Trending Fuel Design Parameters for Competitive Advantage

The primary competitive advantage of commercial nuclear power over other baseload generating sources has been and continues to be the stability of fuel expense. Fuel contributes about 30% of total nuclear production costs and we believe this percentage will rise moderately as non-fuel production costs continue their decline. This places some urgency on seeking and implementing improvements in fuel utilisation by both suppliers and consumers to keep nuclear power competitive. The nuclear operating company as a fuel consumer can evaluate trends over the past operating cycles in its search for improvement in fuel utilisation. Some fuel parameters that have received attention recently are contracting strategies, fuel reliability, and higher exposures for discharged fuel