Uranium Waste

Nuclear Waste () is a radioactive byproduct of s by burning Nuclear Fuel Rods. It is not used in any crafting and is meant to be stored indefinitely. It is one of the few items that cannot be discarded with the trash button in containers or the inventory.

A single Nuclear Power Plant at 100% utilization will produce 25 barrels of Waste every 300 seconds. Note that as power plants seldom run at 100% capacity, the actual production of waste will be significantly slower; other power sources may be used alongside nuclear further slowing down the production. 

The current maximum production rate of Nuclear Waste is 2362.5/min.

Nuclear Waste cannot be sorted using a Smart Splitter or Programmable Splitter.

Resource acquisition
Lizard Doggos can bring single barrels of Nuclear Waste at any game stage, which can be especially dangerous before the required equipment or infrastructure to handle it is available.

Crafting
Note: The crafting process of this item is only in the Nuclear Power Plant.

Dealing with Nuclear Waste
Nuclear Waste cannot be fed into an AWESOME Sink, (legitimately) deleted or destroyed; it must be stored indefinitely. The barrels stack to 500, which allows for 12,000 (40 hours @ 100%) to be contained in a Storage Container or 24,000 (80 hours @ 100%) in an Industrial Storage Container. It is advised to make large farms featuring dozens of Storage Containers connected in series to concentrate all waste storage into one area, to minimize the area affected by radiation.

It is advised to build the waste containment in a remote location, as the radiation spread can reach even 400 meters in radius.

Removing Nuclear Waste
Two known ways to delete Nuclear Waste without save editing are as follows:

Doggo deletion

 * 1) Find and tame a Lizard Doggo
 * 2) Feed it a full stack of Nuclear Waste
 * 3) Kill it, effectively deleting its inventory contents

Cochrane cannon:

 * 1) Build a Hyper Tube cannon powerful enough to make an extremely rapid exit out of the map boundary; the cannon should be aimed at 45° to gain maximum travel.  23 Hyper Tube Entrances with a mk5 conveyor feed have proven adequately powerful.
 * 2) Empty your inventory and remove any equipped items.
 * 3) Equip a Hazmat Suit and carry a small number of filters.
 * 4) Fill your remaining inventory space with Nuclear Waste.
 * 5) Enter the cannon; this will result in the engineer being killed very quickly by boundary damage.
 * 6) Respawn at the HUB and repeat steps 2-5 as many times as required.

Using a save editor reveals that, if done correctly, no death crate containing the waste will be spawned either at the boundary, the cannon position, or anywhere else on the map.

The name Cochrane Cannon is a reference to Star Trek's Zephram Cochrane who drew attention from alien species via the first warp flight.

Please note that both ways of deleting Nuclear Waste are likely not intended and may be patched out eventually.

Vehicles
Loading Vehicles with Nuclear Waste and dropping them into the void might seem as a logical solution, however, doing so is greatly contraproductive. Dropping a vehicle into the void will cause it to fall forever, which degrades game performance, it should therefore be avoided at all costs.

Under the map
An alternative location to store Nuclear Waste is underneath the map, where a large distance from the radiation sphere can be achieved without losing valuable legitimate map area. However, this is especially dangerous given game updates can change the terrain and make it impossible to go under.

History

 * Patch 0.4.0.11:
 * Halved Uranium Waste output from Nuclear Power Plant (from 20 to 10 per minute).
 * Halved Uranium Waste usage on all relevant recipes so the ratios remain the same:
 * Non-fissile Uranium 72 to 37.5 per min
 * Fertile Uranium: 50 to 25 per min
 * Plutonium Pellet: 50 to 25 per min
 * Patch 0.4.0.0: Renamed from Nuclear Waste to Uranium Waste. Uranium Waste radiation also reduced to 25%, at the cost of 4x waste produced per fuel rod.
 * Patch 0.2.1.4: Fixed typos in the trash message
 * Patch 0.2.1.1: Nuclear Power Plants now produce waste over time instead of all at once after a Fuel Rod is consumed
 * Unknown intermediate patch: It can now be brought by Lizard Doggos
 * Patch 0.1.16: Added some feedback when trying to delete with the trash slot
 * Patch 0.1.14: Made officially available

Déchet nucléaire