the costs and benefits of building a first nuclear power plant

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CHILEAN NUCLEAR POWER IN 2020: THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF BUILDING A FIRST NUCLEAR POWER

PLANT

Geoffrey Rothwell

Economics Department, Stanford University Stanford, CA 943 05-6072

ABSTRACT

This paper evaluates the option of being able to begin construction on a first nuclear power plant in Chile in 2020. This implies that by 2020 (1) an appropriate Chilean regulatory authority has issued a site license and a construction permit, has the expertise to issue an operating permit, and can regulate nuclear plant operations and nuclear fuel management, (2) an owner-operator and financing has been committed, and (3) a system of handling fresh and spent nuclear fuel has been specified. At that time the net present value of the project can be calculated and compared with competing alternatives. Until that time, funds must be spent on regulatory and physical infrastructure preparation. Under this paper’s assumptions and economic modeling, a country contemplating a first nuclear power plant should be willing to invest approximately $65 million in this preparation, even though a nuclear power plant might never be built. This $65 million arises from the possibility of international carbon dioxide controls that would greatly increase the cost of fossil fuel alternatives.

Keywords

Chile, nuclear power economics, investment under uncertainty, carbon dioxide taxes

*This work was partially funded through a grant from Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP), Santiago, Chile. I thank Rob Graber, Donald Korn, and Alex Galetovic for their encouragement, references, data, and comments. This paper reflects the views and conclusions of the author and not those of the publisher or CEP.

1. NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN NON-NUCLEAR INDUSTRIALIZING ECONOMIES

As climate change becomes a geo-political reality, industrializing economies are faced with a growing dilemma: to develop they must increase their consumption of energy, in particular, reliable, electrical energy to power technology, but they have no good carbon-free alternatives in the short run. When they consider building fossil-fired power plants, coal availability and price stability are now driving them away from natural gas, because of its high price and volatility (as oil was driven out of central station electricity generation in the 1 970s).

The cost of burning coal under an international greenhouse-gas- control regime is uncertain. It is not now known what the socially optimal tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) should be, or what the market equilibrium price for a permit to produce a tonne of CO2 could be; Tol (2005). (In this paper, I will refer to any cost associated with producing CO2 as a “carbon tax,” although the control mechanism might involve a “cap and trade” program.) Consider that a 1,000 megawatt-electric (MW) coal plant produces about 7 million tons of CO2 per year. If the carbon tax is $25 per tonne of CO2, the coal plant owners might be paying about $175 million per year in additional fuel or carbon sequestration costs.

While we have some experience with CO2 permit price path distributions, we are more likely to have a better understanding of them in 2020 than we do today.

Given this uncertainty, industrializing economies with at least 10,000 megawatts-electric (MW) of interconnected electricity generating capacity (or plans for such capacity by 2020) are seriously considering commercial nuclear power. (Until smaller nuclear units become available, which could be by 2020, e.g., the South African Pebble Bed Gas Reactor, transmission grid reliability dictates that the largest power plant should not be more than approximately 10% of the interconnected capacity (Vergara Aimone, 2007, p. 77); presently, the smallest commercially available nuclear power plant is 1,000 MW, so the minimum grid size is about 10,000 MW.)

While a “nuclear renaissance” is in the works in those countries that now operate nuclear power plants, there is little experience with building the next generation of light water reactors (LWRs).

Although there could be some bumps in the price path of LWR fuel as the renaissance gets started, the operating and fuel costs for advanced LWRs are well understood, because the technology is so similar to current designs, and their probability distributions can be specified.

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However, the overnight construction costs for new nuclear power plants are unknown (although they are better known to those who are currently bidding or evaluating bids on nuclear power projects). Recently, prices have increased for nuclear power plants (as well as for coal power plants) due to the increases in the international cost of construction materials and equipment.

Combined with uncertainties in the capital markets, the total capital investment cost for nuclear power is not known, particularly for first builds in industrializing economies.

Further, while some industrializing economies have built and operated research reactors, they do not necessarily have the infrastructure to regulate a nuclear power industry in their country. Before a nuclear power plant can be built, the country must issue a construction license. While licensing agencies, such as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), can aid in establishing a national regulatory agency, and the national agency can follow the lead of the NRC in licensing a particular reactor, the country must issue a construction permit based on the safety of that technology at a particular site in a particular eco-system.

Further, the safeguarding of nuclear fuel requires the designation and training of a civilian or military agency in coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, see IAEA 1998).

To establish these agencies and expertise, the industrializing economy must invest large sums of money in regulatory and physical infrastructure before the first nuclear power plant is licensed. This infrastructure investment is sunk (i.e., it cannot be recovered). Poland, for example, developed this infrastructure in the 1 980s, after negotiating with the Soviet Union to build a nuclear power plant; this project was cancelled after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While some of this Polish infrastructure (i.e., professional expertise) is still available for a coming generation of nuclear power, most of the Soviet-era investment has been lost.

Table 1 identifies the primary tasks in preparing to regulate and construct a country’s first nuclear power plant. The total preparation time is approximately 12 years (e.g., 2008 to 2020) with 3 periods of increasing cost and complexity. (See Galetovic and de Mello, 2005, on the effectiveness of Chilean network industry regulation.) These periods can be compressed or lengthened as a function of budget and public commitment.

Evaluating the cost of each task is beyond the scope of this paper;

however, estimates will be discussed in Section 4. The issue for a country building its first nuclear power plant becomes whether (1) the value of investing in national nuclear infrastructure (i.e., completing the tasks in Table 1) before the nuclear power plant is licensed is more or less than (2) the value of building a new nuclear power plant (e.g., starting in 2020) when uncertainties are better understood.

The economics and cost engineering literature comparing the cost of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, has a rich history (Rothwell 1985). Recently, the literature has turned to the application of options pricing theory to the real option of building electricity generating stations (Rothwell 2006, Graber and Rothwell, 2006). The present paper proposes a method for

determining the value of building a first nuclear power plant starting in 2020. This value can then be compared with national assessments of the cost of instituting national nuclear health and safety regulatory institutions. Before discussing the evaluation approach, anticipated costs for generating electricity are presented.

Table 1. Strategic Tasks for a Nation’s First Nuclear Power Plant

Period 1: "4 Years" of Study and Debate Determine Nuclear Facilities Licensing Regulation Evaluate Economics of Remaining Stages Determine Technology and Fuel Selection Criteria Determine Site Selection Criteria

Review Nuclear Waste and Carbon Control Policies

Period 2: "4 Years" of Institution Building Create Regulatory Institutions and Start Training Evaluate Economics of Remaining Stages Request and Evaluate Bids

Select Technology and Fuel

Select Architect/Engineer and Construction Manager Select and Characterize Potential Sites

Determine Low Level Nuclear Waste Regulation

Period 3: "4 Years" of Building Preparation License Site, Suppliers, and Technology

Evaluate Economics and Financing of Plant Construction Arrange Construction Financing and Refinancing Prepare site for electricity generation

Determine High Level Nuclear Waste Regulation

2. THE EXPECTED LEVELIZED COSTS OF GENERATING ELECTRICITY

The cost of building and operating electricity generating stations is widely discussed; see, for example, NEA (2005). But the actual expected cost of building an electricity generating station is proprietary (because there is market value in knowing this information); most publicly available sources of cost information are out-of-date or incomplete. Further, while there are at least a dozen studies projecting the costs of fossil-fired and nuclear- powered generation, there is little modeling of the uncertainties associated with these cost estimates (given the quality of the information). This section reviews cost estimates based on EIA (2007). Section 3 discusses how to model net present value uncertainties associated with the comparison of nuclear power

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with coal-fired power plants and evaluates the alternative of building a first nuclear power plant. This can be used as a guide in determining whether investment in the regulatory and physical infrastructure is worthwhile, discussed in Section 4.

To define levelized cost, let total annual cost, TC, of producing total annual output, Q, is

TCt = pK K + O&Mt + pF Ft + Wt, (1)

where K is the total capital investment cost (TCIC, defined in EMWG 2007) measured in millions, M, of 2005 dollars and pK is the annual capital charge rate; O&Mt is the annual operating and maintenance cost; Ft is the annual fuel consumed and pF is the price of fuel; Wt is the annual cost of waste management (including decommissioning). The Levelized Cost (LC) is

LC = [ Ó TCt (1 + r)^-t ] / [ Ó Q t (1 + r) -t ], (2) where the summation is over the commercial life of the facility, all construction costs are discounted to the commercial operation date, Qt is the annual output, and r is the appropriate discount rate.

EIA (2007) provides a consist set of assumptions regarding the cost and performance characteristics of new central station electricity generating technologies for its Electricity Market Module (EMM) of its National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) to generate the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO). (These values are similar to those in Chapter 3, “Generation Costs of Coal-fired, Gas-fired and Nuclear Power Plants,” NEA 2005.) While Table 39 in EIA (2007) gives size in MW, construction lead time, “base overnight costs,” contingency factors, “total overnight cost,”

variable O&M per kilowatt-hour, fixed O&M per kilowatt, and heat rates for 19 electricity generating technologies, it does not specify costs for capital or fuel (these costs are endogenously determined by NEMS). All costs are given in 2005 dollars in EIA (2007).

Therefore, parameters that must be specified are (1) the cost of capital during construction and operation, (2) the cost of fuel, and (3) the cost of waste management. (All plants are assumed to have a 40-year life and a levelized 90% capacity factor.) Table 2, Column 3, presents levelized costs for the EIA’s “Advanced Nuclear” technology. Table 2, Column 4, presents levelized costs for the EIA’s “Scrubbed Coal New.” Table 2, Column 5, presents levelized costs for “Adv Gas/Oil Comb Cycle” (CCGT).

In these tables, the base cost of capital is assumed to be 7% real, or about 10% nominal. However, due to the uncertainties in the construction of new nuclear power plants, a risk premium of 5%

real (from Rothwell, 2006) is added to the cost of capital for nuclear power plants during construction, resulting in a cost of capital of about 15% nominal. Once the plant is complete, it is assumed that construction expenditures, including Interest During Construction (IDC), are refinanced at a base rate of 7% real, following Lapuerta and Brown (2007).

The following assumptions are made regarding expected fuel prices: (1) the levelized price of nuclear fuel is $7.67/MWh plus

$3/MWh for high-level waste management and decommissioning, see Rothwell (2007); (2) the expected price of coal is $2/M BTU (million BTU in 2005 dollars equal to $1.90/GJ; see Table 3.3 in NEA 2005 for a range of coal prices for 2020 in 2003 dollars from $1.16/GJ in Korea to $2.27/GJ in Finland); and (3) the expected price of natural gas is $5/M BTU (in 2005 dollars equal to $4.74/GJ; see Table 3.6 in NEA 2005 for a range of natural gas prices for 2020 in 2003 dollars from $4.1 8/GJ in France to

$6.42/GJ in Italy). Finally, a tax is assessed on CO2 at $25 per tonne in 2005 dollars in 2020).

Regarding the cost of emitting CO2, consider the following statement by the European Climate Exchange

(http://www.europeanclimateexchange.com/default_flash.asp):

“The ‘cap-and-trade’ approach, being used in the EU ETS [European Union Emission Trading Scheme], sets an overall cap or maximum amount of emissions per compliance period.

Companies are given allowances which represent their target or

‘cap’ for a compliance period. At the end of the period they must surrender sufficient allowances to reconcile against their total emissions during the period. If this is below their cap they have allowances to sell; if not, they must purchase allowances from companies which have exceeded their emissions reductions targets. Each allowance permits the holder to emit one tonne of CO2. If an operator does not hold sufficient allowances to meet its total emissions at the compliance date, a penalty of €40 for Phase I 2005-2007 (rising to €100 in the Phase II 2008-20 12) per excess tonne will apply.” Given these penalties and the value of the dollar, $25 per tonne of CO2 is reasonable for 2020, but which countries will participate in such an international regime is unknown.

While the levelized cost of nuclear power is 19% (8%) higher than coal (natural gas) without CO2 taxes, the cost of nuclear power is 25% (17%) lower than either coal (natural gas) with a

$25 CO2 tax. (Of course, these costs do not include the cost of the regulatory infrastructure, discussed in Section 4.) Although these results are sensitive to the underlying assumptions, this example shows that, ignoring the fundamental uncertainties associated with nuclear capital costs and carbon taxes, levelized nuclear power costs could be economically competitive in a world with carbon constraints.

3. THE NET PRESENT VALUE OF A NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

While the levelized cost analysis is instructive, before a profit- making firm would build in a nuclear power plant, it must be shown that the net present value (NPV) is positive. This is done by projecting the time distribution of the positive and negative cash flows, and discounting these flows by the appropriate discount rate. NPV is defined in the following equation:

NPV =[ Ó ( p Q Q t - O &M t - p F F t - W t) (1 + r ) -t ] - K , (3) where pQ is the price of output (electricity).

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Table 2. Comparing ALWR, Coal, and CCGT Costs from EIA (2007, Table 39)

Units

ALWR r = 12%

Coal r = 7%

CCGT r = 7%

Fuel Price ($/GJ=0.948x $/MBTU) $/M BTU see below $2.00 $5.00 CO2 Price ($/tonne) $/tonne $0.00 $25.00 $25.00 CO2 per MWh ("carbon intensity factor" from www.bp.com) t/MWh 0.00 0.92 0.52

Heat Rate (from EIA 2007) BTU/kWh 10,400 8,844 6,717

Net Electrical Capacity (differs from EIA 2007)* MWe 1,000 500 500

Average Capacity Factor % 90% 90% 90%

Plant economic and operational life Years 40 40 40 Construction Lead Time from EIA (2007) Years 6 3 3

Real discount rate for Interest During Construction %/year 12.0% 7.0% 7.0%

Real discount rate for amortization %/year 7.0% 7.0% 7.0%

Capital Recovery Factor (CFR with refinance after construction) %/year 7.5% 7.5% 7.5%

Base Overnight Costs from EIA 2005$/kw $1,802 $1,206 $550 Contingency ("Project Contingency"&"Technological Optimism") % 16% 7% 8%

Overnight Cost from EIA (includes contingency) 2005$/kw $2,081 $1,290 $594 Total Capital Investment Cost (including IDC) 2005$/kw $2,831 $1,426 $608 Total Capital Investment Cost (including IDC) 2005$ M $2,831 $713 $304 Variable O&M from EIA (2007) $/MWh $0.47 $4.32 $1.88 Fixed O&M from EIA (2007) $/kW $63.88 $25.91 $11.01

Levelized Capital Cost $/MWh $26.91 $13.56 $5.78

Levelized Operation Cost $/MWh $8.57 $7.60 $3.28

Levelized Fuel Cycle Cost - Front End $/MWh $7.67 $17.69 $33.59

Levelized Fuel Cycle Cost - Back End (Waste or Carbon) $/MWh $3.00 $23.00 $13.00

Levelized Cost without Carbon Tax $/MWh $46.15 $38.85 $42.64

Levelized Cost with Carbon Tax $/MWh $46.15 $61.85 $55.64

*Typical plant sizes have been modified for transparency. The EIA assumes sizes of 1350 MW, 600MW, and 400MW for nuclear, coal, and natural gas power plants, respectively.

The construction expenditures are discounted to the start of operation (e.g., 2026) by 12% real (incorporated into K as Interest During Construction) and operating revenues are discounted to the start of operation by 7% real. Operating revenues are equal the number of MWh produced times the price per MWh. The price of electricity is set to the levelized cost of producing electricity at a new coal plant. The NPV is calculated for 2026 (the start of operation), for 2020 (the start of construction), and 2008 (the start of preparations).

Further, cost assumptions from 2005 could be out of date, particularly when projected to 2020. Construction costs have been rising since 2003. Chupka and Basheda (2007) show that between 2003 and 2006 electricity generation construction costs increased by 75%. To explain these trends, and why the EIA ignores them, EIA (2007, p. 36) states,

“Costs related to the construction industry have been volatile in recent years. Some of the volatility may be related to higher energy prices. Prices for iron and steel, cement, and concrete—

commodities used heavily in the construction of new energy

projects—rose sharply from 2004 to 2006, and shortages have been reported. How such price fluctuations may affect the cost or pace of new development in the energy industries is not known with any certainty, and short-term changes in commodity prices are not accounted for in the 25-year projections in AEO2007.

Most projects in the energy industries require long planning and construction lead times, which can lessen the impacts of short- term trends.”

Also, CO2 prices could be even more volatile. Roques et al.

(2006, p. 13) assume a 30% annual volatility for CO2 prices. See, for example, the volatility in the historic data on the European Carbon Exchange. As Nordhaus (2001, p. 30) points out,

“One of the potential concerns with the current structure of the Kyoto Protocol is that it will induce great volatility in the prices of permits. The volatility can be seen in the history of SO2 permit prices, which have been much more volatile than consumer prices or even stock prices.”

This is because once a cap is imposed; international trading can lead to fierce competition given the penalties imposed on exceeding the cap.

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Table 3. The Net Present Value of a Nuclear Plant versus a Coal Plant

Cash Flow Analysis

(Millions of 2005 dollars) w/o CO2Tax Electricity Price = Coal Cost $38.85 Net Present Value (NPV in 2026) -$534 Net Present Value (NPV in 2020) -$356 Net Present Value (NPV in 2008) -$163 Total Capital Investment Cost $4,645

Activity year Discounted

cash flow

Start Construction 2020 -$1,009

Construction Year 2021 -$901

Construction Year 2023 -$7 18

Operation Year 2026 $272

Operation Years 2031-2060 …… …..

Operation Year 2065

w/ CO2Tax

$61.

85

$1,968

$1,

311

$602

$4,645

Discounted cash flow

-

$1,009

− $901

− $804

− $ 718

− $641

− $572

$447

$419

$393

$368

$345

…..

$47

$44

$42

$39

$24 $37

Table 3 presents the deterministic cash flow analysis. The total capital investment cost is

$4,645/kWe, or $4,645 million for a 1,000 MWe plant (including Interest During Construction). The NPV (in 2005 dollars in 2008) is a negative $163 million without a CO2 tax and is a positive $602 million with a CO2 tax. Figures 1 and 2 present the results of 100,000 simulations (using Crystal Ball ® ).

Therefore, to analyze the variance of the NPV for a first nuclear power plant, assume:

1. Between 2005 and 2020 the cost of construction for nuclear power plants increases at a real rate of 4% per year with a standard deviation of 2%, and the cost of construction for coal plants increases at a real rate of 2% per year with a standard deviation of 1%; this results in levelized capital costs of approximately

$42/MW for nuclear power plants and $1 7/MW for coal plants in 2020 in 2005 dollars (these are closer to costs announced in late 2007, see Tampa Tribune, 2008, quoting Progress Energy and Florida Power &

Light).

2. The prices of nuclear fuel and coal increase at 1.5%

(real) from 2020 to 2065; this doubles the cost of fuel during the assumed operating lifetime of 40 years.

3. The prices of nuclear fuel and coal follow a probabilistic distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of $0.17, calculated from information on international coal prices using the estimate of the root mean squared error assuming a first-order autoregressive process, see Rothwell (2006, p. 45).

4. The price of CO2 follows a uniform distribution between $0 and $50 per tonne in 2020 and from 2020 to 2065 follows an autoregressive process with a standard

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deviation of 17%, yielding a volatility of 30%, as assumed in Roques et al. (2006).

Figure 1. The Net Present Value of Nuclear discounted to 2008 without CO2 Taxes

Figure 2. The Net Present Value of Nuclear discounted to 2008 with CO2 Taxes

Although there is a 31% probability of a positive NPV for a nuclear power plant without CO2 taxes, this probability rises to 80% with CO2 taxes. Also, due to the volatility in these taxes and their autoregressive nature (i.e., that the price in one year depends on the price in the previous year), there is the possibility of high returns on investment in nuclear power. (In the simulation the NPV is $1,565 million at the 90% percentile, i.e., there is a 10% probability that the NPV could be above

$1,565 million.)

Unfortunately, these results are dichotomous, i.e., they depend on whether there is a CO2 tax. While this indicates that there is

value in waiting for an electric utility to invest in nuclear power, it does not provide an answer regarding the value of preparing to build a first nuclear power plant. (Although given there is an externality associated with the further production of greenhouse gases leading to climate change, society is paying a “tax” equal to the marginal damage of an extra tonne of CO2.) Therefore, assume there is a 10 to 50% chance that a CO2 tax of $0 to $50 will be imposed on the producer of CO2. This leads to Figure 3, where there is a 57% chance of a positive NPV, and a mean value of $64 million (and a median of $66 million).

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Figure 3. The Net Present Value of Nuclear discounted to 2008 with a 10-50% chance of CO2 Taxes

4. CONCLUSION: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Given these assumptions and results, the following conclusion can be made: Until an international regime is established to control greenhouse gases, a country contemplating its first nuclear power plant should be willing to invest approximately

$65 million on regulatory and physical infrastructure to have the option of building a first nuclear power plant. (This value would increase if the chance of such a regime is greater than one-half.) Following the outline of strategic tasks in Table 1, investments in physical infrastructure should not be started until there is a regulatory institution that can license the construction and operation of a nuclear power plant, i.e., until there is a political consensus that such an institution is required and created, there is no need to invest in physical infrastructure that might not be necessary. Further, assuming that the chance of an international control regime will be better known by 2016, funds should be devoted to accomplishing the tasks in the first two periods:

Period 1 (“4 years” of Study and Debate) and Period 2 (“4 years” of Institution Building).

Assuming $100,000 per “burdened” labor-year (i.e., with all benefits and overheads), $65 million provides 650 labor-years to accomplish the tasks outlined in the first two periods of Table 1.

The tasks in the first period could be accomplished with 150 labor-years ($15 million) and the tasks in the second period could be accomplished with 500 labor-years ($50 million), half of which would be dedicated to the creation of a regulatory (licensing) agency with a staff of 60 for 4 years (about $24 million).

Therefore, the country contemplating a first nuclear power plant should begin preparing for such a possibility even though there is less than a 50% chance that CO2 will be controlled. Of course, this conclusion depends on the soundness of this study, which should be rigorously and vigorously debated.

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