Nuclear waste reprocessing
Currently, we have an infinitely increasing nuclear waste when using reactors, and we can't dispose of it, which means it's impossible to build a fully sustainable late-game factory using nuclear.
It would be nice to be able to reprocess it. In RL, "In nuclear reprocessing plants about 96% of spent nuclear fuel is recycled back into uranium-based and mixed-oxide (MOX) fuels." (wiki)
It will solve the issue and could make an interesting production chain.
Comments: 3
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12 Sep, '22
dragon854Interesting, idea. They could add of fast reactors of some type into the game to use the reprocessed fuel. But the coolant could be an issue as they do not use water as a coolant because of its interaction with the neutrons released when the reactor is run. The reactors would still require water to generate electricity but not as a coolant.
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24 Sep, '22
Rico001The one solution is to use Graphite as a moderator.. The Chernobyl power plant was a breeding reactor that produced weapon grade plutonium from unenriched uranium. So the application in CoI would be pump spent fuel to the ractor, top it with graphite and pump water thru it, and voila you will hav 3 outputs - Re-enriched uranium fuel, steam, and radioactive waste ... i belive it could potentialy run at a 95% re-enriched uranum fuel, 5% radioactive waste.
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23 Nov, '22
TorilYes, the main reason that reactors, most commonly used today have a lot of waste is that the governments hosting them, want weapons grade plutonium and or other hard to get isotopes. Liquid salt reactors produce none of these just heat and use up to 98%of the fuel. These reactors are not just limited to thorium either you can use uranium or really almost any sufficiently radioactive material as well. So unless we need to build bombs later in the game, why are we using high energy reactors?