There are three generalized timing possibilities for decommissioning: at the end of the original operating license, after some period of life extension, or sometime before the end of normal service. In this companion piece to his discussion of life extension in Chapter 20, James Hewlett...

Some people consider life extension (and its cousin, license renewal) an alternative to decommissioning. The reasons for the popularity of such alternatives include presumed cost effectiveness, retention of scarce power plant sites, and the continued ability to pass on waste storage expenses as...

This paper examines the factors causing the escalation in the 1980s and' subsequent leveling off of nuclear power plant non-fuel Operating and Maintenance (O&M) costs. Over the period 1974-93, real (inflation-adjusted) non-fuel O&M costs escalated from about $23 to about $97 per kilowatt of...