Uranium processing flow chart with FactorioLab

[qwr]

I realized today FactorioLab can also show a useful flow chart for uranium (re)processing. (To avoid showing every single step like producing sulfuric acid for uranium mining, I set uranium ore and metal as inputs.) In the base game, the only other non-trivial production cycle is oil processing.
Once the Kovarex enrichment process (I'll call it breeding, since that's more accurate) is unlocked, the only long term worries are 1. breeding sufficient U-235, without accidentally converting all U-238, and 2. getting rid of excess U-238.

https://factoriolab.github.io/spa/flow? ... loc=B&v=11
This diagram is a little weirdly arranged because of the Sankey diagram layout, but it is pretty easy to understand. I guess the calculator didn't feel the need for depleted uranium cell reprocessing or to show the excess U-238 (which can fill up many chests and become a problem, which is what uranium rounds are for).

The vast majority of U-235 is used in breeding more of the rare fissile isotope. Obviously breeding loses U-238, so there needs to be a tiny fresh supply of that. The U-235 produced by normal uranium processing is negligible. About 20% of the U-238 is fed into breeding, while the rest makes the uranium cell outputs.

I'm interested if anyone has any thoughts about the diagram.

uranium.PNG (111.5 KiB) Viewed 611 times

P.S. Nuclear energy is going through a bit of a renaissance recently, to fuel data centers and AI nonsense. The tiny centrifuges in-game are more similar to the Small Modular Reactors (SMR) that have been in vogue compared to the traditional image of a massive nuclear plant with cooling towers.

[Nemoricus]

You should include a few more places past the decimal point, since the numbers are so small that one decimal place isn't enough precision.

[qwr]

You should include a few more places past the decimal point, since the numbers are so small that one decimal place isn't enough precision.

I don't think it matters since it's not practical to achieve exactly these rates, but here you go anyway

Screenshot from 2024-12-08 22-42-08.png (96.57 KiB) Viewed 497 times