Compact, Automated, High-Efficiency Breeder Reactor

[syntaxium]

This is the first (breeder) stage of a two-stage project to create a high-efficiency nuclear power generation facility. The second stage involves building a reactor which actually generates some power.

The objectives of the project were that the resulting nuclear power facility must:

• be safe, because nobody wants a hole in their world
  
• not be built using any kind of EE or "magic" (condensers, relays, collectors) or things like snow-men or deployers. In other words, the components used should have maximum "realism"
  
• be highly efficient, in terms of raw materials to EU.
  
• be completely automated (only input is raw materials), starting, stopping and re-fueling the breeder and power reactors as needed to meet demand.
  
• be reasonably compact.
  

I can safely say that the breeder built meets all these objectives... just don't disable the safety mechanisms because there is no containment vessel (a one-layer thick marble enclosure) .

Pictures

http://sdrv.ms/Rpwt0B

Design & Detail

If you like reading or want more information with pictures about how it works, there is a PDF document describing the facility (only a breeder so far) at: http://sdrv.ms/S0YYDa

Running the map yourself

It was built on a Tekkit server (even though I usually play alone, I only really ever build on servers so friends can always join in) so to run it you will need to download and run Tekkit Server 3.1.2, and replace the world directory with the one at http://sdrv.ms/RpuLfz (decompress first).

You'll probably spawn in the middle of nowhere, so you'll want to get yourself into creative mode and make your way to 0,550 and go through the cottage/house into the mountain and jump all the way down to the bottom of the pit. I use the Sphax BDCraft texturepack so it will look a little different on the default.

Update: 1/1/13: During the process upgrading the number of cells able to be bred at a time from 16 to 24, I have discovered that there is a random chance (guestimating 1 in 4) that the current design will not function any particular server run because of the design of the cooling system (particularly, only having one slot in the reactor for the cooling system to place buckets, and the random semi-random timing between reactor updates and the thermal monitor updates).

This won't cause an explosion or meltdown (unfortunately ), but the ability to cool the reactor is halved, and this means cell production will be also be roughly halved. I already have a solution and am implementing that now... stay tuned.