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More than a decade ago Sweden set up a fund into which, by law, the Swedish nuclear power plants have to pay a “per kWh” fee. The plan is for the fund to pay for the forthcoming decommissioning of the existing plants and for the safe, permanent management of the waste produced; and at the same time for a research programme whose aim is to develop technical solutions to the waste disposal problem.
There is an unusually high number of uncertainty factors in play here. What will it eventually cost? What sort of technology will emerge? What sort of capacity will be required? For how much longer will the plants run and pay into the fund? For how long will the fund be allowed to let the existing reserves accumulate? And what rate of interest should be applied?
Several years ago Sweden decided to use the Successive Principle on an ongoing basis for tackling and updating this complex estimate in the best possible way.
Ref.: www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se (search for “successiv”, which leads to papers in Swedish, but with summaries in English).
About Dr. Steen Lichtenberg