2 ms·

Thank you for the details! Can you point me on where to look for the price/cost distinction in early nuclear? I was not able to find definitive info there.

• pfdietz 6y ago
  This is an article in the popular press about that era. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-nuclear-breakthrough-that-wasnt/72816/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-n... See also The Turnkey Era in Nuclear Power, H. Stuart Burness, W. David Montgomery and James P. Quirk, Land Economics Vol. 56, No. 2 (May, 1980) (available through JSTOR) The latter is interesting, as it also gives an explanation for why utilities might have liked non-turnkey contracts: any escalation of capital cost can be (and very often was) passed on to ratepayers. In light of this, what really nailed the first US nuclear age was the passage in 1978 of PURPA, particularly the part about non-utility suppliers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Policies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Poli...
  • korantu 6y ago
    Thank you.. a lot to digest to be fair. As for turnkey contract, interestingly, other industries trying to avoid uncertainty and not pass costs to consumers. AFAIK, Russian nuclear contracts come with warranty of all funding, so if overrun happens, these are Rosatom problem, not customer's
    • pfdietz 6y ago
      The key point here is the perverse incentives of regulated monopolies. If the monopoly can get the regulators to agree, then the more capital intensive something is, the more money the utility makes. They do not have an incentive to keep costs down.