Any kind of electric power production, in whatever country, has the primegoal to satisfy the needs of consumption of the local industry and of the publicdomain. When selecting the appropriate primary energy source for powergeneration, a number of boundary conditions need tJ be considered. Not only fordeveloping countries. first of all the own resources are careffully analyzed andthose sources of own origin will be preferred.The decision whether own resources will be used or whether launching anuclear program is the better way for developing countries can be based on anumber of different considerations. There are countries with huge resources ofcoal, but the decide to develop nuclear energy because their coal resources areremote from the places where the energy is needed so that transport becomes aproblem for local infrastructure. In order countries the coal is buried deep under the earth so that miningbecomes extraordinary expensive. That, for example, is the case in Germanywhich disposes of big coal resources of high quality, but its extraction drives theprice to three times the level as for imported coal.Finally there are countries that dispose of limited resources of coal and gasbut they do better to sell it in order to gain foreign currency for the development oftheir domestic industry rather than simply burn it.In general, all these primary energy sources that consist of organiccompounds are much too valuable than just to burn them. They form the basis forthe petrochemical industry with all its benefits ranging from household goods tocomplex pharmaceutical products.It is furthermore no secret that the resources of these primary energysources are limited and their prices tend to increase as consequence of theincreased demand and the decreased supply, at least in the long-term. Since thefuel costs contribute to about 50% to the power generation costs of fossil firedpower plants this will have a considerable effect on the power generation costduring the lifetime of these units. Uranium on the other hand has no othereconomic application than to be used as fuel for nuclear power plants. Both, theworld-wide resources and projections of the demand are well knows, so that no severe alterations of the uranium price need not to be assumed, also in the longterm.The cost of nuclear power generation are therefore much more reliablepredictable in particular, since the fuel cost contribute to only about 10 % to thepower generation cost of nuclear power plants. In spite of favorably low fossil fuelprices and low prices for conventional power plants, nuclear power plants provetheir competitiveness even under these present conditions. An advantage that willeven grow further in the future.Finally it must not be forgotten that nuclear power is a clean industry and theonly one that considers pollution effects of all of its waste. Conventional powersources like any kind of coal, oil and gas on the other hand, are big emitters of airpolluting substances like nitrogen oxides, sulfur, dust and a considerable amount ofheavy metals, such as Cadmium. They also count for major emissions of the maincontributors to the greenhouse effect, such as CO2 and methane. Althoughadvances technologies provide possibilities to reduce the emissions of nitrogenoxides, sulfur and dust, the control of methane and CO2 is very complicated, if nottechnically impossible. Since nuclear energy is a power source free of methane and CO2emissions, it can provide its share to the challenging reduction targets andthe preservation of the atmosphere as the operating plants did in the past.Looking for additional power generations capacities, all countries are welladvised to consider nuclear power plants by the above reasons. Industrializedcountries rely today mostly on a well balanced mixture of different energy sourcesthat include oil and gas, coal, regenerative sources such as hydropower, wind,solar and others, and nuclear power. A development that was implied asconsequence of the oil crises early of the seventies. With this mixture their industryis less sensitive to changes of availability and price of single energy sources. Thisdiversification strategy should be particularly valid for developing countries R. Leverenz; Project Manager Nuclear Power International that need to set up a long-term strategy in order not to endanger their others sufferedalready of ?
