The Price of Nuclear Power
在现有环境与安全标准下，比较核电与煤电满足基础电力需求的相对成本，质疑核电成本优势的传统观点，认为更合理的参数估计支持煤电，但大规模核电项目可能降低成本。
Nuclear power George Yarrow Treating existing environmental and safety standards as given, this paper investigates the relative cost of having nuclear and coal-fired power stations to meet base-load demand for electricity. The assessment is most sensitive to the particular assumptions made about three parameters: construction costs, the price of coal, and the discount rate used in the investment appraisal. The author challenges the conventional wisdom that nuclear power has substantial cost advantages, arguing that the usual calculations adopt values of the key parameters which are unduly favourable to nuclear power. More plausible estimates change the balance of advantage. Cost efficiency requires that most OECD countries should meet demand for new capacity through coal-fired stations. However, it would generally be costly greatly to reduce the operating life of existing nuclear capacity. The main qualification to these conclusions is that a sufficiently large nuclear programme may reduce construction costs to an extent that allows nuclear power to remain cost-efficient in meeting base demand, as in Belgium, France and Japan. Even so, Belgium and France already have sufficient nuclear capacity to meet base-load demand in full, so the case for further nuclear capacity remains weak.