: While, according to these calculations, burning NaK coolant cells is technically energy-positive, you're better off just burning that lava in geothermal generators. Or using a coolant-swapping CRCS nuke setup and centrifuging the lava.