Cost of nuclear 'underestimated'
June 29, 2005
The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by a factor of three, according to a British think tank.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says existing estimates do not allow for the cost of building novel technologies and expensive time delays in construction.
They claim that renewable energy sources like wind and solar should be relied upon instead of nuclear power.
However their report has been dismissed as inaccurate by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA).
"This report is grossly out of kilter with almost all other reports that have been done," said Simon James of the NIA.
Escalating costs
According to British Energy and British Nuclear Fuels, the cost of nuclear generation is between 2.2 and 3.0p/kWh. But the NEF says that this figure is probably a severe underestimate, with the real cost being somewhere between 3.4 and 8.3/kWh.
The NEF report claims that existing nuclear estimates are based heavily on "engineering judgements", which tend to be skewed towards the lower cost limits because they do not take sufficient account of "upside risk".
In other words, the lower limits of cost are predictable but the upper limits might sky-rocket if things go wrong. And, the NEF says, current cost calculations for nuclear power do not acknowledge the very real risk factor involved in generating new nuclear power.
In their report, Mirage and Oasis, the NEF highlights the example of Dungness B, a power station which took 23 years to complete instead of five, costing 400% above the predicted estimates.
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