Factorio Forums

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.
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.

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.

Nemoricus wrote: Sun Dec 08, 2024 9:03 pm 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