The Economics Of Nuclear Power Including Administration And Law

Public regulation of site-selection for nuclear power plants is woven into the fabric of the distinctively-American experience in exercising government control over privately-owned public utilities. Originally published in 1977, the authors have identified the various dimensions of public concern with the selection of new nuclear power sites. This volume, divided into four parts, explores the complex issues at the heart of American nuclear power: Part I contains literature which describes the process of power-plant siting as conducted by the utilities; Part II contains studies and reports on the structure and process of public regulation; Part III describes local government, State, and other Federal agency regulation of siting; and finally, Part IV cites selected proposals and analyses of recommendations for regulatory reform. This is a valuable resource for any student interested in environmental studies and public policy reform.

This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics driving, and constraining, nuclear power development in Asia, Europe and North America, providing detailed comparative analysis. The book formulates a theory of nuclear socio-political economy which highlights six factors necessary for embarking on nuclear power programs: (1) national security and secrecy, (2) technocratic ideology, (3) economic interventionism, (4) a centrally coordinated energy stakeholder network, (5) subordination of opposition to political authority, and (6) social peripheralization. The book validates this theory by confirming the presence of these six drivers during the initial nuclear power developmental periods in eight countries: the United States, France, Japan, Russia (the former Soviet Union), South Korea, Canada, China, and India. The authors then apply this framework as a predictive tool to evaluate contemporary nuclear power trends. They discuss what this theory means for developed and developing countries which exhibit the potential for nuclear development on a major scale, and examine how the new "renaissance" of nuclear power may affect the promotion of renewable energy, global energy security, and development policy as a whole. The volume also assesses the influence of climate change and the recent nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, on the nuclear power industry’s trajectory. This book will be of interest to students of energy policy and security, nuclear proliferation, international security, global governance and IR in general.

This book is a unique introduction to the economic costs of nuclear power. It examines the future of the nuclear power industry and unpacks the complicated relationships between its technical, economic and political variables. It does so by modelling the costs, risks and uncertainties of one of the world’s most opaque industries using micro-econometrics, econometrics, and cost engineering. Economics of Nuclear Power examines the very important costs of externalities (storing of nuclear waste and the impact of a Chernobyl or Fukushima event) and compares those to the externalities of alternative carbon based energies (oil, coal, natural gas). With over 100 tables and figures this book details nuclear power production around the world - present and planned, providing a completely global focus. It also includes an overview of the past 70 years of international nuclear power developments. This book is essential reading for students, scholars and professionals interested in energy economics, nuclear engineering and energy policy.

When we first contemplated a book on this subject we were faced with a number of options: (a) to write it all ourselves, which would have had the merit of internal consistency and continuity of style; (b) to produce a collection of existing papers. which would have given us expert views in the various sub-fields of the economics of nuclear energy and would have put us in the position of knowing from the start exactly what the authors' contribu tions would be: (c) to commission contributions from individual specialists, chapter by chapter; or (d) some combination of these options. We settled for the last - we have written some of the material ourselves, have obtained permission to use some existing papers that seem to us to be valuable contributions to the subject, and have been fortunate in persuading a number of eminent people in their fields to produce papers especially for the book. This has given us a great deal of work and taken up more time than we planned for but we believe the result justifies this time and effort. It enabled us to design a structure for the book from the outset, recognizing that there are several aspects to the economics of nuclear energy - especially if we take a broad view of what is embraced by the word 'economics'.

This book grew out of projects funded by the Kentucky Human ities Council in 1974 and. 1975 and by the Environmental Protec tion Agency in 1976 and 1977. As a result of the generosity of these two agencies, I was able to study the logical, methodological, and ethical assumptions inherent in the decision to utilize nuclear fission for generating electricity. Since both grants gave me the opportunity to survey public policy-making, I discovered that there were critical lacunae in allegedly comprehensive analyses of various energy technologies. Ever since this discovery, one of my goals has been to fill one of these gaps by writing a well-docu mented study of some neglected social and ethical questions regarding nuclear power. Although many assessments of atomic energy written by en vironmentalists are highly persuasive, they often also are overly emotive and question-begging. Sometimes they employ what seem to be correct ethical conclusions, but they do so largely in an in tuitive, rather than a closely-reasoned, manner. On the other hand, books and reports written by nuclear proponents, often Under government contract, almost always ignore the social and ethical aspects of energy decision-making; they focus instead only on a purely scientific assessment of fission generation of electricity. What the energy debate needs, I believe, are more studies which aim at ethical analysis and which avoid unsubstantiated assertions. I hope that these essays are steps in that direction.