Nuclear power plant construction costs

The fear of accidents like Chernobyl, and the high cost of nuclear waste disposal, halted nuclear power plant construction in the United States m the 1980s, and in most ol the rest ol the world by the 1990s. Because nuclear fusion does not present the waste disposal problem of fission reactors, there is hope that fusion will be the primary energy source late in the twenty-first centuiy as the supplies of natural gas and petroleum dwindle. 

The power plant construction cost index (PCCI) tracks the costs of building coal, gas, wind, and nuclear power plants, indexed to the year 2000 — registered 231 index points in the third quarter of 2007 ending in October — indicating that a power plant that in 2000 cost 1 billion in 2007 would have cost 2.31 billion. 

Conventional concrete structures, and prefabricated steel structures assembled on site and filled with concrete after placement are used in various structures. Precast concrete modules would also be used. Wide use of removable formwork is employed to limit steel exposure to potential corrosion. Prefabrication of reinforced rebar modules is extensively used. In some places mechanical rebar splices are used to reduce the weight of prefabricated modules. All of these techniques have been employed in previous nuclear power plant construction. Steel structures such as the air baffle, and the containment vessel are constructed of steel panels. Panels are made of stiffened steel or corrugated plate depending on availability and cost panels for the baffle are designed with thermal expansion of the containment vessel in mind. Future inspection and maintenance are taken into consideration. 

Producers of electricity from nuclear power plants are assessed a fee of 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour to pay for future storage of spent nuclear fuel at a federal facility. Receipts from this fee are allocated to the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund and arc appropriated by Congress to cover the costs of developing and constructing a permanent storage facility. 

The cost of constructing a nuclear power plant In Prance was about 400 per kilowatt In 1974 It Is now 800. In the U.S. presently the coat varies from 1,300 to 4,000 per kilowatt and more. The ratio of cost of building a nuclear power plant to that of coal plant Is about 1.4 in Prance, 2.4 in the U.S. Until 1978, the U.S. and Franco had about the same buildlug coat. 

Nuclear energy is cost competitive with fossil fuel, has very low greenhouse gas emission, and creates far less air pollution. However, fear of potential accidents and intractable issues of waste containment have prevented construction of nuclear power plants in the United States for three decades. 

The size (generating capacity) of light-water nuclear power plants is usually twice that of their fossil counterparts or about 1.2 gW (1,200 mW). The plants life spans are in the range of 40 to 60 years, and their total cost includes not only construction and operation, but also waste disposal and decommissioning. Insurance costs can also be high because there have been cases when plants were not allowed to operate at all, for example, the ill-fated 5 billion Shoreham facility which was never allowed to operate. 

The initial cost of construction of a nuclear power plant is at least 5 billion, and its decommissioning can also be in the billions. Therefore, the cost of a second-generation light-water nuclear plant in the United States can easily reach 5,000/kW. 

The high cost of constructing a modem nuclear power plant— three to four billion dollars, in the U.S.— reflects in part the wide range of safety features needed to protect against various possible mishaps, especially those which could release to the environment any of the plant s inventory of radioactive substances. (Small special-purpose reactors, such as those used to power nuclear submarines or aircraft carriers, have different costs and technical features from the large, land-based reactors used to supply electrical grids.) Some of those features are incorporated into the reactor core itself. Eor example, all of the fuel in a reactor is sealed in a protective coating... 

Nuclear power plants are expected to be continuously constructed due to energy security and cost effectiveness. 

A technical-economic assessment made for a nuclear power plant with a VPBER-600 reactor shows that it is competitive with oil-fired power stations the specific cost of its construction in 1991 prices amounts to approximately 1000 roubles per kW of installed power the specific cost of electricity is 0.023 roubles per/KW-hour. So the cost of electricity is about equal to a natural gas-fired power plant of a similar size and by 1.5-2.0 times less than a coal-fired power plant. 

The development of nuclear power was in full swing in the 1970s when the accident occurred at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. The reactor was a PWR supplied by Babcock Wilcox Corporation. As a result of this accident, reactor construction came to a standstill as the cause of the accident was analyzed, and the design of reactors under construction was modified to meet new licensing requirements. Costs increased dramatically and many orders for reactors were canceled. The impact of this accident was felt primarily in the United States. 

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