Today Poland runs on coal and has the dirtiest grid in the EU, but driven by climate and geopolitical concerns, Poland has set out bold and ambitious nuclear goals.
The thing about the SaHo model is interesting, but doesn't it expose the government to a lot of downside risk from possible cost overruns? It would be nice to develop a financing model that lets investors bet on the probability of cost overruns ahead of time, and then allowing policy makers to use the resulting market-based risk estimation in policy making. Has anybody worked on something like that? From what I know currently, the cost overrun issue seems like a much more plausible argument against betting the farm on nuclear energy, much more so than safety or waste management concerns.
Minor bit of feedback: I had to look up SMR, would've been worth defining on first usage.
SaHo finance - I'm not sure I've seen this kind of structure where the government assumes the risk of building a project and then sells its equity to the private sector. Ths Natrium first reactors being built on PacifiCorp are being privately financed by TerraPower and only after successful operation will be sold to PacifiCorp in connection with a rate-base deal. By then it should be significantly de-risked.
Thank you for writing this, it'll be interesting to follow how it goes. Poland is directly displacing coal, so hard to find a better return on investment.
The thing about the SaHo model is interesting, but doesn't it expose the government to a lot of downside risk from possible cost overruns? It would be nice to develop a financing model that lets investors bet on the probability of cost overruns ahead of time, and then allowing policy makers to use the resulting market-based risk estimation in policy making. Has anybody worked on something like that? From what I know currently, the cost overrun issue seems like a much more plausible argument against betting the farm on nuclear energy, much more so than safety or waste management concerns.
Minor bit of feedback: I had to look up SMR, would've been worth defining on first usage.
Share the hope that more will be inspired...
Go Poland!
SaHo finance - I'm not sure I've seen this kind of structure where the government assumes the risk of building a project and then sells its equity to the private sector. Ths Natrium first reactors being built on PacifiCorp are being privately financed by TerraPower and only after successful operation will be sold to PacifiCorp in connection with a rate-base deal. By then it should be significantly de-risked.
Thank you for writing this, it'll be interesting to follow how it goes. Poland is directly displacing coal, so hard to find a better return on investment.