Thursday, January 23, 2014

The cost of nuclear electricity: France after Fukushima

Abstract:
The Fukushima disaster has lead the French government to release novel cost information relative to its nuclear electricity program allowing us to compute a levelized cost. We identify a modest escalation of capital cost and a larger than expected operational cost. Under the best scenario, the cost of French nuclear power over the last four decades is View the MathML source (at 2010 prices) while in the worst case it is View the MathML source. On the basis of these findings, we estimate the future cost of nuclear power in France to be at least View the MathML source and possibly View the MathML source. A comparison with the US confirms that French nuclear electricity nevertheless remains cheaper. Comparisons with coal, natural gas and wind power are carried out to find the advantage of these.
File:Nuclear Power Plant Cattenom.jpg
The Cattenom site houses four 1300 MWe class reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
by Nicolas BoccardCorresponding author contact informationE-mail the corresponding author,  Economics Department, University of Girona, Spain
Energy Policy via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 66; March, 2014; Pages 450–461
Keywords: ElectricityNuclear powerLevelized cost; Alternative fuels

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