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[Albedo]

I've hollowed out a room under my Trade Depot, and I've been stacking up blocks of Pitchblende and Graphite in alternating rows... but it doesn't seem to be doing very much.

The graphite is only for placement of the pitcheblende - once you have that in place, you need to remove the graphite... one bar at a time...

If you're going to submerse it, submerse it FIRST.  That's a classic blunder, as the water reflect the neutrons back, shield the users but increasing the reaction many fold.  Great way to flash the water and have one brilliant blue-to-green glow before everyone is Brazilian fried chicken.

Oh, wait.. are you talking DF or RL?...

[AncientEnemy]

<--

[Wild Goose]

Well...if you added magma and exposed the heap to the air, you could recreate Chernobyl.  Just build a few windmills to test the local winds, and make sure an elven forest is downwind of you.

Bonus points if you can gather up all sorts of dangerous creatures and deadly traps and then abandon.  Then quest there in Adventure Mode with an Ambusher.

[kotekzot]

some day people will read this thread and think 'what was this guy on - particle simulation was not in until version 106'

[acropora]

Obviously you need Urist Oppenheimer to lead the project.

[Sphalerite]

Depending on how rich uranium ore deposits are in DF, making a reactor from nothing more than pitchblend and water could be possible.  It's happened on Earth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

You probably don't want the graphite.  It's not actually needed if you have enough water, and might actually prevent a chain reaction if it's contaminated with sulfur or other neutron poisons.

Of course, you can expect the elves to permanently declare war on you for experimenting with nuclear power.

[blue emu]

Of course, you can expect the elves to permanently declare war on you for experimenting with nuclear power.

I knew that it had to be useful for SOMETHING!

I'm beginning to suspect that TOADY hasn't finished implimenting the Thermonuclear Armageddon Arc. 

[Captain Xenon]

okay, lets face facts here- too much graphite! pitchblende blocks are very impure, and will only give a small amount of what you need.

mutation- could be a groundwater contamination. check the walls/floors of your water sources.

my advice, get some pitchblende mechanisms, on top on a graphite block wall, and build a perpetual motion waterfall. thats your core power supply. next, route this power to a separate room where the pitchblende blocks are in the senter of a 3-z level+ booze stockpile. put a chute up top for magma.

now, once its built, fill the chute with magma, and open all the floodgates at the SAME TIME! resulting in a rather forcefull BOOM to implode the pitchblende core. this should give the desired bang. add a water supply nearby for fusion, in a room below to catch the magma when your wooden supports cave in. hydrogen will be released from the magma+water, resulting in fuel for fusion.

[ProfessorA]

Make sure to train up your armorsmith and have plenty of lead bars around, without *Lead Plate Mail* your haulers are as good as dead.

[TheDJ17]

some day people will read this thread and think 'what was this guy on - particle simulation was not in until version 106'

Hey, I've been looking for something to liven up my sig.

[Argonnek]

If at all possible, try to create the dwarven equivalent of a college to put the reactor under to simulate how the project in RL actually started

[blue emu]

I was planning to put the next one under a "squash court"... a field covered with stone-fall traps, triggered by pressure-plates. One wrong step... and SQUASH!

Any idea which stone-layers are best for finding Pitchblende? Since it's a hydrated Oxide, I would assume that Sandstone would be a pretty good place to search for it.

EDIT: Wiki says only in Granite.

[varkarrus]

 If you are doing any dwarven nuke project, you need a dwarf to ride it. Definatly wearing a Hydra Leather Hat. Bonus points if it's a noble.

[LegoLord]

You need to refine both the pitchblende and the graphite.  Then you put the uranium metal inside of a refined graphite chamber, so that instead of flying off, neutrons are slowed down and bounced back so that the non-U-235 atoms don't just absorb them.  This way, you get more boom.

Or at least, that's what I hear from the Smithsonian museum of American history.

[Fredd]

Bah, nuclear fission is an insidious plot by the hippies, so that poor dorfs will create electric smelters, so ruin the woodcutters guild.