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Publication Laka-library:
Worldwide nuclear plant performance revisited (1982)

AuthorS.Thomas
Date1982
Classification 6.01.0.20/23 (IMPORTANCE WORLDWIDE)
Front

From the publication:

WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR PLANT PERFORMANCE REVISITED:

An Analysis of 1978-81 Experience

Steve Thomas

Introduction

Debates about the merits of nuclear power have, until recently, been dominated by 
questions of safety, arms proliferation and the impact on the environment - issues 
that have been the central concern of environmentalists. Comparatively little analysis 
of the economic and technological issues, such as capital costs and operating 
performance, that should be of central concern to electric utilities and consumers, 
has been published. Three factors have contributed to what, at first sight, seems a 
surprising imbalance. Firstly although many orders for nuclear plant were placed in 
the mid-60s, delays in construction have meant that it was only in the late-70s that 
a sufficiently large data base was available on which sound conclusions could be 
based; secondly orders for new nuclear plant have been very scarce outside France 
since 1976 and so the imperative of a need to inform major investment decisions has 
been absent; and thirdly studies that may have been carried out within the industry 
have not been published. However this is not to say that economic and technological 
performance is not recognised as being crucially important. This is illustrated on the 
utility side by the existence of well-funded 'owners' groups in the USA whose purpose 
is to commission utility-funded research aimed at improving performance. On the 
vendors' side, the recently announced collaboration between Mitsubishi of Japan and 
Westinghouse of the USA, financially supported by a number of Japanese utilities, 
will spend in excess of $l00m in producing improvements in operating performance. 
In this paper we set out to assess the operating performance of existing reactors 
and we attempt to identify the major determinants and influences on performance.

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