Publications Details

Rediscovering the Economics of Nuclear Power. White paper

Dennis, Matthew L.; Vargas, Vanessa N.; Denman, Matthew R.

Energy policy can often be narrow and take a short-term view as well as beholden to public opinion as demonstrated by the early decommissioning of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Germany and Belgium after the Fukushima Daiichi event. The subsequent pursuit of renewable electric power generating capacity should not lose sight of the value of technological diversity in an energy portfolio. Domestic market incentives have failed to maintain the U.S.'s technological diversity as demonstrated by the dwindling state of the nuclear power industry. The nuclear power industry faces many challenges, such as aging infrastructure, policy driven production disincentives, and licensing delays, which leave the nuclear power industry at a cross roads. However, there is an opportunity to identify both a socially beneficial technology mix which includes NPPs and corresponding strategies for retaining NPPs in the U.S. energy portfolio. This paper proposes three technical approach options to identify strategies to assist NPPs that will hopefully prove publicly unobtrusive, economically affordable, and potentially profitable.