Schall Uranium Processing

Summary

Separate pure uranium-235 and pure uranium-238 items? Real-world nuclear industry do NOT work like that! This mod introduces more realistic uranium items of different grades and more realistic uranium enrichment processing. Recipes are kept simple, so even vanilla players will find this easy to master with.

Motivation

Every time when I look at the recipe of uranium fuel cell (the reactor fuel for power production), I feel it is kinda stupid... In game, there is an enrichment process to obtain a separate and pure uranium-235, but later mixing it back with the natural "low-energy" uranium-238 to obtain the uranium fuel cell for power production...

In reality, the enrichment process is very expensive: raising every bit of concentration requires lots of energy and time. From natural uranium (contains ~ 0.7% uranium-235), it takes some moderate capacity (e.g, number of centrifuging cylinders, power consumption) of enrichment plants to reach reactor-grade (3.5% - 5% uranium-235). Still, it is quite negligible when compared to obtaining more "pure" uranium-235 (say, ~ 90% for weapons-grade in nuclear bombs)! The required scale of centrifuging cylinders is so high that it is a clear sign actually used by international nuclear organizations, to track whenever a country is developing nuclear weapons or not! There are no excuses why these are needed, if those enrichments are just for civilian power production.

So tell me, why paying so much effort to obtain the highly pure uranium-235, but just to mix it with depleted uranium (uranium-238) just for power production? Just does not make any sense!

Details

From uranium ore, the vanilla uranium processing turns them into uranium-238 (0% U-235 content) and uranium-235 (100% U-235 content) directly.

In this mod, uranium ore is filtered and dried into a new intermediate first. This intermediate is uranium oxide concentrate, commonly known as "yellowcake". It is produced by all countries in which uranium ore is mined. It is also the form ready for uranium transportation. It contains the same level of U-235 (ca. 0.7%) like the natural uranium. There are uranium of different concentrations: low enriched uranium (LEU) and highly-enriched uranium (HEU). They are obtained by enriching the uranium concentrate (yellowcake) in the centrifuges. Recipe of later has a longer time to reflect the high difficulty and enormous energy requirement.

Low enriched uranium (LEU) is reactor-grade uranium (3.5% - 5% U-235), which is used for making uranium fuel cell and nuclear fuel, where controlled fission is required. Highly-enriched uranium (HEU) is weapons-grade uranium (ca. 90% U-235), which is used for making atomic bomb. Depleted uranium is the residual but major product. It contains no uranium-235 and simplified as just "pure" uranium-238. Like in vanilla game, it is used for making uranium ammo and uranium cannon shell.

Since 0.17.2, there is an option to remove the need of sulfuric acid as mining fluid during uranium ore mining. If enabled, it is no longer needed to pass sulfuric acid to all the mining drills. You just need to pass it to the assembling machine refining the uranium ore into uranium concentrate "yellowcake". This is more close to the actual process in reality. Since centrifuge does not accept fluid (sulfuric acid), preparation of uranium oxide concentrate "yellowcake" has to be done by assembling machine instead.

Kovarex enrichment process is no longer essential, since there are much more realistic uranium processes already added by this mod. It is disabled by default. Even if re-enabled (under "Options" → "Mod settings" → "Startup"), it is modified to give LEU instead of giving "pure" U-235 or HEU directly.

Not DOs...

This mod does NOT attempt to overhaul uranium processings completely. Vanilla players should find this familiar and easy to adapt to. So no non-essential additions to the uranium chains. This mod does NOT attempt to introduce additional radioactive elements, like the thorium cycles and plutonium cycles. You may want to look elsewhere, if you are seeking for additional or advanced nuclear processes.

Additional information is available in the FAQ section.

Uninstallation

This mod changes some recipes, so those production would need adjustments. Otherwise, this mod should be safe to be disabled/uninstalled at any time.

Mods Dependencies

• Schall Radioactive Waste is optional but useful, since it provides more ways to deal with uranium by-products. You can incinerate them to prevent excess stockpiling, or get nasty to use them as dirty bomb.

Mods Compatibility

Most nuclear mods should still be compatible with this mod, since this mod still keeps the uranium-235 and uranium-238 items (though renamed) and their roles in the overall chain. But to take full advantage of the different enrichment levels, fellow mods may need some minor adjustments in their recipes.

Overhaul mods can be incompatible with this mod, if they make too much changes to the fundamental nuclear recipes. If so, please report in the Discussion section. I will see if I can get things work together, or just put them to an incompatible list here.

• GotLag Nuclear Fuel is compatible. Mod option "Modify nuclear fuel reprocessing" should be switched off, so it generates plutonium for further production.
• John_TheCF Plutonium Energy is fully compatible since 1.1.8. He is very kind to keep the name and recipe consistent.

Locale Suppo