Why Nuclear Power Plant seen as expensive investment rather that it seems?

 

When someone argue about the importance of the existence of nuclear power plant, it could be right. However, when he said that the price of nuclear power plant is comparable to other plant, he could be wrong. There is a metric that agreed among policy maker to compare the economic cost of power plant named LCOE -Levelized Cost of Electricity- which is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation over its lifetime. The idea of LCOE probably not a mistake, but it only seen from one perspective; clearly from policy maker perspective. We can see from the equation that it only lumping all cost and all generation product and bring into present value.

 

The view from investors is rather different. At least they have three metrics into mind. They would to know, how long it takes to they start earning money and profitable, which can be represent with Payback Period metric. They also want to see the efficiency of their invested money, a ratio between net income over a period and investment cost, characterize by Return-on-Investment ratio. Also, they would like to recognize the profit of an investment over time, denote by Rate-of-Return. If we compare at least these three metrics, we will see the unattractiveness of nuclear power plant.

 

Even that was in the ideal-and-assumed world. In the real world, there many historical data that showing how much nuclear power plant construction experiencing time and cost overrun. Almost (but not all) large reactor built experiencing delay. The delay itself implying cost overrun at least for interest-during-construction cost, not to mention other cost that boost and inflate in extra time. Flammanville-3 EPR 1650MWe in France (that an experienced and developed country) that start construction in 2007 still not connected to grid yet. Not to mention from developing country as Khmelnitski-2 in Ukraine that need 20 years from construction in 1985 to commercially available, while the 3^rd and 4^th unit still under development for more than 37 years. And there is more and more list of delayed nuclear project. This statistics time to time planted into investor head as a greater risk compared to other power generation type. However, we also can argue that life expectancy of nuclear reactor was more than it was planned so it convey more economic value further. BWR-2 (Mark-1) 642 MWe in Nine Mile Point-1 Scriba that connected to grid in 1969 still operated today. Strict regulation in safety also carrying advantages in plant reliability.

 

Indonesia has proved in the last decade that building expensive yet important infrastructures can be done with government support. In 1950s, US build their nuclear power plant to demonstrate positive aspect of nuclear energy after their sin with nuclear in World War 2. In France, Charles de Gaulle pushing nuclear power plant to reconstruct French national identity.  There is no way that Nuclear Power Plant can not sitting in Nusantara.

We can not rely on market mechanism and current economic value to enable nuclear power plant development. Government should create market for nuclear power rather than other way around. Nuclear power plant are for one who have a willing to plant the seed and probably not see the fruit. This kind of leader we should have.