Nuclear reactors can cost twice as much in the United States and Europe than in Asian countries where the industry is flourishing, according to a new analysis from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Meticulous regulation often takes the blame, but higher costs here have much more to do with project design and construction management, MIT researchers find in a report released in September. “In the East—in Korea, in China and the UAE, which is being built by the Koreans—the cost is $3,000-$4,000 per kilowatt hour, whereas in the West the cost is north of $8,000 per kilowatt hour. The question is why,” said David Petti, a fellow with the Idaho National Laboratory and a senior contributor to MIT’s study. “We spent a lot of time digging into that. We interviewed both the failed projects and the successful projects, and our recommendation was that we need an increased focus on using proven construction-management practices to increase the probability of success in the execution and delivery of new nuclear plants.”
Forbes 1st Oct 2018 read more »