Nuclear Waste (Generic)
Nuclear waste is a dangerous byproduct of nuclear fission in reactors. It is not a single material or element, rather, it is a miscellaneous collection of useless fission, decay, and neutron capture elements (e.g. caesium, palladium, americium, radium, etc. isotopes), that cannot be easily recycled. It is highly radioactive and hazardous, even in small amounts.
Production
Nuclear waste can be extracted from spent/depleted nuclear fuel via PUREX.
Tiny piles of nuclear waste can be extracted from the RBMK's long-lived and short-lived nuclear waste with the SILEX.
10 nuclear waste can be extracted from naturally generated waste barrels in the desert atom structure.
Nuclear waste can be "bred" from reactor-grade plutonium. Requires 200 flux for a single rod.
Uses
As a waste product, it is almost impossible to recycle, however, it does have a few specialized uses.
Normal-sized pieces can be used to make radioactive barbed wire and vegan schnitzels. It can be used in a custom nuke's "Salted" stage, normal-sized pieces contribute to a 1.025 multiplier and blocks contribute a 1.25 multiplier. They can also be crafted into a "custom nuke dirty rod", which add 10 to the "Salted" stage instead of multiplying it.
Schrabidium can be made with it by detonating barrels of nuclear waste near uranium ore.
Disposal Methods
Blocks
It can be crafted into radioactive blocks for storage and as a quick, cheap, but unsafe means of disposal. They are very radioactive and inflict the contaminated 3 status effect for 30 seconds when walked on. Even a single block can easily contaminate a chunk. Nuclear waste blocks also produce fallout continuously, which can be farmed for tiny amounts of cobalt-60, strontium-90, and even gold-198. Note that nuclear waste blocks also produce a lot of radon gas, which is the source of the fallout and cannot be blocked by gas masks.
Barrels
Another method is to put it into a barrel, It is identifiable (yellow), deconstructable, cheap, and is less hazardous than regular blocks. It only becomes especially hazardous when in large numbers. It can also be used in the custom nuke's "Salted", contributing a 1.2 multiplier to that stage. Barrels also do not passively produce fallout and radon, however, they will release some chunk radiation passively, and a lot of radon if they explode.
It is also possibly to vitrify nuclear waste by processing it in the PUREX with lead sand. Vitrified nuclear waste emits half as much radiation as its standard counterpart, in all of its forms. It can also be packaged into a vitrified nuclear waste barrels, which emit no radiation when held in hand, and around 5 times less chunk radiation than radioactive barrels when placed down. Unlike radioactive barrels, these cannot be used for custom nukes.
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Crates
The safest way to dispose of them is to put them in a crate, since they do not irradiate the environment when in one and crates have considerable storage capacity.
Gallery
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Tiny piece (nugget equivalent)
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Vitrified form
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Tiny vitrified piece (nugget equivalent)
