The fuel design and fabrication process is clearly very dependent on the type of nuclear power plant in question. Only some gas cooled plants (e. g. Magnox) and some small reactors still use uranium metal fuel; all other types use uranium (or possibly mixed) oxide fuel.

Fuel design and fabrication costs are relatively small at about 3% of the nuclear electricity cost (Bertel and Wilmer, 2003). However, fuel design and fabrication have an important influence on the successful operation of the plant. There is strong competition among fuel vendors to achieve better utilisation and higher plant availability. Fuel designs to increase the discharge burn-up are an objective of current fuel vendors. Competition between vendors is also heightened since at the present time there is LWR manufacturing capacity around 50% in excess of annual requirements.