Research Requires Resources in addition to power (or similar resource dumping system)

I have been playing since the beta and love the game, but something has felt off to me this whole time. Production completely grinds to a halt and everything stops if you aren't actively building something. There needs to be a system to sink resources into so production never needs to stop. It makes the game feel less alive when you're waiting for that one research to finish before you build the next thing and you basically just alt tab out of the game because there's nothing to look at while research completes. Basically I think there should just be something to do with your resources other than stockpile them until all your storage is full and everything stops.