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The actual growth and probable future of the worldwide nuclear industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Irvin C. Bupp
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Extract

Worldwide nuclear power reactor manufacturing capacity will exceed worldwide demand by a factor of two or more during the 1980s. Only in France and the Soviet bloc countries is it likely that the ambitious nuclear power programs formulated in the mid-1970s will be implemented. In all other developed countries and in most developing countries, further delays and cancellations of previously announced programs are all but certain.

The stalemate over the future of nuclear power is particularly deep in America. Administrative and personnel problems in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, slow progress on radioactive waste disposal by the Department of Energy, severe financial problems for most electric utilities, and drastic reductions in the rate of electricity demand growth combine to make continuation of the five-year-old moratorium on reactor orders inevitable. Many of the ninety plants under construction may never operate and some of the seventy in operation may shut down before the end of their economic life.

Contrary to widespread belief, further oil price increases may not speed up worldwide reactor sales. It is possible that the world is heading for a “worst” of all possible outcomes: a large number of small nuclear power programs that do little to meet real energy needs but substantially complicate the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981 , pp. 59 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1981

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References

1 New York Times, 16 March 1980, Section 3, p. 1.Google Scholar

2 I would like to emphasize the noun “guess.” Table 2 is not the output of a model, nor is it a “scenario.” It is informed speculation based on wide familiarity with the literature on the worldwide nuclear industry and innumerable conversations and meetings with other scholars, public officials, and business executives in the United States and abroad. For comparison I suggest seeing Chase Manhattan Bank, Division of Energy Economics, “World Economic and Energy Outlook to 1990,” (New York, 03 1980).Google Scholar

3 This proposition is the chief conclusion of an original and provocative recent report, Lonnroth, Mans and Walker, William, The Viability of the Civil Nuclear Industry (New York & London, 1980) by the International Consultative Group on Nuclear Energy; jointly sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.Google Scholar

4 Connolly, Thomas J., et al. , World Nuclear Energy Paths, International Consultative Group on Nuclear Energy (New York and London: the Rockefeller Foundation and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1979).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 2.

6 IAEA, The International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation, 8 vols. (02 1980).Google Scholar

7 Bupp, Irvin C. and Jean-Claude, Derian, Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved, (New York: Basic Books, 1978), p. 188.Google Scholar

8 Kasperson, Roger E., “Institutional and Social Uncertainties in the Timely Management of Radioactive Wastes,” testimony prepared for the California Energy Commission re Nuclear Regulatory Commission Rulemaking Procedure for Confidence in Radioactive Waste Management, May 1980.Google Scholar

9 Jean-Claude, Derian and Bupp, Irvin C., “Running Water: Nuclear Power on the Move in France,” prepared for a meeting of the Keystone Radioactive Waste Management Discussion Group, Keystone Center for Continuing Education, Keystone, Colorado, September 1979.Google Scholar

10 Bupp, Irvin C., et al., “Some Background Information on the Financial Condition of Certain Investor-Owned Electric Utility Companies,” prepared for a conference on “Conservation and the Electric Utilities,” Keystone Center for Continuing Education, Keystone, Colorado, March 1980.Google Scholar

11 Sir Flowers, Brian, “Nuclear Power: A Perspective on the Risks, Benefits, and Options,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 34, 3 (03 1977): 21ff.Google Scholar

12 Bodansky, David, “Electricity Generation Choices for the Near Term,” Science. 207 (15 02 1980): 721–27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also: National Research Council, Energy in Transition: 1985–2010, Final Report of the Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy System (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences 1979)Google Scholar; Landsberg, Hans H., et al., Energy: The Next Twenty Years; Report of a Study Group sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by Resources for the Future (Cambridge, Mass: Ballinger, 1979), Ch. 2.Google Scholar

13 See for example, Beers, J. Roger, et al. , “Choosing an Electric Energy Future for the Pacific Northwest: An Alternative Scenario” (San Francisco: Natural Resources Defense Council, May 1980)Google Scholar. See also, Sant, Roger W., “The Least-Cost Energy Strategy” (Arlington, Va.: Energy Productivity Center of the Carnegie-Mellon Institute 1979Google Scholar; Leach, Gerald, et al. , “A Low Energy Strategy for the UK” (London: International Institute for Environment and Development, 1979).Google Scholar

14 California Energy Commission, “Estimating Utilities' Prices for Power Purchases from Alternative Energy Sources,” Staff report (March 1980), pp. 500–80.Google Scholar

15 Benore, Charles A., “Electric Utility Industry Investment Outlook” (New York: Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins Inc., 05 1980), PP. 6–7.Google Scholar

It is important to note that the excess capacity of the U.S. electric power industry is by no means evenly spread across the country. Actual supply shortages could even materialize in many parts of the midwest, in California, and in southern Florida. Moreover, the apparent excess capacity would, of course, be reduced sharply if significant amounts of oil-fired equipment became unusable.

My colleague at the Harvard Business School Robert A. Leone has developed a considerable body of instructional material on the challenge of capacity management in rising cost industries, for the automobile, steel, and forest products industries, as well as electric power. Much of this material is taught in a course called “Manufacturing Policy” as part of the Harvard MBA curriculum.

16 Lovins, Amory, et al., “Nuclear Power and Nuclear Bombs” Foreign Affairs (07 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Landsberg, Hans H., et al. , Energy: The Next Twenty YearsGoogle Scholar, op. cit., ch. 12; see also, Bupp, and Derian, , Light Water, op. cit., ch. 9.Google Scholar

18 Nelkin, Dorothy and Pollock, Michael, “Ideology as Strategy: The Discourse of the Anti-Nuclear Movement in France and Germany,” Science, Technology and Human Values, 5, 30 (Winter 1980)Google Scholar; See also Khan, Sadruddin Aga, “The Nuclear Power Debate in Western Europe,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists(September 1979).Google Scholar

19 The observation on the relative nuclear positions of the European political parties arise from conversations with my colleagues Jean-Claude Derian and Mans Lonnroth in early 1980.

20 Kahn, E., “Bankruptcy Risk in the Utility Industry: Policy Issu es,” working draft, Lawrence Laboratory, Berkeley, June 1980Google Scholar; See also, Bupp, Irvin C., et al. , “Some Background Information on the Financial Condition of Certain Investor-Owned Electric Power Companies,” prepared for a conference: “Conservation and the Electric Utilities,”Keystone Center for Continuing Education, Keystone,Colorado,28–30 March 1980.Google Scholar

21 For an excellent summary of the issues in this important proceeding see “Statement of Position of the California Energy Commission in the Matter of Proposed Rulemaking on the Storage and Disposal of Nuclear Wastes,” available from the Office of Commissioner Varanini, E. E. Jr., 1111 Howe Avenue, Sacramento, California, July 1980.Google Scholar

22 For nearly three years, I have been Executive Director of the Keystone Radioactive Waste Management Discussion Group. During that period some 120 different persons met about a dozen times. They included nuclear industry executives, antinuclear activists, goyernment officials, and academics, representing a wide variety of opinions over the acceptability of nuclear power.

From these meetings it is my personal opinion that currently, in the United States, the chief obstacle to a “deal” on nuclear power is the intransigence of the pronuclear interests. Far too many influential nuclear advocates refuse to abandon or at least defer reprocessing and breeder reactors. In effect they still want the whole cake. I view such behavior as suicidal.

23 I find support for this opinion in Lellouche, Pierre, “Breaking the Rules Without Stopping the Bomb,” in this issue of International Organization.Google Scholar

24 This was a topic of considerable discussion at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the International Association of Energy Economists, held at Cambridge University, England, 23–25 June 1980.