http://216.30.191.148/smrstudy.html
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IF NOT SMRs, WHAT?
According to Dr. Cooper, cost escalation provides half of the explanation for the economic failure of nuclear power. The other half is provided by the superior economics of alternatives. In the 1980s nuclear could not compete with coal and natural gas. Today it cannot compete with gas and a number of renewable resources.
The paper highlights the following key points:
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Declining cost of alternatives: "Wind and solar technologies are exhibiting dramatic declines in costs driven by innovation and economies of scale that have eluded nuclear for half a century. Improvements in design and operation efficiency, declining material and construction costs, and developments in storage technology have doubled renewable load factors in recent years. The trend is so strong that financial analysts have concluded that these renewable technologies are already cost competitive with natural gas, or soon will be, which makes them much less costly than current or projected nuclear reactors."
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Downward pressure on peak prices: "The increasing reliance on renewables and demand response reduces the sharp rise in peak load prices that have traditionally provided the scarcity rents that fund capital intensive facilities. The downward pressures will increase as reliance on decentralized resources increases."
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The emergence of an integrated, two-way electricity system based on decentralized alternatives reduces the value and importance of baseload generation: "The emerging electricity system relies on a dramatic increase in information, computational, and control technologies to intensively manage two-way flows in a system that integrates decentralized, diversified supply-side resources and actively manages demand. It causes a sharp reduction in demand and need for central station, baseload generation."
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