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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Prometheus Bound: nuclear power at the turning point (1983)

Auteur	Cambridge Energy Res.Ass.
Datum	november 1983
Classificatie	3.01.0.00/19 (VS - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

Private Report - Page 1

CAMBRIDGE ENERGY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Prometheus Bound:
Nuclear Power at the Turning Point

by I. C. Bupp & Charles Komanoff

Introduction

Nuclear power is at once among the least expensive and the most expensive 
sources of electricity in the United States today.

On the one hand, most of the several dozen power reactors that were completed a 
decade ago generate electricity less expensively than coal - and considerably less 
expensively than oil or gas. At the same time, however, some of the nuclear plants 
scheduled for completion in the next several years will produce electricity at such 
high costs that they could potentially undermine the financial health of their utility 
owners.

Even more startling - and little recognized - is that among the latest generation of 
plants (1980s), electricity costs will vary as much as threefold, and construction 
costs as much as fourfold.

The tremendous variation in the cost of nuclear generated electricity has been one 
of the greatest obstacles to understanding the economics of nuclear power. Why the 
variations? The quality and experience of utility management, coupled with reactor 
chronology, have been the central factors behind the order of magnitude differences 
in costs within the nuclear generating industry.

Indeed, reactors being completed in the 1980s will produce electricity at an average 
cost that is almost triple the cost for reactors completed in the mid-to-late 1970s, 
and five times as great as the average for plants finished a decade ago. Yet in spite 
of this general trend, the success of any particular nuclear undertaking depends to 
a great extent upon the experience and practice of utility management.

In this report, we will seek to answer three key questions that are central to the 
debate on the economics of nuclear power - and to its future:

• How much does electricity from nuclear power really cost?

• Why have the costs risen so much from those estimated during the euphoria that 
followed the commencement of work on the first nuclear plants a generation ago?

• Can nuclear power become competitive with other forms of electrical generation?

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