Suggestion : Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator Fuels

    • Official Post

    It would check for fire in a radius below it (cone if possible, but it can be a "squary" solid for the sake of convenience). It may detect fires below the floor, but it can only extinguish fires that has a way to reach the smoke alarm.
    Water would be pumped in a small resevoir, stimulating the use of "pipes", making a water piping a need. Cells could be used , but that wouldn't be efficient nor as cool looking as the piped one.

  • I don't know how these fire detectors actually works ... Is it involving Ionization (using radioactive decays) of Air and smoke disturbing it ?


    Soon with Molten Salt Reactors, right ? :D
    NERF THA FUSION REACTOR!

  • Mat, the smoke allows current to flow across the air gap while the Radioactive source ionizes the smoke particulates. A microchip of some sort detects the change in current through the circuit and activates the alarm function.

  • IRL such generators expected to be PERMANENT power source, only difference is production cost (some power cores shoud require UUM, diamonds, iridium or something else) and minor output difference, something like internal storage, peak production or else, but byitself source shoud be permanent.


    also device can be formed as reactor minigame, some power sources may require active cooling, providing less power at more heat, or vice verca, require heating to work.

    • Official Post

    A sidenote : RL RTG (plutonium) fuel is encapsulated in IRIDIUM and graphite (carbon plates?), alongside lead radiation shielding.
    Order : Plutonium ) Lead ) Iridium ) Graphite)
    I will leave this to greg.


    Thats true about it being "permanent" power source, it is a life-time worth.
    Just consider it permanent in MC. I don't think anyone usually plays 444 real life days in a MC world to even justify the run out of half of the RTG fuel (plutonium).


    Plutonium, in theory can not overheat, but some other more radioactive materials, like Polonium would easily overheat and melt the generator, that one would require a proper cooling.

  • I'd be happy to have this suggestion just for the fire-suppression system. A permanent (Non-solar & non-wind) power source would definitely be nice however.

    :Nuke TNT: = Answer to all problems. Including that creeper camping right outside the door of your glass house.

  • Americium could be used in a smoke detector, detecting fires and eventually extinguishes them (requires 100 mB of water for every fire extinguished). Useful on wood houses which can accidentally catch fire.

    Imho much better would be to have the alarm simply activate RS signal and have different devices work on that (sprinkers, alarm, gas release, ...)

  • Infinite duration ? I agree that it should last a long time, but given that Ura in Nuclear Reactor lasts only 2h45, I don't think it should be infinite, ESPECIALLY ASSUMING THESE TYPES OF GENERATORS ARE EXTREMLY UNEFFICIENT (less than 10% of a Nuclear Powerplant efficiency). So if you really want it infinite, take Thorium, but makes it generate 0.02 EU/t :D


    Soon with Molten Salt Reactors, right ? :D
    NERF THA FUSION REACTOR!

    • Official Post


    How would just lead plates around the plutonium instead of iron?

    • Official Post


    How would just lead plates around the plutonium instead of iron?

    Thats very doable, considering IC² has lead ore now.



    Radiation shielding is required, considering WE do have those RTG close to us.


    Uranium quickly depletes on a fission reactor because U is forcely broken into smaller particles, compared to natural radiation/heat from plutonium, americium and strontium. RTGs are meant to be a stable life-worth powersource.

  • Uranium quickly depletes on a fission reactor because U is forcely broken into smaller particles, compared to natural radiation/heat from plutonium, americium and strontium. RTGs are meant to be a stable life-worth powersource.

    Of course. But radioactive decays also provide WAY LESS energy than fission. So it last way longer, but in the end it's like 20 time less efficient for the same Fuel. It's just cheaper, and easier to bring anywhere (ex: some electric thingies for space stuff are powered with those Radioactive Battery).


    Soon with Molten Salt Reactors, right ? :D
    NERF THA FUSION REACTOR!

    • Official Post


    Of course. But radioactive decays also provide WAY LESS energy than fission. So it last way longer, but in the end it's like 20 time less efficient for the same Fuel. It's just cheaper, and easier to bring anywhere (ex: some electric thingies for space stuff are powered with those Radioactive Battery).

    I know that. Its power gen is not that low too, btw. One gram of plutonium-238 generates approximately 0.5 watts of power.


    Thats 10 J/t = 0.25 EU/t per gram of Pu, if you consider 100% eff, reduce that to about 50%... 0,125 EU/t per gram

    • Official Post

    The ore is a metre cubed. All you need now is to work out what purity the ore is and scale the generation based on how much of the metre cubes is actually uranium.

    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.

    • Official Post

    One tonne (1000 kg) of spent nuclear fuel (depleted uranium cell ?) contains about 100 grams of americium.
    Strontium amount is about 5.8% in mass, 1000kg would yield 58 kg.



    If we make containers that has NBT tags which are used for amount (in grams) of element stored, and thus it can be used to make different RTG cells (which inherits the amount of element stored) outputting different EU/t. Once assembled, a RTG cell can't be (safely) disassembled.


    Suggestion for nuclear breeding "overhaul" :


    Uranium 238 can be bred into Plutonium 239 (nuclear fuel) -> IC²
    Thorium 232 can be bred into Uranium 233 (nuclear fuel) -> IC² + GT


    nuclear breeding with U 235 is the way.

    • Official Post

    1/10 m³ of uranium = about 1910 Kg [density of 19100 kg/m³] -> 0,71% of that is fissile U-235 = 13,561 Kg.


    "1 kg of Uranium-235 can theorically produce 80 terajoules (8*10^13 J -> 2*10^12 EU {2 trillion EU}), as much energy as 3000000 Kg of coal." - wiki.
    Nuclear powerplants uses uranium enriched to about 3%, pretty much what IC² is trying to do now.
    What we need is U-235 breeder reactors (uses "pure" Uranium-235 to start a neutron chain reaction, which breeds uranium-238 into plutonium-239 [Th-232 into U-233 for GT is also possible])


    Real life math is not going to work very well, considering the abundancy of materials, not that we can't workaround it.

  • I know that. Its power gen is not that low too, btw. One gram of plutonium-238 generates approximately 0.5 watts of power.


    Thats 10 J/t = 0.25 EU/t per gram of Pu, if you consider 100% eff, reduce that to about 50%... 0,125 EU/t per gram

    Well, as you mentionned it, Nuclear Reactor also provides way more than that ... the power of the last EPR french firms made is ...1 400 000 000 W. So assuming this is about 2 000 EU/t, aka what I hope the new reactors will be able to generate as MkI, given they are going to be much more expensive, ... and given the efficiency you have to consider isn't 50% (which is more than the about 30% of Nuclear Powerplants without cogeneration) but 3%.
    So 1 EU/t with a much longer duration seems correct for one Pu cells to me ^^.


    Soon with Molten Salt Reactors, right ? :D
    NERF THA FUSION REACTOR!

    • Official Post

    Thermal plates (temperature difference generates current, energy) are different than "steam boiler" system used in reactors.


    0.5 watt is for the entire lifetime. 1 382 853 600 Watts would be generated over 87.7 years, per gram of Pu {aproximation not considering the decay itself over the duration}


    If i'm not wrong, RTG fuel cells generates 1-2-4-8-16 EU/t inside the RTG generator.