IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v17y1996i4p1-31.html

Economic and Regulatory Factors Affecting the Maintenance of Nuclear Power Plants

Author

Listed:
  • James G. Hewlett

Abstract

This paper examines the factors causing the escalation in the 1980s and' subsequent leveling off of nuclear power plant non-fuel Operating and Maintenance (O&M) costs. Over the period 1974-93, real (inflation-adjusted) non-fuel O&M costs escalated from about $23 to about $97 per kilowatt of installed capacity (kW). However, much of the escalation in costs occurred in the 1980s. Over the period 1975-87, real O&M costs escalated at an annual rate of about 11 percent. Since then, the annual growth rate in real O&M costs fell to about I percent. The research found that the escalation in O&M costs was primarily due to increased regulatory activity by the Nuclear Regulatory, Commission. More important, there is little evidence that the moderation in the growth in O&M costs was regulatory induced, but instead was due to changes in the economic incentives to improve plant performance.

Suggested Citation

  • James G. Hewlett, 1996. "Economic and Regulatory Factors Affecting the Maintenance of Nuclear Power Plants," The Energy Journal, , vol. 17(4), pages 1-31, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:17:y:1996:i:4:p:1-31
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol17-No4-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol17-No4-1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol17-No4-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rust, John & Rothwell, Geoffrey, 1995. "Optimal Response to a Shift in Regulatory Regime: The Case of the US Nuclear Power Industry," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(S), pages 75-118, Suppl. De.
    2. Joskow, Paul L & Schmalensee, Richard, 1987. "The Performance of Coal-Burning Electric Generating Units in the United States: 1960-1980," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(2), pages 85-109, April.
    3. Krautmann, Anthony C. & Solow, John L., 1992. "Nuclear power plant performance: the post Three Mile Island era," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 209-216, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Victor Aguirregabiria, 2006. "Another Look at the Identification of Dynamic Discrete Decision Processes: With an Application to Retirement Behavior," 2006 Meeting Papers 169, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Lovering, Jessica R. & Yip, Arthur & Nordhaus, Ted, 2016. "Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 371-382.
    3. Stavins, Robert, 2005. "The Effects of Vintage-Differentiated Environmental Regulation," Working Paper Series rwp05-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Rakesh Kumar Jain & Surender Kumar, 2018. "Shadow price of CO2 emissions in Indian thermal power sector," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(4), pages 879-902, October.
    5. Denny Ellerman, A., 1996. "The competition between coal and natural gas the importance of sunk costs," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-2), pages 33-42.
    6. Aguirregabiria, Victor & Mira, Pedro, 2010. "Dynamic discrete choice structural models: A survey," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 38-67, May.
    7. Victor Aguirregabiria & Allan Collard-Wexler & Stephen P. Ryan, 2021. "Dynamic Games in Empirical Industrial Organization," NBER Working Papers 29291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Martín Tobal, 2017. "Regulatory Entry Barriers, Rent Shifting and the Home Market Effect," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 76-97, February.
    9. Jonathan Eyer & Matthew E. Kahn, 2017. "Prolonging Coal’s Sunset: The Causes and Consequences of Local Protectionism for a Declining Polluting Industry," NBER Working Papers 23190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Black, Geoffrey A. & Aydogan, Fatih & Koerner, Cassandra L., 2019. "Economic viability of light water small modular nuclear reactors: General methodology and vendor data," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 248-258.
    11. repec:aen:journl:ej36-4-malik is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish, 2016. "The effect of regulatory governance on efficiency of thermal power generation in India: A stochastic frontier analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 11-24.
    13. Hayam Wahba, 2008. "Does the market value corporate environmental responsibility? An empirical examination," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 89-99, March.
    14. Khaled Elsayed, 2006. "Reexamining the Expected Effect of Available Resources and Firm Size on Firm Environmental Orientation: An Empirical Study of UK Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 297-308, May.
    15. Kira R. Fabrizio & Nancy L. Rose & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2007. "Do Markets Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on US Electric Generation Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1250-1277, September.
    16. ABDELHAMID, Mohamed Ben & BELLALAH, Makram, 2023. "Investigating The Optimal Exit Timing And Leverage During The Covid-19 Crisis," Studii Financiare (Financial Studies), Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 27(1), pages 18-38, March.
    17. Sturm, Roland, 1995. "Why does nuclear power performance differ across Europe?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 1197-1214, June.
    18. See, Kok Fong & Coelli, Tim, 2012. "An analysis of factors that influence the technical efficiency of Malaysian thermal power plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 677-685.
    19. Victor Aguirregabiria & Arvind Magesan, 2013. "Euler Equations for the Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Choice Structural Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Structural Econometric Models, volume 31, pages 3-44, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Yang, Hongliang & Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Incorporating both undesirable outputs and uncontrollable variables into DEA: The performance of Chinese coal-fired power plants," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(3), pages 1095-1105, September.
    21. Zhao, Xiaoli & Yin, Haitao & Zhao, Yue, 2015. "Impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency and CO2 emissions of power plants in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 238-247.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:enejou:v:17:y:1996:i:4:p:1-31. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.