Factorio Forums

As an alternative to the electrification of oven arrays to reduce pollution (and generate electricity via solar or nuclear power) it might be nice to give Nuclear fuel cells a -100% pollution bonus. Then you can use nuclear fuel in ovens to prevent pollution. In addition, it could also be used as a pollution free boiler fuel which could be useful for clean and on-site power for laser outposts.

The problem with removing pollution from nuclear fuel is that even if it didn't pollute, it wouldn't really be useful. Nuclear fuel isn't really used for anything but vehicles and trains. I assume you mean for early stages of the game since pollution doesn't matter at all in late game. If you are still early enough in the game that you are worried about pollution, you aren't likely to have Kovarex enrichment unlocked. Given the choice of rushing Kovarex enrichment, building a power line to their outpost or simply plopping down some more solar panels inside their outpost, almost no one will choose the first. Biters don't really target power poles and if they do munch on one, it is a simple task to put some turrets and walls around that one.

Even if you decide to use nuclear fuel cells for your outpost, you still need to refill it periodically. That means either a super long belt or a train stop. In either case you are still going to need to have something going up to the outpost and you might as well use power poles as biters don't target them any more than rails or belts.

There is no reason to use nuclear fuel as a power source for your main base. Uranium fuel cells provide between 66 and 200 times more power per U235 and don't produce pollution (they are also lower down in the tech tree).

As for making them more realistic, thats pretty unclear. Sure it has uranium in it which doesn't make pollution but it also has rocket fuel in it which does. It is also used in burner devices which implies that it is being burned which definitely produces pollution. I'm unclear why adding uranium to rocket fuel makes it burn longer but I guess that is because the engineer has come up with some special process.

I'm not against removing all pollution from nuclear fuel but I don't see any real reason to do so. Can you provide any examples where removing pollution from nuclear fuel makes it better or even equivalent choice to anything else? I'm not asking for examples of where nuclear fuel is useful in general, but where having it produce no pollution lets it be used in any new situations.

it wouldn't really be useful. Nuclear fuel isn't really used for anything but vehicles and trains.

So it would be useful, as a way of eliminating pollution from vehicles and trains.