Factorio Forums

"Used up uranium fuel cell" is a bit of a mouthful. Anything wrong with "Depleted fuel cell"? Or "Spent fuel cell"? Or "Depleted uranium fuel cell"? (ok the last one is more characters than the current, but fewer words )

"Spent", I believe, is the correct term.

I was thinking this too! Not sure why they put all the research into having a mostly-accurate uranium refinement system while the depleted fuel cells are referred to as "used up".

As a prior reactor operator, 'depleted fuel cell' is probably the most accurate term as it applies to the game, as it comes close to the percentage of u-238 that qualifies as 'depleted uranium'. No need to include uranium in the name of a spent cell. That way both terms are three words a piece.

"Used up fuel cell" just doesn't feel right to say in my head or out loud, and as such i came here.
My idea would be to rename the "Used up fuel cell" to something along the lines of "Spent fuel cell", "Depleted fuel cell" or "Consumed fuel cell".
In my opinion, "Depleted fuel cell" sounds the best.

Technically a used fuel cell isn't spent or depleted, in fact for a large part what really prevents the fuel cell being used anymore is the accumulation of neutron poisons (isotopes that absorb neutrons but don't undergo fission, thus dampening the reaction) - if the fuel is reprocessed to remove the neutron poisons (which is not easy) it can be used for another round. So the most correct term would probably be simply "Used fuel cell".

BlakeMW wrote:Technically a used fuel cell isn't spent or depleted, in fact for a large part what really prevents the fuel cell being used anymore is the accumulation of neutron poisons (isotopes that absorb neutrons but don't undergo fission, thus dampening the reaction) - if the fuel is reprocessed to remove the neutron poisons (which is not easy) it can be used for another round. So the most correct term would probably be simply "Used fuel cell".

Not true for every reactor type. Some reactor designs actually call for *added* poisons in some places, and those burn off during operation.

malventano wrote: Not true for every reactor type. Some reactor designs actually call for *added* poisons in some places, and those burn off during operation.

I am aware of this but I'm not aware of any existing reactors which actually burn more than a small percent of the uranium (4-6% for most reactors, up to 20% for experiment reactors). One theoretical design which would burn a significantly larger fraction is Bill Gate's Travelling Wave Reactor. Thing is that Factorio's design is clearly a pretty vanilla one that that requires frequent refueling and uses low enriched uranium.

BlakeMW wrote:

malventano wrote: Not true for every reactor type. Some reactor designs actually call for *added* poisons in some places, and those burn off during operation.

I am aware of this but I'm not aware of any existing reactors which actually burn more than a small percent of the uranium (4-6% for most reactors, up to 20% for experiment reactors). One theoretical design which would burn a significantly larger fraction is Bill Gate's Travelling Wave Reactor. Thing is that Factorio's design is clearly a pretty vanilla one that that requires frequent refueling and uses low enriched uranium.

Just to satisfy those curious, submarine reactor plants are highly enriched and designed to burn as much of the fuel as possible over its lifetime, mainly because refueling them is a bit of a pain and only done once every ~20 years.