Nuclear energy can be either very cheap or very expensive. The realised cost of nuclear energy depends on policy choices about how a nuclear fleet is planned, procured and operated. Getting these choices right is key to ensuring nuclear power is attained at a low price. This report attempts to inform some of those policy choices, by taking a survey of eight different countries and comparing key attributes of their industry that have been determined by policy, and the key outcomes in their nuclear build programs, in terms of the cost and time to construct nuclear generating capacity.

The paper finds that nuclear energy appears to benefit from concentration and scale, in both the engineering and administrative sense. Successful nuclear programs concentrate on fewer different designs, and concentrate their reactors into a small number of relatively large nuclear generating stations. There is also evidence that the successful procurement of nuclear energy involves closely aligning the interests of the designers, builders, owners, and operators of nuclear power stations. This tends to result in a degree of vertical integration, and often concentration of these capabilities into fewer independent corporate entities.

The paper discusses these observations and conclude that there is a strong case for government involvement in establishing a nuclear energy sector.