Nuclear power

[zlongshark]

Greetings Rimworlders,

I'm unsure if this has been suggested but nuclear power would be a great idea IMO

-Would make for an awesome event if the core malfunctioned and you had to remove all your colony to the other side of the map. I guess its just the risk that comes with nuclear power.
-It should require level 20 construction and be unlocked via research.
-The game already has ship reactor cores and uranium.

Let me know what you think

[Regret]

Heh, interesting.
Core malfunction would be such a horrible event, it should only happen with damaged power plants.

[zlongshark]

Heh, interesting.
Core malfunction would be such a horrible event, it should only happen with damaged power plants.

Yeah just imagine half your map in nuclear fallout. I really hope Tynan adds this in.

[JimmyAgnt007]

I see radiation as something akin to the poison ship event in that it keeps expanding until its dealt with.  So you have time to fix it before the reactor goes critical.  When it does then yes, it would irradiate the entire map or at least part of it.  More so for mountain bases than ones in the open.  Venting into the air would help.  Hazmat suits would make good gear for this as well as toxic fallouts.

I dont think there should be a construction level requirement since ive never naturally gotten someone to rank 20 in any skill ever. 

[Toggle]

People mention uranium a lot... I'm pretty sure the uranium that your colonists can safely handle aren't the same type of uranium that would be used in a nuclear reactor?

[zlongshark]

I see radiation as something akin to the poison ship event in that it keeps expanding until its dealt with.  So you have time to fix it before the reactor goes critical.  When it does then yes, it would irradiate the entire map or at least part of it.  More so for mountain bases than ones in the open.  Venting into the air would help.  Hazmat suits would make good gear for this as well as toxic fallouts.

I dont think there should be a construction level requirement since ive never naturally gotten someone to rank 20 in any skill ever.

Hazmat suits sounds like a great idea. I just think that since it will generate so much power it should be difficult to obtain. also i have several level 20 colonist skills. Construction and artistic are the easiest to level up.

[zlongshark]

People mention uranium a lot... I'm pretty sure the uranium that your colonists can safely handle aren't the same type of uranium that would be used in a nuclear reactor?

All uranium is harmful when handling but, most nuclear reactors use pellets of uranium oxide (UO2).

[zlongshark]

Sonic

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Toggle]

Sonic

What does that have to do with the thread?

[DoctorNick]

People mention uranium a lot... I'm pretty sure the uranium that your colonists can safely handle aren't the same type of uranium that would be used in a nuclear reactor?

...

There's not really a short answer to that question, so here's the heavily simplified version with lots of details cut out:

Uranium straight out of the ground is a somewhat toxic heavy metal like lead (don't lick it) and is itself only slightly radioactive, with the two most common isotopes you find in nature being U238 and U235, with respective half-lives of ~4.5 billion years and ~700 million years.  The big half-lives meaning that they don't decay very quickly and thus aren't putting out much in the way of radiation.

Without getting TOO deep into the weeds here U235 is what you actually need to run a reactor, and here on Earth the uranium you mine out of the ground is about .7% U235 and the rest U238.  (This is due to the U235 having the shorter half-life and thus decaying faster, when the elements that make up the planet were forged in a supernova billions of years ago they were created in more-or-less equal amounts.)

In MOST reactors world wide .7% U235 isn't enough and it needs to be 'enriched', meaning you run the uranium through a process to separate the isotopes increasing the proportion of U235.  How this is done is beyond the scope of this post, but at the end of it you end up with uranium that's about 5% U235 to be used in MOST reactors.  (Again, simplifying here, too many rabbit holes we could go down.)

At this stage the enriched uranium *IS* more radioactive than before, due to having more U235 which has the shorter half-life, but it's not enough to have to worry about radiation poisoning or anything like that.  See this guy here?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/RIAN_archive_132603_Nuclear_power_reactor_fuel_assembly.jpg

Freshly manufactured fuel bundle, not super radioactive.

This changes once the fuel has been put into the reactor, the actual fission of uranium atoms leaves behind two smaller atoms that tend to be unstable and will radioactively decay.  (More Not Answering Here: Complicated)

So long story short:

Uranium fresh out of the ground?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been enriched into reactor fuel?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been partially consumed as fuel in a reactor?  Really God Damn radioactive when you pull it out of the reactor.

...

I'll have more to say on the topic of reactors in RimWorld, but I'll type that up later.

[zlongshark]

Sonic

What does that have to do with the thread?

Someone mentioned they haven't managed to get a colonist to level 20 and I'm just backing up my claim to have an level 20 skill.

[zlongshark]

People mention uranium a lot... I'm pretty sure the uranium that your colonists can safely handle aren't the same type of uranium that would be used in a nuclear reactor?

Dr. Nick that was a excellent explanation, looking forward to seeing more from you.
...

There's not really a short answer to that question, so here's the heavily simplified version with lots of details cut out:

Uranium straight out of the ground is a somewhat toxic heavy metal like lead (don't lick it) and is itself only slightly radioactive, with the two most common isotopes you find in nature being U238 and U235, with respective half-lives of ~4.5 billion years and ~700 million years.  The big half-lives meaning that they don't decay very quickly and thus aren't putting out much in the way of radiation.

Without getting TOO deep into the weeds here U235 is what you actually need to run a reactor, and here on Earth the uranium you mine out of the ground is about .7% U235 and the rest U238.  (This is due to the U235 having the shorter half-life and thus decaying faster, when the elements that make up the planet were forged in a supernova billions of years ago they were created in more-or-less equal amounts.)

In MOST reactors world wide .7% U235 isn't enough and it needs to be 'enriched', meaning you run the uranium through a process to separate the isotopes increasing the proportion of U235.  How this is done is beyond the scope of this post, but at the end of it you end up with uranium that's about 5% U235 to be used in MOST reactors.  (Again, simplifying here, too many rabbit holes we could go down.)

At this stage the enriched uranium *IS* more radioactive than before, due to having more U235 which has the shorter half-life, but it's not enough to have to worry about radiation poisoning or anything like that.  See this guy here?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/RIAN_archive_132603_Nuclear_power_reactor_fuel_assembly.jpg

Freshly manufactured fuel bundle, not super radioactive.

This changes once the fuel has been put into the reactor, the actual fission of uranium atoms leaves behind two smaller atoms that tend to be unstable and will radioactively decay.  (More Not Answering Here: Complicated)

So long story short:

Uranium fresh out of the ground?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been enriched into reactor fuel?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been partially consumed as fuel in a reactor?  Really God Damn radioactive when you pull it out of the reactor.

...

I'll have more to say on the topic of reactors in RimWorld, but I'll type that up later.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Thanks for the screenshot, I dont really go out of my way to train anyone unless its a nero trainer so thats prolly why I dont get level 20s.  That being said, i still dont think a level 20 builder is a good idea.  Rather since a reactor needs a lot of people to run you should require an AI control unit to build. 

As for uranium as fuel, as is is close enough for the sake of gameplay.  Though dealing with toxic waste would be neat.  Maybe a lead lined room to store it and you have to pay traders to take it.  Or maybe instead of a colonist escape ship you just launch it into space yourself and if you fail you get the toxic fallout event.

BTW Dr Nick that was rather informative, thank you. 

[Toggle]

People mention uranium a lot... I'm pretty sure the uranium that your colonists can safely handle aren't the same type of uranium that would be used in a nuclear reactor?

So long story short:

Uranium fresh out of the ground?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been enriched into reactor fuel?  Not super radioactive.
Uranium that's been partially consumed as fuel in a reactor?  Really God Damn radioactive when you pull it out of the reactor.

After reading the whole thing, thanks, that's informative. So I know that yes, Rimworlders can build solar panels out of steel or turrets or geothermal generators, but they can barely create guns, and I just doubt it would be a good mechanic even end-game for colonists to be able to create a whole nuclear reactor to power your base. Although it would be nice to have a more expensive energy source that is only beneficial after a lot of research and resources.

So it could work, but it might be better to call it something different then a nuclear reactor. Just a fictional energy source.

[Limdood]

there's a mod out there that has a nuclear power plant.

it puts out about 2.5 geothermal, but takes a TON of steel and some Uranium to construct.

It has 2500 HP and may overheat and explode if damaged below 2200...also puts out crazy heat so needs venting.

pretty simple to copy the basic idea of that power generation, but make the "explode" much more severe, and make raids try to target it with higher priority (maybe the equivalent of a colonist).  It'll never be super safe since it needs venting it can be mortarstruck without some goofy, creative room design, and sappers will try to get to it.