State public utility commissions in the United States have implemented incentive regulations to promote the operating efficiency of nuclear power plants. This paper surveys these incentive programs, focusing on the perfomance-based pricing approach. Our findings suggest that the...

The authors present an empirical model of optimal operation of nuclear power plants. The optimal lifetime is the solution to an optimal stopping problem: the plant is closed when the expected discounted losses from continued operation exceed the discounted costs of decommissioning. The authors...

In Brazil construction began in 1971 on Angra 1, a 626 MW Westinghouse pressurized water reactor (PWR). It was completed in 1984. Later, Angra 2 (a Kraftwerk Union PWR) achieved commercial operation in 2000. Brazil is considering the construction of seven nuclear power plants over the next 15...

This paper analyzes the impacts of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which were amplified by a failure of coordination across the plant, corporate, industrial, and regulatory levels, resulting in a nuclear catastrophe, comparable in...

This paper analyzes the impacts of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which were amplified by a failure of coordination across the plant, corporate, industrial, and regulatory levels, resulting in a nuclear catastrophe comparable in cost to...