This paper presents a dynamic programming (DP) model of an electric utility's optimal policy for operating a nuclear power plant (NPP). The utility chooses the level of capacity utilization of the NPP as a function of signals about the NPP's current operating state. In each period the utility...

Demand-Side Management (DSM) improves load factors and energy efficiency and reduces emissions. DSM methods are understood in the United States, but using DSM in Poland poses problems related to constraints in the power sector and the economic environment. This paper discusses the reorganization...

The report's key finding is that new nuclear capacity in NEMS-RFF from 2015 to 2020 under the current levels of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantees is similar to the marginal increase in new capacity from lowering the nominal return-on-equity (ROE) in NEMS-RFF for new nuclear power...

Traditional cost contingency estimation relies heavily on expert judgment based on various cost-engineering standards. This paper compares project stages, accuracy ranges, and cost contingencies recommended by the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International and the Electric...

In today’s energy economy, hydrogen is primarily used in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries. The dominant technology for generating hydrogen is Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), which uses natural gas as both feedstock and fuel. In the much-discussed future hydrogen economy,...

Four firms dominate the international uranium enrichment market. Two reasons for this industrial concentration are (1) enrichment capacity can be used to make nuclear weapons, and hence its spread has been controlled through many mechanisms, including technology classification, and (2)...

This volume collects 22 articles by Masahiko Aoki, selected from writings published over the course of his 45-year academic career. These fascinating essays cover a range of issues, including mechanism design, comparative governance, corporate governance, institutions and institutional change,...

This paper analyzes the causes, responses, and consequences of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) by comparing these with Three Mile Island (March 1979) and Chernobyl (April 1986). We identify three generic modes of organizational coordination: modular, vertical, and...

This paper compares the sustainability of two light water reactor, LWR, fuel cycles: the once-through UOX (low-enriched uranium oxide) cycle and the twice-through MOX (Mixed Uranium-Plutonium Oxide) cycle (increasing the input efficiency of available uranium) by assessing their probable...