IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ebg/heccah/0767.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Long-term risk management of nuclear waste : a real options approach

Author

Listed:
  • CHESNEY, Marc
  • LOUBERGE, Henri

    (University of Geneva)

  • VILLENEUVE, Stéphane

    (University of Evry)

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the optimal timing for deep geological disposal of nuclear waste. Our model is based on the real options approach to investment under uncertainty. In this context, the problem is similar to the optimal exercise policy for a perpetual American spread option. The potential usefulness of such a model for actual decision-making on a sensitive issue is illustrated by some numerical simulations.

Suggested Citation

  • CHESNEY, Marc & LOUBERGE, Henri & VILLENEUVE, Stéphane, 2001. "Long-term risk management of nuclear waste : a real options approach," HEC Research Papers Series 767, HEC Paris.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:heccah:0767
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hec.fr/var/fre/storage/original/application/9819afb281e61340ea6536515cc229f7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yaozhong Hu & Bernt Øksendal, 1998. "Optimal time to invest when the price processes are geometric Brownian motions," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 295-310.
    2. Hans U. Gerber & Hlias S. W. Shiu, 1996. "Martingale Approach To Pricing Perpetual American Options On Two Stocks," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 303-322, July.
    3. Palmer, Stephen & Smith, Peter C., 2000. "Incorporating option values into the economic evaluation of health care technologies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 755-766, September.
    4. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    5. Cropper, Maureen L & Aydede, Sema K & Portney, Paul R, 1994. "Preferences for Life Saving Programs: How the Public Discounts Time and Age," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 243-265, May.
    6. Robert McDonald & Daniel Siegel, 1986. "The Value of Waiting to Invest," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 707-727.
    7. Gollier, Christian, 2002. "Discounting an uncertain future," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 149-166, August.
    8. Stephane Villeneuve, 1999. "Exercise regions of American options on several assets," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 295-322.
    9. Weitzman, Martin L., 1998. "Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 201-208, November.
    10. Jones-Lee, Michael W & Loomes, Graham, 1995. "Discounting and Safety," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(3), pages 501-512, July.
    11. Margrabe, William, 1978. "The Value of an Option to Exchange One Asset for Another," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 177-186, March.
    12. Gollier, Christian, 2002. "Time Horizon and the Discount Rate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 463-473, December.
    13. Thierry Schneider & Caroline Schieber & Louis Eeckhoudt & Christian Gollier, 1997. "Economics of Radiation Protection: Equity Considerations," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 241-251, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rothwell, Geoffrey & Wood, Thomas W. & Daly, Don & Weimar, Mark R., 2014. "Sustainability of light water reactor fuel cycles," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(S1), pages 16-23.
    2. Cardin, M.A. & Steer, S.J. & Nuttall, W.J. & Parks, G.T. & Gonçalves, L.V.N. & de Neufville, R., 2010. "Minimizing the Cost of Innovative Nuclear Technology Through Flexibility: The Case of a Demonstration Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor Park," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1037, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Cardin, Michel-Alexandre & Zhang, Sizhe & Nuttall, William J., 2017. "Strategic real option and flexibility analysis for nuclear power plants considering uncertainty in electricity demand and public acceptance," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 226-237.
    4. Lappi, Pauli & Lintunen, Jussi, 2021. "From cradle to grave? On optimal nuclear waste disposal," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    5. Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    6. Abdullah Almansour and Margaret Insley, 2016. "The Impact of Stochastic Extraction Cost on the Value of an Exhaustible Resource: An Application to the Alberta Oil Sands," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    7. Christian Gollier & Jean-Guy Devezeaux de Lavergne, 2001. "Analyse quantitative de la réversibilité du stockage des déchets nucléaires : valorisation des déchets," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 149(3), pages 1-13.
    8. Bobtcheff, Catherine & Villeneuve, Stéphane, 2010. "Technology choice under several uncertainty sources," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 206(3), pages 586-600, November.
    9. Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    10. Marreco, Juliana de Moraes & Carpio, Lucio Guido Tapia, 2006. "Flexibility valuation in the Brazilian power system: A real options approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3749-3756, December.
    11. Ugo Bardi, 2016. "What Future for the Anthropocene? A Biophysical Interpretation," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, August.
    12. Iyer, Sriya & Velu, Chander, 2006. "Real options and demographic decisions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 39-58, June.
    13. Anastasios Michailidis & Konstadinos Mattas & Irene Tzouramani & Diamantis Karamouzis, 2009. "A Socioeconomic Valuation of an Irrigation System Project Based on Real Option Analysis Approach," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 23(10), pages 1989-2001, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Décamps, Jean-Paul & Mariotti, Thomas & Villeneuve, Stéphane, 2000. "Investment Timing under Incomplete Information," IDEI Working Papers 115, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Apr 2004.
    2. Dammann, Felix & Ferrari, Giorgio, 2021. "On an Irreversible Investment Problem with Two-Factor Uncertainty," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 646, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    3. Olijslagers, Stan & van der Ploeg, Frederick & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 2023. "On current and future carbon prices in a risky world," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Rafał Buła & Monika Foltyn-Zarychta, 2022. "Declining Discount Rates for Energy Policy Investments in CEE EU Member Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, December.
    5. Christensen, Sören & Crocce, Fabián & Mordecki, Ernesto & Salminen, Paavo, 2019. "On optimal stopping of multidimensional diffusions," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 129(7), pages 2561-2581.
    6. Christensen, Sören & Irle, Albrecht, 2020. "The monotone case approach for the solution of certain multidimensional optimal stopping problems," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 130(4), pages 1972-1993.
    7. Hepburn, Cameron J. & Koundouri, Phoebe, 2007. "Recent advances in discounting: Implications for forest economics," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 169-189, August.
    8. Felix Dammann & Giorgio Ferrari, 2021. "On an Irreversible Investment Problem with Two-Factor Uncertainty," Papers 2103.08258, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    9. Bernard Lapeyre & Emile Quinet, 2017. "A Simple GDP-based Model for Public Investments at Risk," Post-Print hal-01666574, HAL.
    10. Michele Moretto & Gianpaolo Rossini, 2008. "Vertical Integration and Operational Flexibility," Working Papers 2008.37, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Vadim Arkin & Alexander Slastnikov, 2007. "The effect of depreciation allowances on the timing of investment and government tax revenue," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 307-323, April.
    12. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2008. "Is the discount rate relevant in explaining the Environmental Kuznets Curve?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 191-207.
    13. Jean-Paul Décamps & Thomas Mariotti & Stéphane Villeneuve, 2005. "Investment Timing Under Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 472-500, May.
    14. Winkler, Ralph, 2009. "Now or Never: Environmental Protection under Hyperbolic Discounting," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-22.
    15. Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2000. "Continuous‐Time Methods in Finance: A Review and an Assessment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1569-1622, August.
    16. Decamps, Jean-Paul & Faure-Grimaud, Antoine, 2002. "Excessive continuation and dynamic agency costs of debt," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1623-1644, October.
    17. Phoebe Koundouri, 2008. "The Case for Declining Long-Term Discount Rates in the Evaluation of Flood-Defence Investments," DEOS Working Papers 0805, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    18. Corneo, Giacomo, 2015. "Volkswirtschaftliche Bewertung öffentlicher Investitionen," Discussion Papers 2015/12, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    19. Gollier, Christian, 2004. "The Consumption-Based Determinants of the Term Structure of Discount Rates," IDEI Working Papers 296, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    20. Tol, Richard S. J., 2005. "The marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions: an assessment of the uncertainties," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(16), pages 2064-2074, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk management; optimal stopping; real and American options;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Technology Assessment

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebg:heccah:0767. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Antoine Haldemann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hecpafr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.