Factorio Nuclear Power Tutorial

How to Build Nuclear Power Plants in Factorio - From Small to Mega Builds (1 Reactor to 16 Reactors)
☢️ Download all the nuclear power plant blueprints featured in my tutorial here: github.com/Max...
Are you ready to master nuclear power in Factorio? In this comprehensive tutorial, I’ll show you how to build nuclear power plants of all sizes, from a compact 40MW single-reactor setup to a massive 16-reactor 2.4GW powerhouse! Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player, this step-by-step guide simplifies the intimidating process of nuclear energy production.
What You'll Learn:
🔧 Small Builds: How to design a 1-reactor 40MW power plant.
⚙️ Scaling Up: Build efficient 2-reactor (160MW) and 4-reactor (480MW) setups.
🚀 Mega Power: Create a 16-reactor 2.4GW beast to power anything, even spaceships!
🎯 Efficiency Tips: Use circuit networks to prevent fuel waste and optimize performance.
💡 Blueprints: Unlock all four blueprints once the video hits 1,000 likes!
Key Highlights:
Convert nuclear fuel cells into reliable electricity in three simple steps:
1️⃣ Fuel-to-heat with reactors.
2️⃣ Heat-to-steam using heat exchangers.
3️⃣ Steam-to-electricity via turbines.
Learn the perfect ratios for heat pipes, heat exchangers, and turbines.
Discover how reactor adjacency bonuses multiply energy output.
Stress test your power plants for peak performance!
Why Watch This Video?
Nuclear power is the ultimate solution for long-term energy in Factorio, but it can be daunting to get started. In this video, I break down the mechanics, show you practical builds, and share design tips that make even the most complex setups manageable. Perfect for anyone aiming to scale their factory efficiently!
📌 Don’t forget to hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more Factorio tutorials and in-depth gaming guides.
#Factorio #GamingTutorial #NuclearPower
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Keywords: Factorio nuclear power, Factorio power plant tutorial, Factorio nuclear reactor setup, Factorio efficient power, Factorio energy production, Factorio reactor blueprint, Factorio mega base power, Factorio steam turbines, Factorio heat exchangers, Factorio advanced guide

[@Maxiume]

☢ Download all the nuclear power plant blueprints featured in my tutorial here: github.com/MaxiumeGaming/Factorio

[@TomaszStachewicz]

A Factorio youtuber without a thick european accent? I like me some variety!

[@Maxiume]

😄

[@MrXontrosPanikos]

Great video. I would only add two things: 1) Water Pump to Reactor ratio: 1 water pump extracts 1200 units of water per second. 1 reactor needs 4x60= 240 units of water to support it's turbines with steam from heat exchangers. Doing the extremely complex math we find out we need 5 reactors to fully saturate a dedicated water pump. Combining this realization with the aforementioned knowledge that a 2*N layout of reactors is optimal, we conclude that to truly optimize the hell out of your nuclear setup, N needs to be 5. That means you need 10 reactors minimum supported by 2 pumps if you want to get my OCD seal of approval. 2) Tanks, the non-shooting ones: If you're running a 2*5 setup, fully loading your pumps, you need tanks with water as a buffer to make sure enough is constantly available. If you're running some other setup (hybrid with solar for example), you need tanks with steam to make sure the turbines keep on spinning, even during load fluctuation turning reactors on and off or during night-time if you don't have a sufficient accumulator setup. Also, you can get a reading out of those tanks and make it so that the heating setup only turns on when there is no left-over steam available, instead of only relying on our 3 pre-existing conditions (sufficient load, temperature above 500 and 1 fuel being inside) To get the ratio for those you need to know that each exchanger makes 1 steam for every 10 inserted water and it outputs 103 units of steam every second at max output. This means 1 tank of water for every 24,2 exchangers and 1 tank of steam for every 242.

[@Maxiume]

Wow… Thanks man. 😎

[@MrXontrosPanikos]

@@Maxiume you're the one to thank man. You did 99,9% of the work, im just cleaning up afterwards.

[@evandromartins7820]

Hello my friend! I want to thank you for the teachings you have given and praise you for the highest level of Factorio content. I am from Brazil. Thank you very much!👋

[@Maxiume]

Thank you! I appreciate it. Do you have any tutorial requests?

[@evandromartins7820]

​@@Maxiume yes. smelting assembly how to sort things by things and trains

[@frozenjune83]

Your voice is super clear and professional!

[@Maxiume]

Thanks!

[@kudakitoy]

It's a nice change up from a lot of other Factorio KZbinrs.

[@Maxiume]

Cheers!

[@genl0rd]

@@kudakitoy lol.

[@FernandoSanchez-gp9qf]

THANK YOU FOR MAKING ACTUALLY GOOD TUTORIALS FOR FACTORIO OH MY GOD NOBODY ELSE HAS BOTHERED I AM NOW SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR CHANNEL THANK YOU.

[@Maxiume]

Cheers! Glad you liked it. What are some of the things you would like to see tutorials about? (Factorio or other games)

[@FurryEskimo]

I had a somewhat unusual nuclear reactor setup. I had a massive base, but also a truly ridiculous number of solar panels and batteries. During the day, the solar panels would produce what I needed, and I didn't quite have enough batteries, so I added a large nuclear reactor, four of them. The thing was, I realized that the steam didn't cool down over time, so I could make a field full of containers holding steam, so they were in essence, batteries. At night, they accumulated steam would be used to keep the base operational.

[@Maxiume]

That's true. Storage tanks full of steam can be used as energy storage units. The problem was (not anymore) with Factorio 1.0 the fluid dynamics were not very optimized so your UPS would drop.

[@loganhartsel5513]

Instant Sub, this is QUALITY and EXACTLY what I’m looking for!

[@Maxiume]

Cheers! What other tutorials would be helpful to you?

[@loganhartsel5513]

Just based off how well you articulate your videos and explain things without me zoning out, I'd be curious to see YOUR take on circuit networks and not only what you can do with them, but WHY and WHEN it would be beneficial. Even Trains would be an awesome video! For reference though, In my opinion the single most useful video I've seen was by Trupen. "Your First Hour in Factorio" I believe it was called. I tend to get lost on what to do next, and how to keep planning ahead, any of those skills would be insanely beneficial!

[@Maxiume]

Cheers! I've got you covered then! 😎

[@MrRocksW]

Great tutorial the best guide for nuclear ive found since space age came out.

[@Maxiume]

Thanks! What other tutorials would you like to see?

[@pedrotosato]

Nice tutorial. Well done, nice edition, voice quality and very didactic!

[@Maxiume]

Thank you! 😊

[@sazafrass]

You're going places.

[@adrianmillard6598]

My feedback is that for a beginner with decider combiners, the video gave no explanation at all about where to connect the wires to - in particular which wire goes on which end and whether or not to connect both ends together. I sorted it out in the end though! :) Thanks for the video - you certainly taught me something and I appreciate that.

[@Maxiume]

Good point. Yeah it would have helped to cover that for a few seconds. Just in case. That being said, i should do a whole tutorial on circuit networks. So many people are confused by them. What other topics do you find challenging in Factorio? And re tutorial, you're certainly welcome!

[@adrianmillard6598]

​@@Maxiume I usually copy other peoples work, so a good understanding from a tutorial would be much appreciated - for all of the circuit stuff, not just the combiners. OH also! A tutorial for how the advanced asteroid processing works - with examples. I'm kinda scared of it.

[@SkeleTonHammer]

@@Maxiume I've been a computer programmer for over a decade and even I'm confused by them sometimes. I feel like half the modules are extremely unintuitive, as are several concepts that would be basic stuff in real programming.

[@Maxiume]

It’s funny you say that. That’s so true!! From a software engineer to another these circuits are not intuitive at all. I think they could have done better by just putting a programmable circuit there and let the player actually code. Honestly that would be easier even for non coders!!

[@elritsa]

I just wrote a comment about this :). I can't get it to work. Do you remember how you connected the wires? I've tried all sort of things but to me it looks like it should be a green wire connecting the combinator input to the reactor, and another connecting the output to the inserter.

[@specter6109]

easy to follow and understand, thanks! please keep it coming, currently stuck in gleba trying to make a decent base 😢

[@Maxiume]

Cheers! There will be many (many) more...

[@birnenslapter4406]

thank you so much my brother, when i listen to you i understand all

[@Maxiume]

Glad it helped! ☺️

[@AndrewChumKaser]

You can tweak the fuel insertion logic if you use steam storage by using tanks, you can read the level of steam in the tanks and only insert a fuel inside if the steam gets too low. That way you essentially get not a second of wasted heat energy no matter what. This is especially good for reactors that overproduce power for smaller sized bases which don't need the turbines running constantly at higher output.

[@Maxiume]

That's actually true but I'd say it's all about diminishing returns. Also don't forget that turbines and all those steam pipes have a decent amount of buffer and stop converting once there's no load. on top of that, heat pipes are lossless (ironically!), so unless you set the circuit cut-off real high, the waste is almost non-existent.

[@MrFrankEast]

@@Maxiume I just have one arm thats off and turns on once the temp hits like 550 with a stack size of one. Even with the waste ive had the same exact uranium patch ALL playthrough.

[@MrFrankEast]

oops just got the point in the video that you did just that anyway lmao

[@AzaIndustries]

Nuclear fuel is practically infinite. 2k hours and yet to use up vanilla patch, with 40gw constant plant.

[@AndrewChumKaser]

@@AzaIndustries it's not about it being necessary, it's about peace of mind.

[@moeszyslak34]

from 8:34 to 8:35 you somehow lost 2 heat pipes on the eastern end of your reactor .. and lost symmetry literally unusable =) Anyhow love the content .. stumbled on your stuff and love the github repo, keep em coming =)

[@Maxiume]

Cheers!

[@viperforty8450]

Want to point out that you don't actually need to do that logic part, since after inserter puts the fuel inside, it takes a bit to return into original position, and during that time the reactor has enough time to heat back up past treshold of needing refueling. And if it doesn't - then that means the power grid is consuming so much power that a second fuel cell won't really go to waste.

[@Maxiume]

I hear you but I disagree. Now i know this is just a game and not a real reactor but since you want to have the best design: in engineering, explicitly defining constraints, conditions, and states is critical for both fault-proof operation and design readability. Explicit constraints ensure there are no unaccounted-for scenarios that could cause system malfunction, unlike implicit assumptions, which risk unforeseen failures. This principle aligns with practices like Design for Safety and Deterministic Design, where every variable is controlled and predictable. For instance, nuclear reactor control systems, written in languages like Ada, explicitly define timing and every machine state to prevent catastrophic outcomes, demonstrating the importance of this approach in high-stakes engineering. Explicit design ensures robustness, clarity, and resilience against failure. So, I kinda like the explicit design more

[@viperforty8450]

I see what you want to say, and i do have to say that first throttled reactor i set up had decider combinator in exactly the same way you did (maybe the temperature number was something else) I did however find out by experience that you don't actually need the combinator, since direct logic "works good enough"™ So yeah, that's that. I am not here to judge people based on their builds, just sharing a tip that may come in help

[@Maxiume]

It’s all good. We are having a discussion about different designs and i love that. Cheers for sharing.

[@Maxiume]

It’s all good. We are having a discussion about different designs and i love that. Cheers for sharing.

[@PeterOsburg]

Congratulations, you make enough power to go back to the future 😅 Great video, thanks a lot.

[@Maxiume]

Haha. Cheers!

[@kaix5777]

Very nice tutorial! One feedback: if you have multiple reactors, the decider will only trigger for the ones pulling the most heat. "Inner ones" will never trigger, as they're always armed by their neighbours. Constantly running out of fuel and not contributing. Shall we just connect all into one circuit / decider?

[@Maxiume]

You can do that. OR you can just ignore that behavior cause all those odd things if they ever happen only happen when there is not much load on the power plant. Once cracked to the max everything works like a clock. Basically I'd stop micromanaging my nuclear reactors 😎

[@arhythmetic]

thank you for the clear and concise tutorial. subscribed

[@Maxiume]

Welcome! 😊

[@ChadenStephens-g6w]

Incredible video! This made it so easy to learn! My brain has been hurting trying to do trains. Any chance of a train video? :)

[@Maxiume]

Glad it helped. Also that's a great suggestion! I'll do one for trains too.

[@Static-EN-]

Damn, i remember a long time ago i had to watch a 1 hour video to grasp the concept of train stops and signals

[@Maxiume]

Yeah Ive been there and it’s not fun. Lol

[@samanthasaysmoon11]

i usually have trouble following along circuit tutorials but you made it super easy to understand! im implementing that into my world when i get to a computer. have you always been able to hook up the reactors to the circuit network? i remember having to hook up steam tanks to the circuit network before space age

[@Maxiume]

Glad to hear it helped! Re your question I recall it was not possible. They made it possible in Factorio 2.0 and i love it. In the previous version you had to have some steam tanks and indirectly control the fuel cell feeders to balance out input and output.

[@t0000137]

Thank you for the tutorial. Aren't fluid pumps or tanks necessary within the nuclear power plant?

[@Maxiume]

Welcome! Not within it. Just a few to get some water in.

[@ArkaelGames]

thanks man this is helpfull and i enjoy the video

[@Maxiume]

Glad it helped

[@Brom8Ganrok5]

Very nice tutorial, although i knew it all. -> i wqatched it because its made so well. another question, i know its hard to get rid of the heat, but is it possible to make a plant like 3x3 or 4x4 ? -> i was secretly looking for this answer in the video

[@Maxiume]

Thanks! Re your question: let’s say you make a 3x3 or 4x4. How do you propose you feed those inner reactors surrounded by others around it? Maybe a slight shift so they only have 2 tiles adjacent? I myself experimented with a skewed 4x4 setup, roughly resembling a diamond shape and then you can sneak in a few logistic chests, but to my surprise i realized they received no bonus at all cause you need to make them fully adjacent (all 3 heat pipes connected). So i gave up on the idea.

[@Xboxer589]

thank you

[@Maxiume]

You’re most certainly welcome!

[@laurivaisanen6918]

I lose adjacent bonus for my nuclear plants when i made similar circuit network for my plant. Seems like plant needs to be actively working to get that bonus.

[@Maxiume]

True, If a reactor turns off due to low grid load (heat not draining fast enough, so the circuit stops refueling), it loses the neighbor bonus. But when the load is high, reactors stay fueled, and the bonus is active when it matters. It doesn’t affect you. Neighbor bonus maximizes capacity and turns off when not needed.

[@eduardoguimaraesgarcia1023]

I loved your video, thank you for the content.

[@Maxiume]

You're welcome! Stay tuned for more. What would be your tutorial request?

[@eduardoguimaraesgarcia1023]

@Maxiume Im having a difficult timing holding the biters, maybe some explanations about evolution factors, how to control pollution cloud, how to make a good and durable wall and choke points, setting trains for outposts, group of logistic and bots with repair kits, because Im afraid to go to others planets and get Nauvis destroyed (sorry for my english).

[@Maxiume]

I will certainly to one tutorial on how to handle biters automatically.

[@Kirodema]

Nice and concise tutorial! I used a similar setup with the same circuit setup but I ran into the issue that sometimes the reactors went "of-sync" where one (or few) reactor gets fueled and others don't. The heat from a fueled reactor transfers over to a non-fueled reactor causing the condition to return false. I'm not sure if this is an issue or simply a result of not using 100% of the produced power and therefore not a problem.

[@Maxiume]

Cheers! When under 100% load, everything goes back to normal. Under 100% utilization it simply doesn’t matter.

[@VictorStacna]

Really helpful ty and just as a question, can you shoot tank ammo with your mech suit?

[@Maxiume]

You're welcome. No you can't (as far as i know) each ammunition type needs its own system to be used. In the case of a cannon shell you need the tank cannon which is mounted on the tank.

[@Jefru]

finally thank you thank you thank you thank you

[@Maxiume]

Welcome welcome welcome. What other tutorials do you want?

[@Jefru]

​@@Maxiume I struggle a lot with multiple trains sharing rails or to keep a specific part of the Factory as "sacred" since the ores placement is something I can not control I tent to just 1 train 1 rail into the output even tho It's not a consistent design

[@Maxiume]

I'll do a tutorial on trains and rail design.

[@Jefru]

​@@Maxiumethat's some next level feedback you know that?

[@Maxiume]

Cheers!

[@AzaIndustries]

I've got 2k hours and I don't understand why there is so much talk about nuclear power fuel optimisation. I have never been able to use up a uranium mine on default settings, my last vanilla base had a 40GW nuke plant, real time constant production no buffering. Nuclear fuel is extremely abundant. Once you got kovorax set up go nuts and don't worry. If you're worried about a stall just insert a small amount of cells into seperate chest for super duper emergencies.

[@Maxiume]

That’s very true. Id say this is more about trying different designs and learning how to be more intentional in consuming resources. Otherwise Uranium is super abundant. Even if you manage to consume a whole patch, there are thousands of other patches. And don’t even get me started on the mining efficiency!It all boils down to what you fancy as a Factorio player. It’s just a game and people enjoy different things. Maybe other beginners will also move on from that after a few thousand hours of gameplay. Btw, super curious, what tutorials would you like to watch after this many hours? (If any)

[@JusFoNo]

what's the reason that the temperature value in the decider combinator is set to under 650 in particular?

[@Maxiume]

You set the number in a way to make sure the last heat exchanger stays above 500 consistently. Also higher numbers make the heat transfer faster. Can be lower or higher but i find 650 a balanced choice for this design.

[@valikkster]

Since the update where filter inserters are integrated with every inserter, I'm having trouble with the decider combinator on the reactor. I select the reactor and I enable both read fuel and read temp. I then capture those two signals as the input to my combinator. I create the conditions of less that one fuel cell, and less than 650 temp, and AND them. I then create an output signal of 1 fuel cell, and attach the output to the inserter with green wire. Next, I select the inserter, and select the "set filter" option so that that it filters by input signal instead of manually. However, this Grey's out the 5 slots for whitelisting, and the arm does nothing even when both conditions are met, and the output signal triggers. Thoughts?

[@Maxiume]

Humm… you seem to be doing it right. Get a copy of my blueprint in the description, put it next to your design and compare them. See what you have done differently. Cause it works on my design.

[@valikkster]

@Maxiume I figured it out but again it.. feels like a bug? I completely removed all filters from the inserter and only used the "enable/disable" option, and set it to fuel cell greater than zero.. and now it works. Lol I dunno. I suppose it makes sense, it only enables if it "sees" , which is technically what my d.combinator is outputting.

[@karenmanzano9558]

How do you put the fuel inside the requester chests? for the 2x2

[@Maxiume]

Using logistic robots. Isn't that obvious? 🤔

[@SlyNine]

​@@Maxiumenot to me. First time playing.

[@iAmPaulFehr]

I've tried to do the inserter decider logic by pausing your videos and copying it, and also trying different combinations and I just can't get the inserter to stop inserting or to just 1 at a time. I even went so far as to copy your designs straight from your github. When copying it like your video, or from the github, the inserter doesn't have a Uranium Fuel Cell filter icon for me. It has a red prohibiton sign on it instead. In my decider combinator, I also don't have any icons under the Output Signals area, and I don't know how to do that part either (but also importing from your github doesn't work for me either). Any ideas? I'm playing vanilla with no mods. Besides that, I love the design and the tutorial is great!

[@Maxiume]

Oh okay. Here is the deal: if all conditions of the combinator are not met (you can open the combinator and see if both conditions are green or not) then it removes the filter from the inserter and makes it look like the stop sign you mentioned. Which is the expected behaviour. It happens when the reactor has fuel inside or is hot enough and doesn’t need fuel at the moment. The moment both conditions are correct it goes to action and puts one fuel cell inside and goes back to the stop sign again. Try the blueprint (cause it works) and put some fuel cell inside the cargo bay. See if it works. Cheers!

[@johanserko2719]

My inserter just keeps inserting the fuel even tho the temperature isnt low enough, had the same setup, tried connecting everything with the wires but nothing helps. Could really use some help.

[@Maxiume]

Open the settings of the inserter and check everything against my settings in the video. There is a chance you are doing something differently.

[@elritsa]

​@@Maxiume I still can't get it to work, and I feel so stupid because it looks so simple. :) I'm not using the active provider chest, but that's not required, is it? I have a green cable connecting the combinator input to the reactor, and another connecting the output to the inserter. One difference I noticed is that the fuel cell icon doesn't show up under 'output signals' in the combinator.

[@Maxiume]

Don’t feel bad. It can be a bit complicated at times. An easy way to see what is wrong is to put down my blueprint next to what you have made yourself and then compare settings of different things one by one so you can tell what have you done differently. Let me know if that works.

[@elritsa]

@@Maxiume So I finally got it to work! :) But I'm not any wiser... It's strange, I did as you suggested and put down your blueprint. I clicked and clicked but couldn't see any difference. A bit frustrated, I started checking off and check different boxes. And I think when I turned the read temperature in the reactor off and on, it started to work. But I'm not sure. I'm thinking about loading an old save to try it again.

[@johanserko2719]

@ i got it to work, thanks dude.

[@C413B]

my little hand doesnt stop. it just keeps putting things in.

[@Maxiume]

😆

[@C413B]

I got it to work

[@Maxiume]

Oh i thought you were joking. Did you mean the inserter? You should enable set filter on the inserter so it waits for the signal from the combinator.

[@Wolfslice]

bro. You skipped everything I actually needed with the decider combinator. You just went right to the finished thing. Mine looks like yours (and believe me just figuring out putting T in for temperature took like 15 minutes) but doesn't work. I'm actually sad that I tried to use this tutorial in this way, just really not working for me. I'll have to look up some old stuff or just put the game aside for a bit. Edit i've figured out at least one problem was that I needed to set the output to the inserter, which you did not say but makes sense. It still took me an extra like 20 min to figure out without seeing how it was set up tho. edit 2: even with ALL that It's still loading every damn fuel cell. this video maaaan.

[@Maxiume]

Haha... I can literally feel your pain! trust me. When I started playing factorio I was hugging the factorio wiki like there was no tomorrow. Tutorials made absolutely no sense to me, and I would spend hours trying to do some very basic stuff. That said, these tutorials are made for everyone, and everyone has ADHD, and if i talk about small things for too long, most people will be bored to deafff.. anyway, hope you figured out what you did wrong, but here is a suggestion, since i usually provide my blueprints anyway, put mine next to yours and try diagnosing the issue. You will learn 10 times more that way. Hope you stay around for more confusing tutorials :D cheers!

[@Wolfslice]

@@Maxiume Well regardless of the pain in trying to mimic your decider things, it was a very helpful vid. I made a setup of my own before I checked this, using steam engines (not turbines) with a bad ratio and overloading the reactor with barrells of juice. You sorted me out well the basic setup, but I'm still overloading the reactor because I couldn't really figure out what to do based on the half second mouseovers you gave of the completed circuit. It is what it is. If you ever make a tutorial, step by step on setting up these circuit things I personally feel the best examples are: 1) nuclear power setup and 2) getting ridda excess space junk while trying to produce space science on a tiny space platform--- these are the two places where I knew I wanted the system as a new player. Just a suggestion! Thank you for your vid and time. Also highly recommend tagging and titling any tutorial of this with Space Age, because the main reason I'm not looking at older vids is because I just assume they're well out of date with the space age patch (I know it changed circuit stuff). All the new circuit tutorials (like this one) here assume so much prior knowledge.

[@Maxiume]

Cheers. I will keep your suggestions in mind. Btw i have another tutorial that shows how to get rid of excess material on a spaceship > nuclear lasership tutorial. But im not sure if it is as step by step as you want. Regardless the blueprint for that is also available. If you click on my circuits and inserters you can see their settings. I will do a tutorial on circuit and will make it step by step. Only if i ever finish this tutorial im currently doing. Lol

[@Wolfslice]

@ yeah I gotta try out some of the blueprints I guess, it's probably easy to figure out how to import em.... but the decider thing looked easy at first too lol. Well anyway I wanted to make everything without any blueprints, but it may just help to set it up and then delete it. Thanks again!

[@digital39999]

Nice tutorial but there is a way to make 4 reactors produce 640MW

[@Maxiume]

Interesting... Go on...

[@digital39999]

​@@Maxiume my bad it is 640 instead of 480 like you have, but that's still plenty, here it is: www.factorio.school/view/-MJURcCFL-9L_cbihLys

[@Maxiume]

Ah..as I expected! It uses steam buffers to support additional steam turbines under temporary higher loads. It will default back to max reactors heat generation under constant max load which is gonna be 480 for 4 reactors.

[@digital39999]

@@Maxiume ah well yeah