Investment In Nuclear Power Research Articles

Low-carbon transition of China's provincial power sector under renewable portfolio standards and carbon cap

Low-carbon transition of the power sector is an important measure to achieve carbon neutrality in China. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and carbon cap were implemented to promote energy transition since 2018. It is essential to evaluate influences of different policy mixes on provincial power systems and inter-provincial electricity transmissions for an optimal policy design and implementation under provincial heterogeneity. This study evaluates the effects of RPS targets and carbon cap on low-carbon transition of China's power system. It further analyzes how to achieve low-carbon transition of China's provincial power sectors with these two policies. Different mixes of RPS target and carbon cap were set to assess their impacts on energy structure change, CO2 emissions abatement, and compliance costs. Results show that the RPS policy can significantly promote investments in renewable energy power in China's resource-rich and high-demand provinces. Investment in nuclear power is important in meeting carbon cap constraints. RPS policy and carbon cap have an overlapping effect on low-carbon transition in China's power sector. Moreover, extensive inter-provincial electricity flows could balance the reverse distribution of energy resources and power loads for renewable energy in a cost-effective way.

Benefit and risk evaluation of inland nuclear generation investment in Kazakhstan combined with an analytical MGT method

Purpose In the process of building the “Belt and Road” and “Bright Road” community of interests between China and Kazakhstan, this paper proposes the construction of an inland nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan. Considering the uncertainty of investment in nuclear power generation, the authors propose the MGT (Monte-Carlo and Gaussian Radial Basis with Tensor factorization) utility evaluation model to evaluate the risk of investment in nuclear power in Kazakhstan and provide a relevant reference for decision making on inland nuclear investment in Kazakhstan. Design/methodology/approach Based on real options portfolio combined with a weighted utility function, this study takes into account the uncertainties associated with nuclear power investments through a minimum variance Monte Carlo approach, proposes a noise-enhancing process combined with geometric Brownian motion in solving complex conditions, and incorporates a measure of investment flexibility and strategic value in the investment, and then uses a deep noise reduction encoder to learn the initial values for potential features of cost and investment effectiveness. A Gaussian radial basis function used to construct a weighted utility function for each uncertainty, generate a minimization of the objective function for the tensor decomposition, and then optimize the objective loss function for the tensor decomposition, find the corresponding weights, and perform noise reduction to generalize the nonlinear problem to evaluate the effectiveness of nuclear power investment. Finally, the two dimensions of cost and risk (estimation of investment value and measurement of investment risk) are applied and simulated through actual data in Kazakhstan. Findings The authors assess the core indicators of Kazakhstan's nuclear power plants throughout their construction and operating cycles, based on data relating to a cluster of nuclear power plants of 10 different technologies. The authors compared it with several popular methods for evaluating the benefits of nuclear power generation and conducted subsequent sensitivity analyses of key indicators. Experimental results on the dataset show that the MGT method outperforms the other four methods and that changes in nuclear investment returns are more sensitive to changes in costs while operating cash flows from nuclear power are certainly an effective way to drive investment reform in inland nuclear power generation in Kazakhstan at current levels of investment costs. Research limitations/implications Future research could consider exploring other excellent methods to improve the accuracy of the investment prediction further using sparseness and noise interference. Also consider collecting some expert advice and providing more appropriate specific suggestions, which will facilitate the application in practice. Practical implications The Novel Coronavirus epidemic has plunged the global economy into a deep recession, the tension between China and the US has made the energy cooperation road unusually tortuous, Kazakhstan in Central Asia has natural geographical and resource advantages, so China–Kazakhstan energy cooperation as a new era of opportunity, providing a strong guarantee for China's political and economic stability. The basic idea of building large-scale nuclear power plants in Balkhash and Aktau is put forward, considering the development strategy of building Kazakhstan into a regional international energy base. This work will be a good inspiration for the investment of nuclear generation. Originality/value This study solves the problem of increasing noise by combining Monte Carlo simulation with geometric Brownian motion under complex conditions, adds the measure of investment flexibility and strategic value, constructs the utility function of noise reduction weight based on Gaussian radial basis function and extends the nonlinear problem to the evaluation of nuclear power investment benefit.

Analysis of Investment Decision of Coastal Clean Energy Project Based on Market Connection

Zou, X.H.; Zhu, C.; Ling, M.S.; Chang, X.Z., and Du, J.S., 2020. Analysis of investment decision of coastal clean energy project based on market connection. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 383-386. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Nuclear power project is one of clean energy in coastal areas, it's investment decisions are affected by a variety of uncertainties. This paper proposes a real option decision model. The model considers the investment cost of nuclear power projects, project fixed costs, on-grid electricity prices and carbon dioxide prices. The market linkage is added to the model, considering the value of nuclear power investment under market linkage, modeling and analyzing the value of nuclear investment in enterprises. The accuracy and effectiveness of the model are verified by scenario analysis. The results of the study show that the nuclear power plant under the option is the most valuable when considering carbon dioxide trading. When considering carbon dioxide trading, the abandoned path is as high as 25.99%. Considering carbon dioxide trading can avoid mistakes in investment decisions, and it is beneficial for companies to make correct decisions when investing in nuclear power projects. The research results provide a certain reference for investment decisions in energy projects.

Study on Risk Assessment of Inland Nuclear Power Investment Construction Projects by Kazakhstan

This article is the first attempt to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Kazakhstan’s inland nuclear power investment construction projects. Based on the summary of existing research results of scholars at home and abroad, a systematic analysis of the sustainable development model is made from the following four aspects to conduct safety evaluation research on domestic nuclear power construction in Kazakhstan: 1) Probabilistic safety evaluation for Kazakhstan’s inland nuclear power construction; 2) Public perceived risk evaluation for nuclear power construction in Kazakhstan; 3) Economic evaluation for recirculating systems of spent fuel; 4) Benefit risk evaluation for Kazakhstan’s inland nuclear power construction. Based on China’s multi-criteria decision analysis of dynamic system modeling, we add noise to the uncertain factors of the safety evaluation of Kazakhstan nuclear power investment projects and then perform noise reduction to refine our evaluation results. First of all, due to the non-convex optimization of tensor decomposition, there is no guarantee that the factorization will be determined by optimization. In addition, tensor decomposition can converge to different local optimal values corresponding to different initial values of the two tensors. Therefore, if the initialization value is set correctly, the result will be approximately optimal compared to the case where the initial value is far from the global optimal value.

Nuclear energy for sustainable development: SWOT analysis on Ghana’s nuclear agenda

The development of clean and sustainable energy around the world has become a necessity as a result of the negative effect energy generated from fossil fuel have on the environment. Ghana intends to add nuclear power to its generation mix by 2029. This paper uses the SWOT analysis tool to assess the internal strengths and weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats in the country relative to its nuclear power program. We found out that despite the country’s effort towards meeting the requirements for the licensing, contracting, construction and operation of the facility, there are still some important loopholes which could delay the process. The research found out that Ghana has a lot of strengths and opportunities that makes an investment in nuclear power an economically viable option. However, issues such as porous security system, corruption, porous borders and policy discontinuity due to changes in political power are threats to the smooth implementation and operation of a nuclear power plant. The research therefore recommended to the government of Ghana to pay critical attention to some of these loopholes. We also looked at a particular weakness which is financing and provided some funding options for its development.

Multi-scenario comparison analysis on nuclear power development in China

In the future, nuclear power will play a much greater role in promoting energy transition, and people are retrieving their confidence of nuclear power since Fukushima nuclear accident. However, there’re many parameters will affect nuclear power development scale. In view of nuclear power investment cost increase, policy constraint of nuclear power scale and power demand rise, this paper has done sensitivity analysis on relevant indexes, such as such as power supply structure and distribution, power generation, power flow, environmental benefits and regional nuclear plant sites resource utilization rate, by use of a multi-region multi-scenario medium and long-term electric power planning model. The result shows that, nuclear power cost, power demand, carbon tax and policy guidance will affect future development scale of nuclear power.

Using Cultural Theory to Analyze the Metagovernance of the Nuclear Renaissance in Britain, France, and the United States

AbstractThe governments of Britain, France, and the United States are seeking to promote renewed investment in nuclear power through metagovernance. Metagovernance describes the way governments can leverage state power and resources to shape the behavior of networked actors to advance policy goals. To metagovern, governments use a variety of policy tools but the factors shaping the design of these policy tools remains unclear. Grid‐group cultural theory is used to show that the design of the policy tools used in metagovernance reflects both an underlying cultural bias within government and prevailing institutional circumstances. The paper demonstrates the utility of cultural theory in the study of metagovernance.

Application of raw and modified pine biomass material for cesium removal from aqueous solution

The growing investment in nuclear power has led to increasing concentrations of radionuclides in the ecosystem near nuclear facilities, therefore cheap and efficient filter materials for removal of these radionuclides needs to be designed to handle effluent waters from these facilities. The study investigates the use of hexacyanoferrate complex immobilized on chemically treated pine cone (TPC) biomass as an effective adsorbent. Raw pine cone (RPC) was treated with toluene–ethanol mixture to extract plant components and modified with hexacyanoferrate complex (HPC).Properties of RPC, TPC and HPC such as pHPZC, bulk density and surface area, and types of functional groups on the sorbent surface were determined. The batch kinetic uptake of cesium ions onto RPC, TPC and HPC were modelled using the Elovich and pseudo-nth order model kinetic models. Equilibrium modelling was also performed using the Langmuir, Freundlich and Sips isotherm. The results revealed that the adsorption is monolayer for all biosorbents with the modified adsorbent having the highest capacity of 8.74mg/g which was also confined by the Sips isotherm. The Cs+ adsorption data for TPC and HPC were better fitted to the pseud-nth order model suggesting ion exchange mechanism while the RPC was better fitted to the Elovich model. Desorption analysis was also used to confirm ion-exchange mechanism.

A simulation based real options approach for the investment evaluation of nuclear power

The investment of nuclear power has several uncertainties. This paper establishes a nuclear power investment evaluation model by employing real options theory with Monte Carlo method to evaluate the value of nuclear power plant from the perspective of power generation enterprises. Several technical and economic uncertainty factors (investment cost, generating cost, electricity prices and nuclear accident) have been taken into account in the model and the model is solved by Least Squares Monte-Carlo (LSM) method. As an application, the model is used to evaluate Sanmen nuclear power plant in Zhejiang province, China. The impacts of three electricity price mechanisms and nuclear power investment cost reduction are investigated and discussed.

A nuclear-powered North Africa: Just a desert mirage or is there something on the horizon?

All of the North African countries have plans to develop nuclear power. If successful, nuclear energy could supply up to 9–15% of all electricity consumption in the region by 2030. How realistic are these plans and under what conditions can they be implemented? This paper seeks to answer this question by analyzing the motivations and capacities for deploying nuclear energy in the five North African countries by examining both regional and national factors. These factors are compared to similar characteristics of the countries with existing nuclear power programs using a series of quantitative indicators. While all five countries have strong motivations to develop nuclear power, which result from the high growth rates in demand for electricity and energy security concerns, their financial and institutional capacities to deploy nuclear energy vary and are generally lower than in those countries which already operate nuclear power plants. Most likely, North Africa will need to rely on external assistance to implement its nuclear energy plans. The article identifies three scenarios of nuclear power development from the interplay between internal and external factors, particularly the success of renewable energy projects and the ability to attract international investment in nuclear power.

The World Institute for Nuclear Security: Filling a Gap in the Global Nuclear Security Regime

for Nuclear Security (WINS). Mohammed ElBaradei, then the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that “WINS fills an urgent gap in our need to strengthen the nuclear security system.” But the key question is, what is that gap? Cast your mind back to April 26, 1986, and the accident at Chernobyl that shocked the world and all but stopped further expansion of and investment in nuclear power. After that accident, “nuclear operators world-wide realized that the consequences had an effect on every nuclear power plant and international cooperation was needed to ensure that such an accident can never happen again.” That statement is from the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which was formed in May 1989 by nuclear operators worldwide to exchange operating experience and peer review so members could learn from one another’s experiences, challenges, and best practices, the ultimate goal being to improve plant safety, reliability, and performance. But WANO only handles nuclear safety. WINS was established to pursue similar objectives in improving nuclear security. In a world facing a global terrorist threat, we cannot afford to wait for a “security Chernobyl” before we take collaborative action to improve security. WINS is designed to complement, not compete with, existing efforts to improve nuclear security around the world.

Financing Arrangements and Industrial Organisation for New Nuclear Build in Electricity Markets

The paper studies how the risks specific to a nuclear power investment in liberalised markets – regulatory, construction, operation and market risks – can be mitigated or transferred away from the plant investor through different contractual and organisational arrangements. It argues that at least for the first new reactors significant risk transfers onto governments, consumers, and, vendors are likely to be needed to make nuclear power attractive to investors in liberalised markets. These different types of risk allocations will in turn induce different investment financing choices. Four case studies of recent new nuclear projects illustrate the alternative consistent combinations of contractual, organization, and financial arrangements for new nuclear build depending on the industrial organisation, the market position of the company and the institutional environment prevailing in different countries. The most likely financing structure will likely be based on corporate financing or some form of hybrid arrangement backed by the balance sheet of one or a consortium of large vertically integrated companies.

Evaluating the power investment options with uncertainty in climate policy

This paper uses a real options approach (ROA) for analysing the effects of government climate policy uncertainty on private investors’ decision-making in the power sector. It presents an analysis undertaken by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that implements ROA within a dynamic programming approach for technology investment choice. Case studies for gas, coal and nuclear power investment are undertaken with the model. Illustrative results from the model indicate four broad conclusions: i) climate change policy risks can become large if there is only a short time between a future climate policy event such as post-2012 and the time when the investment decision is being made; ii) the way in which CO 2 and fuel price variations feed through to electricity price variations is an important determinant of the overall investment risk that companies will face; iii) investment risks vary according to the technology being considered, with nuclear power appearing to be particularly exposed to fuel and CO 2 price risks under various assumptions; and iv) the government will be able to reduce investors' risks by implementing long-term (say 10 years) rather than short-term (say 5 years) climate change policy frameworks. Contributions of this study include: (1) having created a step function with stochastic volume of jump at a particular time to simulate carbon price shock under a particular climate policy event; (2) quantifying the implicit risk premium of carbon price uncertainty to investors in new capacity; (3) evaluating carbon price risk alongside energy price risk in investment decision-making; and (4) demonstrating ROA to be a useful tool to quantify the impacts of climate change policy uncertainty on power investment.

Nuclear power’s costs and perils

Nuclear power’s costs and perils

Destination unknown: Rokkasho and the international future of nuclear reprocessing

The much discussed expansion of investment in nuclear power in response to global warming and energy scarcity depends on solutions being found to the management and disposal of spent reactor fuels. The reprocessing route, involving the separation from radioactive waste of plutonium and uranium and their subsequent recycling, has long been advocated. However, experience shows that it suffers from chronic problems of coordination, usually resulting in mismatches of supply and demand and large stockpiles of plutonium. Just as the UK is withdrawing, Japan is embarking on large-scale reprocessing with the opening of the facility at Rokkasho which seems destined to produce large surpluses of plutonium against a background of heightened concerns over nuclear proliferation. In the meantime, the Bush administration has ended the United States'blanket opposition to reprocessing and is proposing a controversial new discrimination between‘fuel-cycle'and‘non-fuel-cycle'states. Confusion reigns.

Declining Discount Rates: The Long and the Short of it

The last few years have witnessed important advances in our understanding of time preference and social discounting. In particular, several rationales for the use of time-varying social discount rates have emerged. These rationales range from the ad hoc to the formal, with some founded solely in economic theory while others reflect principles of intergenerational equity. While these advances are to be applauded, the practitioner is left with a confusing array of rationales and the sense that almost any discount rate can be justified. This paper draws together these different strands and provides a critical review of past and present contributions to this literature. In addition to this we highlight some of the problems with employing DDRs in the decision-making process, the most pressing of which may be time inconsistency. We clarify their practical implications, and potential pitfalls, of the more credible rationales and argue that some approaches popular in environmental economics literature are ill-conceived. Finally, we illustrate the impact of different approaches by examining global warming and nuclear power investment. This includes an application and extension of Newell and Pizer [‘Discounting the benefits of climate change mitigation : how much do uncertain rates increase valuations?’ Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 46 (2003) 52] to UK interest rate data.

Reactor at the Fault: The Bodega Bay Nuclear Plant Controversy, 1958-1964: A Case Study in the Politics of Technology

Research Article| August 01 1990 Reactor at the Fault: The Bodega Bay Nuclear Plant Controversy, 1958-1964: A Case Study in the Politics of Technology J. Samuel Walker J. Samuel Walker Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (1990) 59 (3): 323–348. https://doi.org/10.2307/3640755 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation J. Samuel Walker; Reactor at the Fault: The Bodega Bay Nuclear Plant Controversy, 1958-1964: A Case Study in the Politics of Technology. Pacific Historical Review 1 August 1990; 59 (3): 323–348. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3640755 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1990 The Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Energy conservation — what price a local initiative?

With the collapse of oil prices, shortages and long term increases in energy prices seem far away, and conservation is the last thing on our minds. Thus, national energy supply monopolies encourage the use rather than conservation of energy, whilst the alleged prospect of a long-term increase in electricity demand is used to justify investment in nuclear power. This article examines how decentralisation and a greater local involvement in national energy policy could overcome this contradiction. It also finds that the conservation strategies developed, after the oil crisis of the 1970's, in several other countries have, surprisingly, no British equivalent.

Nigeria's investment in nuclear power: A research note

(1983). Nigeria's investment in nuclear power: A research note. Arms Control: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 49-60.

Social cost-benefit analysis and nuclear futures

The usefulness of cost-benefit analysis in making nuclear power investment decisions is considered. The essence of social cost-benefit analysis is outlined and shown to be unavoidably value-laden. As a case study six issues relevant to the decision to build an oxide fuel reprocessing plant (THORP) are examined. The potential practical value of using cost-benefit analysis as an aid to decision-making is considered for each of these issues. It is concluded that cost-benefit approach is of limited value in the nuclear power case because of its inapplicability to such issues as the liberty of the individual and nuclear weapons proliferation.