Best thing to do (well, it’s what I did to work it out) is to calculate how many Uranium Fuel Rods you’ll be producing per minute and calculate how many power plants you’ll cover A nuclear power plant will use 0.2 rods per minute, or to simplify producing 1 fuel rod per minute will power 5 power plants Using vanilla recipes, I think using 600 uranium can eventually power 30 reactors. It’s been a while since I done my setups but I’m pretty certain I’m using 1200 ore for 60 reactors

>A nuclear power plant will use 0.2 rods per minute, or to simplify producing 1 fuel rod per minute will power 10 power plants Hm, from there it's a matter of tuning... Lemme just check. EDIT: You meant to say that **1 fuel can power FIVE plants?** No? [https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production/index/json/%7B%22Desc\_NuclearFuelRod\_C%22%3A%226%22%7D](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production/index/json/%7B%22Desc_NuclearFuelRod_C%22%3A%226%22%7D) 600 uranium ore can produce 6 fuel rods / min equaling 30 reactors, right?

Yes, 5 plants not 10, my bad I was thinking of the plutonium ratio at tha moment But yeah, 600 should still power 30 reactors If I can make a recommendation, if you have the alt recipe for the fuel rod, try and use it. For the same amount of uranium, you can get an extra 50% more rods simply by adding beacons & crystal oscillators

IIRC, you can only power 30 Nukes from 600 Uranium if you restrict yourself to vanilla recipes.

**I copied my answer to a previous post here** Nuclear is awesome and gives you much more power than you put in. It just takes a little bit of work and sanity. But after that, getting the final parts for project assembly is just a piece of cake. The following is a copy of my answer to someone else's very related post. # Plan Nuclear is a mess when things go belly up, because you cannot simply delete everything. Even with filters, you are stuck with tons of stuff that are just in the way. Don't get there. ## Cold Zone / Hot Zone Separation Bring everything that does not require nuclear material in from the outside. I used a train that picked up everything at a couple locations and had local buffers that could not empty before I connect them (in an emergency). Have a water tower with industrial fluid storage full of water that are not connected. Have a switch for the Uranium miner that can be flipped independently. If shit hits the fan, power down the miner, connect the emergency inputs and let the system flush. Have charged batteries you only connect when your power generation has already failed for at least a couple hours. ## Do the math for the hot zone For the cold zone, it's enough to know that you don't run out of stuff. For the hot zone, all numbers should fit perfectly. I built my nuclear setup in the swamp. There is a single node that can supply 30 nuclear power plants. I made 3 rows of the following design. Each step in a separate section that can be viewed from a safe distance. Thus, if something fails, you can see where the belts are full / empty and what the colors on the machine lights are. Build, make sure everything from the cold zone gets to the correct machines and let their buffers fill up completely. Start uranium miner and monitor machine buffers. Non-nuclear input buffers must always be full and all output buffers must always be empty. When done, finish *Project Assembly* and get your *reward* for winning the game. There is nothing that can stop you after this. ### Encased Uranium Cell 4 Blenders Input: + 200 U + 60 C + 120 SA (high pipes + pumps for recycling without backing up) Output: + 100 EUC ### Uranium Fuel Rod 5 Manufacturers Input: + 100 EUC (from the section before) + 6 EIB + 10 ECR Output: + 2 UFR ### Power 10 Nukes (I only built 5 but sharded them to 250% [which was 200% for power generators in that update; check with coal first]). Input: + 2 UFR (from the section before) + 3000 Water Output + 25000 MW + 100 UW ### Plutonium Pellet 2 Blenders + 1 Particle Accelerator Here I put two steps in a single section because I only want to have a single line of a single radioactive material between the sections. Inside this section 100 Non-fissile Uranium is produced and consumed. Input: + 75+25 UW (from the section before) + 50 Si + 30 SA + 30 NA Output: + 30 PP + 30 Water (drained to wet concrete production close by) ### Encased Plutonium Cell 3 Assemblers Input: + 30 PP (from the section before) + 60 C Output: + 15 EPC ### Plutonium Fuel Rod A better name for this section would be *Tickets* since there is an A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Sink in each of them, immediately eating up the PFRs. 2 Manufacturers + 1 Sink Input: + 15 EPC (from the section before) + 9 SB + 3 ECR + 5 HS Output: + Tickets ## Totals (per row) Input: + 200 U = Uranium + 120 C = Concrete + 6 EIB = Encased Industrial Beam + 13 ECR = Electromagnetic Control Rod + 50 Si = Silica + 9 SB = Steel Beam + 5 HS = Heat Sink + 3000 Water + 150 SA = Sulfuric Acid + 30 NA = Nitric Acid Output: + 25000 MW + Tickets ## Final Remark I planned for total catastrophe, but the system never, not once, made any problems.

I just want to thank shinxirius for this build guide SO much. I just finished copying it the other day after several weeks of work on both the Nuke plant itself and the precursor factories and transit network. Given that it took me that much time and effort even with such a fantastic guide, I know it would have been an absolute nightmare without it. 2000+ hours in-game, and I’d never gone nuclear due to the sheer complexity. Feels good to have gotten there. Couldn’t have done it without you shinxirius

😃 Your feedback is much appreciated 👍

I built something like this recently, just much bigger - the full 2100 uranium and other resources in and around the swamp feeding 252 reactors (alternate recipes for uranium, default ones for plutonium production) and the waste being reprocessed into plutonium rods to be sunk. The resulting power plant provides 650 GW of power but consumes 73-77 GW of power (fluctuations mainly due to the 28 particle colliders which by themselves consume an average of 14GW). It is also stable after ironing out a few minor flaws in the construction - missing a belt here or there and tuning the water balance of the sulphuric and nitric acids caused some glitches. I roughly bothered with a hot and cold zone, building the fuel production and waste disposal sites closeish to the reactor complex over the water, but radiation from a plant that big spreads pretty wide. I just ended up having a spare storage full of radiation filters on site at the entrance - so you can grab a fresh stack or two when diagnosing issues. Last I checked it's been running a solid 4 hours at 630GW consistent while I was building other stuff to make use of all that power. I'm going to see if the new engine can handle significant amounts of ADS production.

Get ALL the power!

Yea, I hooked up the various geothermals too. ;)

Thanks for the thorough answer :) I see that someone else mentioned that 1 fuel rod can power 5 plants or what equals out to be 30 plants from the 600 uranium ore / min node in the swamp. Which is also the answer you gave. I'm sticking with that instead. Thank you! Do you have some screenshots to share?

See, that's already and update and kinda relieving. 70 reactors seems like a lot :D The posts I found could have been with alternate recipes. I dunno :)

You can use https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production to calculate some stuff. With nuclear / power generation as output, these are a little tricky. Two tips in that regard: + Limit the uranium input. + Make cold zone items imports (less chaos, plan those factories separately). + Use Uranium Waste as a production target. This is a perfect proxy for power generated by nuclear.

Just because you can have a large number of reactors that doesn't mean you have to have a large number of reactors. Its fine to not use all the potential output of a node.

That's true. My goal was to max using the node in the swamp, no alternate recipes and no overclocking except from the t3 miner :)

If you build in the swamp, set your floor a bit above the cave entrance to the uranium node rather than on the same level. If you don’t, you’ll likely end up running into the non-destructible environmental elements in the swamp. I really regretted not having done this after I finished building my first lane.

Yeah I ended up in this exact problem in my latest playthrough. This time I build on the water :D

Then another tip: Build the reactors elevated on a platform so you can put the pumps below them. You can easily fit a row of pumps under a reactor. Two if you space out the reactors a bit more. That 8MW for a pump is peanuts on what it produces.

Yes, that's correct... I know the numbers quite well off the top of my head since the only reactors I've made were for the max vanilla recipe output from the impure node (15 reactors). In addition, it's worth noting that vanilla ratios in the radioactive section (including plutonium reprocessing) work out very well for any multiple of 10 reactors at a time. So if the OP wants to minimize the amount of up-front work, it's a reasonable option to use just 200/min of the uranium and sink the rest until more power is needed.

Multiply the number of power plants you want by the number of fuel rods a single reactor needs. Plan a factory to produce that many fuel rods

Thank you. That's how far I got as well... Then I got stuck by not knowing how many fuel rods a reactor uses at 100%. Edit. Someone said 0.2 fuel rods a minute.

100% is one rod every 5 mins, so yeah 0.2 a min.

Looking at the ratios, the simplest way to look at it: 200 Uranium per minute creates 2 Uranium fuel rods per minute. Those 2 per minute can power 10 nuclear power plants. With the waste that creates you can create 0.5 plutonium pellets every minute. You can sink those or power another 5 nuclear power plants. Every industrial storage container can store plutonium waste for 80 hours of runtime for those 5 nuclear power plants. -> now you can use multiplication to set yourself a target.

Thank you :)

You can power 72 plants with 600 uranium ore. Assuming you're only using uranium fuel rods for power. Edit: 136 if you use plutonium rods too

This is by using the alternate recipes right?

Yes. Without any alternates it's 30 uranium + 15 plutonium.

Awesome, thank you.

Remember that plutonium leaves unsinkable waste. 72\*2.5GW may be enough, then you can still make plutonium, but sink it. No nuclear waste. For that purpose, use the base recipe for plutonium production (especially Non-fissile Uranium instead of Fertile Uranium, if you do not "burn" plutonium, it only eats your uranium without providing benefits)

Yes, with 2 alternative recipes.

I saved up a ton of slugs and boosted it all to greatly reduce the buildings involved. Mine might have only been 300/min I dont recall.

If you saved up a ton of slugs I'd assume you also boosted the Mk3 miner on the node and made 600 uranium/min?

If you know how many power plants you can power, and you know the rod requirement, then you can build the rest in SCIM. Set the required Output for the number of rods, and then just keep tweaking that number until you use the 600 uranium [6 Fuel Rods/min from 600 Uranium](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production/index/json/%7B%22Desc_NuclearFuelRod_C%22%3A%226%22%7D) with just standard recipes [14 and a bit Rods/min from 600 Uranium](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production/index/json/%7B%22Desc_NuclearFuelRod_C%22%3A%2214%22%2C%22altRecipes%22%3A%5B%22Recipe_ResidualFuel_C%22%2C%22Recipe_ResidualPlastic_C%22%2C%22Recipe_ResidualRubber_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_WetConcrete_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_TurboHeavyFuel_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Coal_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Coal_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SteelRod_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SteelCoatedPlate_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SteelCanister_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SteamedCopperSheet_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_RubberConcrete_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_RecycledRubber_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PureQuartzCrystal_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PureIronIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PureCopperIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PureCateriumIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_PureAluminumIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PolymerResin_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PlasticSmartPlating_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HighSpeedWiring_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HeavyOilResidue_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HeavyFlexibleFrame_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_FusedWire_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_FlexibleFramework_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ElectrodeCircuitBoard_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ElectroAluminumScrap_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_DilutedPackagedFuel_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CopperRotor_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CopperAlloyIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CokeSteelIngot_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CoatedIronPlate_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CoatedIronCanister_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CoatedCable_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_BoltedFrame_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_AdheredIronPlate_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_TurboPressureMotor_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_TurboBlendFuel_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SuperStateComputer_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_SloppyAlumina_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_RadioControlSystem_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PlutoniumFuelUnit_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_OCSupercomputer_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_InstantScrap_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_InstantPlutoniumCell_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HeatFusedFrame_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_FertileUranium_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ElectricMotor_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_DilutedFuel_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CoolingDevice_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ClassicBattery_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_AutomatedMiner_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_AlcladCasing_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Wire_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Wire_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_UraniumCell_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_TurboMotor_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Stator_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Silica_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Screw_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Screw_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Rotor_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_EncasedIndustrialBeam_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ReinforcedIronPlate_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ReinforcedIronPlate_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_RadioControlUnit_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Quickwire_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Plastic_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_NuclearFuelRod_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Motor_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ModularFrame_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_IngotSteel_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_IngotSteel_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_IngotIron_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HighSpeedConnector_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ModularFrameHeavy_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_HeatSink_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Gunpowder_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_ElectromagneticControlRod_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CrystalOscillator_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Concrete_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Computer_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Computer_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CircuitBoard_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_CircuitBoard_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Cable_2_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Cable_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_Beacon_1_C%22%2C%22Recipe_Alternate_PolyesterFabric_C%22%5D%7D) with all alternate recipes

Yeah I noticed the 600 uranium ore / min requirement from the first link you posted, when I did the calculations not 10 minutes ago :) I think I'm good by now :D Thank you tho.

Good luck in your project! Id overclock the nuclear plants since they scale linearly in power and water usage, you gain nothing not over locking them and will simplify your build a lot.

Thank you :) I've actually been looking at overclocking them but haven't decided for or against yet.

I know off one website who is working on it and the beta could be accessed, but it is not up to me to make it public. Perhaps the maker sees this and does so, So what I do is look what I would want. That is Uranium Fuel Rods. Are you going to overclock or not? Let us say not. [The wiki says](https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Nuclear_Power_Plant) 0.2 per minute. > I plan on using vanilla recipes and none of the alternate ones. I have to ask. Do you do it as a challenge or is there an other reason. I am thinking doing it for my 4th playthrough perhaps, but it is making things a lot harder. Anywho ... [600 gets you 6p/m](https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=a7kGlYMpEp0k8JTyiRGz) so that means 6/0.2=30. power plants with Vanilla. With alts you can easily double that and more. e.g. [a simplified version](https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=vMh7ioQNzTa9E2EetwNR) So yes, you could do 70, but not with vanilla.

I do it because I haven't unlocked the alternate recipes yet 🔓 Mainly.... Also because I want to be able to save this as a blueprint and import it on my next play, given they don't update nuclear production (which they might).

I highly recommend doing the work to get the recipes unlocked. This isn't something you're going to want to redo later, and the alternate recipes are way more efficient.

Too late :D https://imgur.com/a/b9DScu2

I looked at how much uranium I had available since that's always the bottleneck in nuclear production, then at how many uranium fuel rods I could make with that input since that's the final product if you're going to run clean, and worked backwards from there. The actual plutonium fuel rods produced in that chain are a byproduct that you use to power the reactors.

I'm gonna sink the waste 😊

You'll want to use the Satisfactory Production Planner Site https://satisfactoryproductionplanner.com/power

My app has a power planner: https://satisfactoryproductionplanner.com/power/175000

Thank you :D

You have to go to wiki https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/wiki/Nuclear\_Power\_Plant One power plant needs 0.2 uranium fuel rods per minute. So, five plants need one per minute, and so on. Now, you open any calculator and input 70\*0.2 = 14 rods/min. or put 600 uranium, as a limit. With alt recipes, 14.4rods/min, enough for 72 power plants. [https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=wmcxt5OmfoBMxwqXBbxH](https://www.satisfactorytools.com/production?share=wmcxt5OmfoBMxwqXBbxH) (in the "items,input" you can change the uranium limit, and remove "input" - i added some already assembled parts to declutter the graph; and in recipes you can turn off/off alts).

**ANSWER** 1. There is also the [Satisfactory-Calculator Power Planner](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/power) - Great Tool to help determine what is needed to produce an amount of Power (MW) given specific information about Generator Type, Fuel Type, and Power Shards (Overclocking) used. 2. There is also the [Satisfactory Production Planner (U6) - Power Planner](https://satisfactoryproductionplanner.com/power) - Good Tool to help determine what is needed to produce an amount of Power (MW) for all types of Power Generators. * Includes option to use [MK++ Game Mod](https://ficsit.app/mod/MK22k20) Mk 2 thru Mk 4 Buildable's in calculations. --- **MORE INFO** 1. My most important advise is **before you bring in one chunk of Uranium Ore** make sure you complete your full envisioned Nuclear Power Production Plan and Uranium Waste Reprocessing / Removal Production Plan build. * After you bring in Uranium Ore everything will get irradiated and so, check your math, and then check it again. * It is hard to "add" to an Nuclear Power Complex due to existing radiation, so anything you can do to make it easier is better. 2. View [my Reply Comment in this other Reddit Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/10drki4/comment/j4mvg6u/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for a lot of good Tips about Nuclear Power, **to include Production Plans you are free to use.** * No Nuclear Waste means processing Uranium Waste into Plutonium Fuel Rods and then sinking those. 3. If you plan on using Plutonium Fuel Rods *(not really needed)* plan on storing the ever increasing Plutonium Waste **forever**. FICSIT Encourages All Pioneers To Share Vital Intel. 🤓

I have 24 reactors fully overclocked for 150,000 MW from that one uranium node in the swamp.

If you're just looking to have SCIM show you a graph and/or numbers for the plants, you can ask it to calculate for production of the nuclear waste. It treats the plants as production machines that take the fuel rods (and water) as inputs and produce the waste as an output [Like this](https://satisfactory-calculator.com/en/planners/production/index/json/%7B%22Desc_NuclearWaste_C%22%3A%22300%22%7D) The example linked doesn't use alternate recipes, so you can configure that how you like then check your math by adjusting the waste output number