Why is Spain considering national nuclear fuel supply?
Spain is considering national nuclear fuel supply according to what is established by the State Secretariat for Energy at the Ministry of Industry.
There is enough time to preview the purchase, supply and provisioning of nuclear fuel
There is no need for a continuous supply of fuel in a nuclear plant (as is the case in carbon thermal power plants or in combined gas cycle plants)
At each refueling outage, enough fuel is introduced in the nucleus for the plant to operate the full cycle (12, 18 or 24 months according to each site). This guarantees production, electric supply and self-supply during an extended period of time.
Nuclear fuel is stocked up at the site at least 2 months before the start of the refueling outage (as is required by legislation)
In this way there is enough time to preview the purchase, supply and provisioning of nuclear fuel, since the program for the refueling outage is perfectly known and thus is not subject to uncertainty from international markets of raw energy materials.
A carbon thermal power plant consumes 2.5 million tons of carbon, and a combined gas cycle plant consumes 1,700 million cubic meters of natural gas
Nuclear fuel has a great energy capacity per mass unit
The annual fuel consumption in a standard nuclear power plant is approximately 25 tons of uranium. In comparison, in order to produce the same amount of electricity, a carbon thermal power plant consumes 2.5 million tons of carbon, and a combined gas cycle plant consumes 1,700 million cubic meters of natural gas. In addition to this, the only practical application of uranium is the generation of nuclear energy.
