A nation developing nuclear power or simply building a new power station benefits from improved energy independence from the outside world, with upgrading of the reliability and security of electrical production, and pro­motion of the educational, scientific and technical development of the country.

Countries appreciate being energy independent from other countries. Energy independence means supply security and price stability. Countries which are dependent on energy from external suppliers cannot control their economies and can be the subject of energy embargoes — circumstances which have occurred frequently, historically. The energy policies of most countries strive to maintain their independence from other countries as much as possible. Energy independence should not be confused with inter­dependence, i. e. mutual dependence, which favours trade and interchange among the parties.

Energy independence is achieved by substituting fossil fuels with domes­tic products, such as developing nuclear power that directly replaces fossil fuels for the generation of electricity. In fact, energy independence is a major driver for nuclear power. The UK government was not interested in new nuclear builds until it realized that its gas and oil reserves in the North Sea had been exhausted and that it had to import such commodities. Many European countries are heavily dependent for energy on Russian gas and on oil from the Gulf and North African countries, and their energy situation is vulnerable. Because of nuclear phobia (very intense in some central European countries) and the risks associated with climate change produced by CO2 emissions, the current policy of the European Union is to develop wind and solar power, probably beyond their technical and economic pos­sibilities. Such developments are only possible if they are heavily subsidized, which has a negative impact on economic development.

Replacing fossil fuel by nuclear energy does not necessarily make coun­tries completely energy independent, but certainly improves the situation. The approximate specific energy delivered by natural gas is 55 MJ/kg and half that amount for hard coal, while low enriched uranium in current LWRs can produce some 3.9 x 106 MJ/kg. This considerably simplifies fuel transportation and storage issues. Moreover, uranium resources are more evenly distributed than gas and oil; reserves are abundant and the volatility of prices more limited. Apart from that, the cost of the fuel cycle represents only some 15% of the generated electricity cost, from which only 5% cor­responds to the price of the natural uranium.

To assess the benefits obtained from gaining energy independence by selecting nuclear power, the volatility of fossil fuel prices and the stability of nuclear fuel pricing have to be compared, as well as the cost of storing such fuels to control supplies and the impact of fuel on the production cost of the electricity generated.

The 15 millennia of accumulated operating experience of the world’s nuclear power plants has proved that, on average, they can now operate reliably within load factors close to 90%. Some plants have refuelling outages every one to two years, lasting three to six weeks, and generally operate continuously at nominal power in between outages. Although they can change power, these plants are designed to provide load-based electricity and are not suitable for following demand. In this sense, they cannot provide backup power for intermittent sources, such as solar and wind, but can be good substitutes for large coal and gas power stations.

The net benefits provided by this characteristic are country dependent. A nuclear power plant which is part of a national electricity grid can provide stability to the grid whilst, for safety and operational reasons, the nuclear plant itself requires the grid to be stable at the same time. It is essential that there is an equilibrium between generation and demand; when this equilib­rium is lost, the grid becomes unstable and there could be limited or even complete blackouts. To avoid such situations, generating plants have to be able to provide primary regulation (within seconds) for small fluctuations, secondary regulation (within minutes) for larger perturbations, and also tertiary regulation (within hours) to fully recuperate any perturbed equi­librium. Nuclear power plants have the capability of reliably maintaining power and responding to small fluctuations but they are not normally used for secondary regulation.