Prospects for Competitive Nuclear Power into the 21st Century

摘要

Nuclear power stations committed today will be commissioned in the mid- to late-1990s and will operate for most of their lives in the 21st century. Utilities considering the nuclear option for new increments of capacity are, therefore, required to make judgements now on the competitiveness of nuclear plants well beyond the turn of the century. Reactors committed for mid-1990 startup could have a lifetime competitive cost advantage of 20% to 80% over coal-fired plants in most NEA areas studied except for some parts of North America where low cost coal is available. Nuclear plants would retain an economic advantage in most countries even if they were to be used for load-following with resultant lifetime capacity (load) factors as low as about 60% (or even lower in many countries). Uranium resources are sufficiently large that fuel supply should not constrain nuclear power development well into the 21st century, as long as uranium prices provide a market incentive for continued exploration and mine development. Uranium prices seem unlikely to rise to a level which would remove nuclear's advantage within the next several decades. There is apparently no technological reason why the back-end of the fuel cycle (spent fuel transportation, storage, reprocessing and disposal of high level waste) and decommissioning of reactors should constrain further deployment of nuclear power. While the costs of these activities appear high in absolute terms, they will be relatively low per unit of electricity generated. Thus, even though there remain uncertainties regarding these future costs, they should have little impact on electricity consumers. 11 references, 8 tables. (ERA citation 12:028570)