Guide: Recycling Depleted Fuel
 | This page or section has been flagged for a need of a rework. This can be for a multitude of reasons, such as: poor quality, outdated information, lack of information, cumbersome writing, etc. Please update as soon as possible, click here to do so. |
HOW TO RECYCLE DEPLETED NUCLEAR FUEL
When a nuclear reactor (big or small) uses up its fuel, the rod becomes depleted. In the case of a large reactor, it is removed automatically and can either be extracted using empty rods or with a waste ejector with an adjacent crate or chest. This waste is very hot, it will burn you alive, and you don't want that, right? It is also much more radioactive than normal fuel due to decay elements. Combined with its pyrophoric and highly radioactive nature, it will kill you quickly if held for too long. To make this hot radioactive thingy useful you need to cool it. To cool it you need a bunch of water and a spent fuel pool drum (or as many as you need), each one can hold 12 pieces of depleted fuel, they do not stack. A natural water body or an artificial cooling tower can work, whichever works better for you. You can either remove the waste either by wearing a fire proximity suit, using a fire resistance potion, or by automating to process. You need to put these machines in the bottom of the pool. Then just get the hot waste inside these drums. The faster they cool with on average a 5 minute time for each piece. After it has cooled, it will no longer be hot and pyrophoric (but still radioactive). This waste can finally be used to recycle depleted fuel. You will need a Centrifuge to do this. For example: when depleted uranium is recycled you'll get 2 tiny piles of nuclear waste, 1 U238 nugget, 2 Reactor Grade Plutonium nuggets, and 1 Technetium-99 nugget. The uranium nugget can be reused for fuel, the reactor grade plutonium can be used for Plutonium or MOX fuel and the technetium can be used for Technetium Steel. The waste will have to be disposed of somehow or perhaps utilized in an unconventional way.
The process for recycling uranium, the other fuels are recycled the same way:
Created by: Veron21
Updated by: Adam29Adam29
Side Note:
Instead of removing them manually, which can be dangerous and time-consuming. BuildCraft or Thermal Dynamics pipes can automatically remove depleted fuel from a large reactor and send them to cooling drums.