Nuclear power and oil imports

There are still a great many arguments over the net energy benefits - if any - of replacing fossil fuel power stations with nuclear. Here a simple model is used in an attempt to calculate the net energy costs of a number of possible strategies. It is concluded that nuclear power can be effective in saving fossil fuels but that the saving is critically dependent both on the rate of reactor construction and the amount of energy needed to construct each reactor. For any given energy construction input there is an optimum rate of construction; programmes faster or slower than the optimum will result in less net energy output. (author)