A number of people have mentioned that they thought that the Nuclear plant being 150% of production was a typo (which I thought as well), but I finally tried it out tonight. Believe it or not, it really does convery the entire 150% benefit. A nice update from a hydro plant (or Hoover Dam).

Contrary to what the Civilipedia says, you need FRESH water in the city radius for nuclear plants. Not fresh or salt as they say.

*sigh* I expect printed documentation to be incorrect, but the online has no excuse.

Hi there,

Interesting, I seemed to have a different result when I tried building one this morning right before work...I wanted to test it out and see if the 150% was true as well. I didn't get a chance to look at the city itself to check on the shields because I had to leave for work (dammit! :) ), but the production times appeared to be the same as before I had built it. I think the only benefit of the nuclear plants then is to reduce pollution via shields, which doesn't seem like much of a benefit if you have a meltdown and since you can reduce pollution via recycling centers around that time.

JAG

I also believe they grant the full benifit. One game, I put one a city, and suddenly ICBMs were being cranked out of that city every 3-4 turns or so.

I tested it a few ways (by saving and reloading).

The continent had Hoover Dam alread built.

When Nuclear plant was built production went from 83 to around 105.
Replacing Nuclear plant with Solar plant went back to 83.
Replacing Nuclear plant with Coal plant went back to 83.

I confirmed this in other cities on other continents which didn't have Hoover Dam built, but I didn't record the results at the time.

I got a chance to recheck this morning and it did indeed increase the shields, from 125 to 145, it just didn't make a dent in the amount of time to build the wonder. So yes, they do increase your production, although it's a pretty modest increase considering your cities' outputs at that time.

JAG

.
Yes, you have to have fresh water and why the hell is that??? The purpose behind building reactors on lakes (or lakes around reactors) is the production of a giant heat sink for cooling. Salt water cools just as well as fresh. Plus, I am pissed off for being stuck on a continent with the nearest fresh water right next to the Japanese capital. So for a few thousand years my people eat sand. One day I get them pissed off enough to declare war and boo-yah... the water is mine.
.
Hoover Dam
.
Nuke plant. . .
.
.
Meltdown. . . .
.
.
TONS of pollution, lots of dead people, but the military was all right.
.
:nuke: