Deregulation and nuclear power safety: What can we learn from other industries?

Electricity Journal

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 49-60

  Bier, Vicki ^a,b   Joosten, James ^c   Glyer, David ^d   Tracey, Jennifer ^d,e   Welsh, Michael ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

^b Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis

^c Connect USAcom ^*  (United States)

^d Christensen Associates   (United States)

^e Madison Area Technical College   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 2142749178     PISSN: 10406190     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S1040-6190(01)00197-X     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. In cost-of-service regulation, which has been the standard in the United States throughout the 1900s, companies are allowed to recover those operating expenses that are deemed "prudent" by the regulator, in addition to a reasonable rate of return on their capital investments. This is accomplished by regulator-approved price increases, which are possible because the companies are not competing with other providers on the basis of price.
2. CLINTON V. OSTER, JR., JOHN S. STRONG, AND C. KURT ZORN, WHY AIRPLANES CRASH: AVIATION SAFETY IN A CHANGING WORLD (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
3. IAN SAVAGE, THE ECONOMICS OF RAILROAD SAFETY (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998).
4. U.K. Health and Safety Executive, Safety Management Audit of British Energy Generation Limited and British Energy Generation (UK) Limited, http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/beaudit.htm, (April 26, 2001). Balliol, U.K., Nuclear Safety Directorate, 2000.
5. D. Mark Kennet, Did Deregulation Affect Aircraft Engine Maintenance? An Empirical Policy Analysis, 24(4) RAND J. ECON., 1993, at 542-58.
6. David Stellfox, STP Finds Risk Ranking Components Pays, Even Before NRC Changes, INSIDE N.R.C., Dec. 20, 1999, at 3-4.
7. Nainish K. Gupta and Herbert G. Thompson, Jr., The Market Value of Nuclear Power, ELEC. J., Oct. 1999, at 38-45.
8. John S. Carroll, John Sterman, and Alfred A. Marcus, Playing the Maintenance Game: How Mental Models Drive Organizational Decisions, in DEBATING RATIONALITY: NONRATIONAL ASPECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION MAKING (Jennifer J. Halpern and Robert N. Stern, eds., Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1998).
9. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, License Renewal, 2001, http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/LR/index.html (April 26, 2001).
10. Paul L. Joskow, Electricity Sectors in Transition, 19(2) ENERGY J., 1998, at 25-52.
11. Devra Golbe, Risk Taking by Firms Near Bankruptcy, 28 ECON. LETTERS, 1988, at 75-79.
12. Nancy L. Rose, Financial Influences on Airline Safety, in TRANSPORTATION SAFETY IN AN AGE OF DEREGULATION (Leon N. Moses and Ian Savage, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
13. Devra Golbe, Product Safety in a Regulated Industry, 21 ECON. INQUIRY, 1983, at 39-52.
14. Stranded cost recovery provides plant owners the opportunity to recover their capital costs, and thereby avoid going into competition with large debts that they cannot readily repay from future revenues. Plant sales significantly below book value accomplish the same effect (as did privatization in the United Kingdom), since new owners are unencumbered by high initial construction costs. In such cases, the competitiveness of nuclear power stations will be determined primarily by the difference between the revenues that they can produce and their incremental or marginal operating costs.
15. Nuclear Energy Institute, Nuclear Energy: 2000 and Beyond - 1999 Update to A Strategic Direction for Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century (NEI 98-W1), 1999;
16. see also Moody's Investors Service, Nuclear Update: A Buyer's Market for Nuclear Plants (New York, 1999).
17. Supra note 7.
18. Supra note 10.
19. Private conversation.
20. Private conversation.
21. Supra note 10.
22. U.K. Health and Safety Executive, supra note 4.
23. Michael R. Fox, Nuke Plant Staffing: How Low Can You Go?, PUB. UTIL. FORTNIGHTLY, Mar. 15, 1999, at 22-25.
24. Joseph F. Schuler, Jr., Workforce Management: Human Resources VPs Speak, PUB. UTIL. FORTNIGHTLY, June 15, 1999, at 56-65.
25. William McKinley, Carol M. Sanchez, and Allen G. Shick, Organizational Down-sizing: Constraining, Cloning, Learning, 9(3) ACADEMY OF MGMT. EXEC., 1995, at 32-42.
26. Richard D. Cudahy, The Folklore of Deregulation, 15 YALE J. ON DEREG., 1998, at 27-42.
27. Peter Passell, When Mega-Mergers are Mega-Busts, N.Y. TIMES, May 17, 1998, Sec. 4, at 18.
28. Private conversation.