A new analysis by MIT researchers details many of the underlying issues that have caused cost overruns on new nuclear power plants in the U.S., which have soared ever higher over the last five decades. The new findings may help the designers of new plants build in resilience to the factors that tend to cause these overruns, thus helping to bring down the costs of such plants.
Many analysts believe nuclear power can play a significant part in reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases, and finding ways to curb these rising costs could be an important step toward encouraging the construction of new plants, the researchers say. The findings are being published today in the journal Joule, in a paper by an MIT team: professors Jessika Trancik and Jacopo Buongiorno, students Philip Eash-Gates SM ’19, Magdalena Klemun PhD ’20, Goksin Kavlak PhD ’18, and Research Scientist James McNerney.
Among the surprising findings in the study, which covered 50 years of U.S. nuclear power...
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