Nuclear Energy Tutorial

Nuclear energy will yield you tonnes of energy as a reward, if you are competent enough. If not, you may just leave a giant crater in your home.

Step 1: Finding Uranium Ore

Uranium Ore

There is no easy way to find Uranium Ore. It appears randomly in very small veins between layers 0-64. It also appears rarely in the walls of caverns. It must be mined with an Iron or better Pickaxe, and will drop 1 Uranium for every ore that is successfully mined.

Step 2: Building Your First Reactor

A Nuclear Reactor

A Nuclear Reactor is expensive to build, relying on hard-to-obtain elements like Glowstone and energy-intensive materials like Advanced Alloy Plates. Don't expect to build one in your first week.

Step 3: Finding Your 3-Mile Island

Siting your Nuclear Reactor is crucial! While it can be removed using a Wrench, the possibility of destroying your precious machine in the process makes this a risky proposition, use an Electric Wrench in lossless mode to ensure that you get your reactor back (Hold "M" and right-click). Ideally you'll have a lake or ocean nearby.

Step 4: Heavy Water

In SMP environments, you may wish to site your reactor somewhere more... secluded. Building a Reactor Containment Vessel will be essential. Nothing less than Reinforced Stone should be used in the construction. Using buckets to place water as you build should allow you to create the necessary cube of water surrounding your Reactor. Use a Reinforced Stone Door for access. Ensure that there is sufficient blast shielding to minimize destruction of property in the case of an "accident"!

Step 5: The Green Glow

Ok, so now you've got a Reactor suspended in water, with or without cables attached. You've got at least one piece of Uranium Ore. Congratulations, world domination, your nuclear future awaits!

Step 6: Cells of Plenty

But, you can't just use raw uranium, you have to Compress it into shiny new Refined Uranium Ingots, then shove those ingots into an Empty Cell to make a Uranium Cell! These are the only source of power generation in a Reactor.
Now process the rest of your Uranium Ore into Uranium Cell(s).
Never mix fuel ingots with gunpowder in an attempt to make a nuke!

Step 7: The Soothing Hum of Power

So, here is the point of the Nuclear Reactor. By placing 1 more Uranium Cell into the Reactor and surrounding it with Coolant Cells. Each Cell will provide a staggering TWO MILLION EU of Energy, and your Reactor outputs 10 EU/t. That's equivalent to a coal-burning Generator, but the uranium lasts so much longer than coal!

Summary

If the proper precautions are taken, a Nuclear explosion can be mostly contained and the damage sustained minimal. In the wrong situation though, a Nuclear disaster can leave you with a pretty impressive hole in the ground where your prized workshop used to be. Always ensure your reactor has at least 1 square of water surrounding it in every possible direction, and screen it with Reinforced Stone for maximum protection.

Optional Step

Nuclear reactors are very valuable and without a doubt have a decent learning curve.

A complete breakdown of how each reactor component works is available on the IC2 forum Here

Advanced Engineering

Nuclear reactor setups are organized by Mark, then efficiency.

To understand the advanced mechanics visit the Industrial Craft Forums for this thread.

Mark definitions

• Mark I: Can be run repeatedly indefinitely (The -O means it requires external cooling, -I does not)
• Mark II: Can be run repeatedly for a limited number of times before requiring cooldowns (-# are the number of cycles it can complete)
• Mark III: Cannot complete a cycle (but can go longer than 10% of a cycle) before requiring a cooldown period.
• Mark IV: Same as Mark III, except some components will need replacing before the next cycle continues.
• Mark V: Cannot run 10% of one cycle before requiring a cooldown period

Efficiency Definitions

• EE: Each U-Cell power-ticks exactly once per time-tick.
• ED: The average U-Cell power-ticks between 1 and 2 times per time-tick.
• EC: The average U-Cell power-ticks between 2 and 3 times per time-tick.
• EB: The average U-Cell power-ticks between 3 and 4 times per time-tick.
• EA: The average U-Cell power-ticks more than 4 times per time-tick.