Browsing by Subject "Nuclear Power"
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Item Open Access Nuclear Power's Emission Reduction Potential in Utah(2008-04-24T19:10:32Z) Olesky, KarenIn 2007 Utah signed onto the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), pledging to meet an aggregate GHG emission reduction goal of 15% below 2005 levels by the year 2020. This coincided with the release of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change’s Final Report, which identified 72 different options Utah could potentially undergo to reduce state-wide emissions. These potential mitigation actions where analyzed focusing on Utah specific costs, feasibility, and emissions reduction potential, with the outcome of turning those options into viable State policies sorted by priority and costs. One such policy option was the possibility of building the State’s first commercial nuclear power plant. Four separate categories encompassing Utah’s history with nuclear and general U.S. nuclear capabilities were researched before a recommendation was made. First were the political issues including Utah citizens’ past experiences with nuclear bomb fallout, the near avoidance of storing nuclear waste on an in-state Indian reservation, the development of a permanent nuclear waste storage in Nevada and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s permitting and licensing scheme for new nuclear plants. The next category analyzed was the economical costs and benefits building a nuclear plant would impose on Utah. The third category and the one most in support of continuing nuclear power plant construction in the U.S. was recent technological progress. This section detailed new plant designs, as well as highlighting advanced plant safety features and shorter construction timelines. The last and possibly most important category was assessing whether Utah’s environment is able to sustain a nuclear plant’s intense water demands throughout its lifetime. After a Utah specific assessment it seems that if a utility can get past the political opposition, the other three sectors combined allow for the feasibility of building a commercial nuclear power plant. Unfortunately it would not be completed in time to impact emissions levels before the WCI deadline. Therefore while the policy recommendation states that building a nuclear power plant in Utah would be beneficial for GHG emission reductions, only if the WCI enforces a second goal past 2020, would building a nuclear plant aid in the mitigation goals.Item Open Access Uncertainty, Policy, and the Risk of New Nuclear Build—a Real Options Approach(2010-04-30T18:32:41Z) O'Connor, PatrickThe United States has recently seen renewed interest in nuclear power, what is called the Nuclear Renaissance. However, the new licensing processes are untested and the new reactor designs have never been constructed on US soil. Analyzing the history of US nuclear development demonstrates that plants face considerable risk from construction uncertainties, public intervention in the licensing process, and project mismanagement. When these unknowns are coupled with the industry’s poor cost track record, the resulting set of uncertainties and risks may cause investors to be wary of pursuing new nuclear projects. Real Options valuation was used to assess how the risks associated with the uncertainties in the environment for nuclear power could impact the economics of new plants. To value a new nuclear power plant a decision model was developed incorporating construction, regulatory, and operational uncertainties along with an option to abandon project development. Various policy and uncertainty scenarios were modeled and a conservative policy goal was developed as an achievable end point for the current levels of subsidy. The results suggest that without subsidy, the first new plants in the United States are economically unattractive in liberalized electricity markets. Subsidized plants have positive investment value, but this value is still marginal. However, cost reductions from standardization and learning could add between $200 and $600 per kilowatt in project value. Additionally, alternative incentive policies and market-based greenhouse gas regulations both considerably improve the economics of new nuclear plants.