Word: komanoff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that demand would soon come back. Still others kept building nuclear plants on the ground that it was often more economical to complete the multibillion-dollar projects than to abandon them. That assumption sometimes proved erroneous. Constructing nuclear plants has proved very expensive. In the early 1970s, says Charles Komanoff of the New York City-based consulting firm Komanoff Energy Associates, there was little difference in the construction costs of nuclear and coal-burning plants...
Nukes cost $200 per kilowatt (kW) to build, coal plants around $175. But nuclear construction prices quickly began climbing. By the late 1970s, Komanoff says, nukes cost $700 per kW, compared with $500 for coal plants. Now, with post-T.M.I. requirements pushing the price of nuclear construction even higher, coal plants are clearly more economical. According to Komanoff, a coal-fired plant with state-of-the-art pollution-control equipment can be built today for around $1,200 per kW; a nuclear plant costs $3,000 per kW. Says Komanoff: "The power industry may really have made only...
...problems weren't enough, evidence is mounting that nuclear power--once hailed as "too cheap to meter"--is no longer economically viable. Indeed, since 1975, utilities have ordered only 13 new reactors and have cancelled orders for 50, mainly because of the rising cost of building the plants. Charles Komanoff, a New York energy economist, argues that the capital investment required to build a reactor is almost twice that required to build a coal plant. Soaring costs come partly from the need for greater safety in the wake of Three Mile Island. But more important is the declining demand...
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