Uranium?
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Pancreaster
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Uranium?
I want to use nuclear energy for my second playthrough and not rely on solar but I only found one patch of 150k after searching in a car for a while, even if I found some it would be ages away which makes me question how I would transfer energy and the resources used to mine the uranium. Have any of you got any ideas on how to make it work?
Re: Uranium?
Doing a little nuclear math here...
10 uranium ore -> 0.007 U-235, 0.993 U-238 (that is, 0.7% U-235 and 99.3% U-238)
10000 ore -> 7 U-235, 993 U-238
150000 ore -> 105 U-235, 14895 U-238
To make nuclear fuel cells, you need 1 U-235 and 19 U-238, and this gets you 10 fuel cells.
So this means if you mine out that patch, you'll have approximately enough U-235 for 1050 fuel cells without even needing to do Kovarex enrichment.
If you do want to do Kovarex enrichment, you can get more U-235, of course. The Kovarex enrichment process essentially turns 3 U-238 into 1 U-235. By my reckoning, if you do 586 cycles of Kovarex, you can end up with about 691 U-235 and 13137 U-238, enough for roughly 6910 fuel cells.
The bottom line: That 150k patch is big enough to last you a good long nuclear while, and by the time you exhaust all the fuel you got from it, you'll surely have found larger patches of uranium.
10 uranium ore -> 0.007 U-235, 0.993 U-238 (that is, 0.7% U-235 and 99.3% U-238)
10000 ore -> 7 U-235, 993 U-238
150000 ore -> 105 U-235, 14895 U-238
To make nuclear fuel cells, you need 1 U-235 and 19 U-238, and this gets you 10 fuel cells.
So this means if you mine out that patch, you'll have approximately enough U-235 for 1050 fuel cells without even needing to do Kovarex enrichment.
If you do want to do Kovarex enrichment, you can get more U-235, of course. The Kovarex enrichment process essentially turns 3 U-238 into 1 U-235. By my reckoning, if you do 586 cycles of Kovarex, you can end up with about 691 U-235 and 13137 U-238, enough for roughly 6910 fuel cells.
The bottom line: That 150k patch is big enough to last you a good long nuclear while, and by the time you exhaust all the fuel you got from it, you'll surely have found larger patches of uranium.
Re: Uranium?
If its very far away, consider a simple "double-headed" train on a single track with a station on either end. Two locomotives facing away from each other, with a Fluid Wagon holding sulfuric acid from your oil-setup, and an empty Cargo wagon to pick up the mined uranium.
Train schedule:
Alternatively, if the patch is only 'kinda' far away, a single, or double belt to bring the mined output back to base is perfectly fine as well. If you are going with this option, you can get away using a long line of underground pipes to deliver sulfuric acid. Use Big Power Poles here as well.
Train schedule:
Since you are building the track anyway, may as well use some Big Power Poles to connect power to the mine from your main base.Load - Uranium
- {Uranium-Ore} > 2000
Unload - Uranium
- {Uranium-Ore} = 0
AND
- {Sulfuric-Acid} > 2000
Alternatively, if the patch is only 'kinda' far away, a single, or double belt to bring the mined output back to base is perfectly fine as well. If you are going with this option, you can get away using a long line of underground pipes to deliver sulfuric acid. Use Big Power Poles here as well.
Re: Uranium?
How far is "ages away" for you? Did you build trains yet? Because for a decent railway infrastructure, you would create yourself some kind of schema how to build fast and far. This schema would include blueprints with some railway track templates such as straight rail parts, curves, intersections with signals, stations. These would include power poles to bring power to wherever you build your tracks.Pancreaster wrote: Fri Jan 23, 2026 9:26 am it would be ages away which makes me question how I would transfer energy and the resources used to mine the uranium.
If you didn't do this yet, this would be the chance to work out a good railway concept for your base and for any future bases you might build.
By the way, a patch of 150k is not much, probably some drowned resource next to water. Uranium patches are more rare then the other patches, but not that rare that you cannot find any. Patches still near to your base are usually about 1.5 Mio, more far away are about 3 Mio. Usually, the 1st patch you explore is enough for the lifetime of the map except you go megabase.