How Reprocessing Uranium Waste into Plutonium Fuel Works and How to Build It

What this layout shows

Watch the Uranium Waste enter the Non-Fissile Uranium step and come back to the plants as Plutonium Fuel Rod.

How it works

Make Uranium Fuel Rod exactly as in stage 1 and burn it in Nuclear Power Plants.
Feed the Uranium Waste into a Blender with Silica, Nitric Acid and Sulfuric Acid to make Non-Fissile Uranium. The Nitric Acid comes from Nitrogen Gas, Water and Iron Plate in another Blender.
Put Non-Fissile Uranium and Uranium Waste into a Particle Accelerator to make Plutonium Pellet.
Assemble Encased Plutonium Cell from Plutonium Pellet and Concrete, then turn it into Plutonium Fuel Rod in a Manufacturer together with Steel Beam, Electromagnetic Control Rod and Heat Sink.
Burn the Plutonium Fuel Rod in a separate Nuclear Power Plant. That share of the power no longer has to come from Uranium Fuel Rod, so less Uranium is mined.
Burning Plutonium Fuel Rod leaves Plutonium Waste, which has no use at this stage and goes into storage.

Results compared with “Nuclear, stage 1: uranium power”

These are not fixed illustrative figures: they are solved again on game data 1.1.x every time the static pages are generated.

The baseline is “Nuclear, stage 1: uranium power” solved again with the same target. Read the change in raw resources together with the generator count, the waste left over and the production power.

Metric	Baseline → template	Change
Water	504.00 → 503.33 m³/min	0.1% less
Iron Ore	87.90 → 78.10 items/min	11.1% less
Copper Ore	62.00 → 63.84 items/min	3.0% more
Limestone	57.60 → 62.40 items/min	8.3% more
Uranium	40.00 → 26.67 items/min	33.3% less
Coal	27.90 → 27.77 items/min	0.5% less
SAM	16.00 → 14.71 items/min	8.1% less
Nitrogen Gas	0.00 → 16.00 m³/min	Newly used
Raw Quartz	0.00 → 5.67 items/min	Newly used
Generators to build	2 → 3	50.0% more
Uranium Waste left over	20.00 → 0.00 items/min	None left
Plutonium Waste left over	0.00 → 0.67 items/min	Newly produced
Production power	231.43 → 237.94 MW	2.8% more

Power covers the production buildings and the fuel chain; extraction machines are not included.

Raw resources the template needs

Raw resource required from outside	Rate	Unit
Water	503.33	m³/min
Iron Ore	78.10	items/min
Copper Ore	63.84	items/min
Limestone	62.40	items/min
Coal	27.77	items/min
Uranium	26.67	items/min
Nitrogen Gas	16.00	m³/min
SAM	14.71	items/min
Raw Quartz	5.67	items/min

Notes for building it in game

The plan reprocesses all of the Uranium Waste. If the reprocessing line stalls, the waste backs up into the plants and the power goes with it — put containers in front of the Blenders as a buffer.
Plutonium Waste is also worth 0 sink points and cannot be disposed of. There is far less of it than Uranium Waste, so a few containers are enough.
Two acid pipes are needed, Sulfuric Acid and Nitric Acid. The Blenders are easy to mis-plumb, so colour or label the pipes before you start rearranging.
Only two settings differ from stage 1: Plutonium Fuel Rod was added to the fuels, and “leave none behind” is ticked for Uranium Waste. For stage 3, add Ficsonium Fuel Rod to the fuels and tick “leave none behind” for Plutonium Waste as well.

Open the template

Opens the planner with the targets, alternate recipes, generator types and fuels already loaded. Change the target rates to match your own factory.

Open “Nuclear, stage 2: reprocess to plutonium” in the planner