Our journal article critiquing a recent Energy Policy article on nuclear costs has just been released online
Our article critiquing the recent Lovering et al. Energy Policy article on the costs of nuclear power was just published online by Energy Policy (the article is now considered to be “in press” with only minor tweaks to come once they assign the article to an issue). My colleagues Nate Hultman at the University of Maryland and Arnulf Grubler of Yale University and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis teamed up with me on the critique.
Here’s the abstract:
Lovering et al. (2016) present data on the overnight costs of more than half of nuclear reactors built worldwide since the beginning of the nuclear age. The authors claim that this consolidated data set offers more accurate insights than previous country-level assessments. Unfortunately, the authors make analytical choices that mask nuclear power’s real construction costs, cherry pick data, and include misleading data on early experimental and demonstration reactors. For those reasons, serious students of such issues should look elsewhere for guidance about understanding the true costs of nuclear power.
Here are the references for the relevant articles:
Koomey, Jonathan, Nathan E. Hultman, and Arnulf Grubler. 2016. “A reply to "Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors”.“ Energy Policy. April. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.03.052]
Lovering, Jessica R., Arthur Yip, and Ted Nordhaus. 2016. "Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors.” Energy Policy. vol. 91, 4//. pp. 371-382. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106]
Alex Gilbert, Ben Sovacool, Phil Johnstone, and Andy Stirling also did a critique of Lovering et al. that should appear in the same issue (it’s also “in press”):
Gilbert, Alexander, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Phil Johnstone, and Andy Stirling. “Cost overruns and financial risk in the construction of nuclear power reactors: A critical appraisal.” Energy Policy. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301690]
Our understanding was that the editor sought out a response to our critiques from Lovering et al, but we don’t know when that one will appear. We were told initially that it would appear at the same time as our articles.
Please email me if you’d like a copy of our article, or download directly if you have access through your university.
