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Welcome

​I'm Associate Professor for Energy Economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics (WWZ) of the University of Basel. In addition, I'm head of the Research Center for Sustainable Energy and Water Management (Forschungsstelle für Nachhaltige Energie-und Wasserversorgung, FoNEW) and Head of the research consortia SWEET CoSi (Co-Evolution and Coordinated Simulation of the Swiss Energy System and Swiss Society)

My research interest lies in the model-based analysis of energy markets, in particular the future development of electricity markets and the interaction of environment, technology, economy and society.

Together with researchers from ETH Zurich and EPFL we have gathered information on the Swiss energy future and compiled the insights on a webpage for easy access:
https://energiezukunft-schweiz.ch/ 

Latest Papers

An ex-ante method to verify commercial U.S. nuclear power plant decommissioning cost estimates
Energy Economics (2023)

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Abstract: There are billions of dollars at stake in the US nuclear power plant decommissioning market. Approximately 92 nuclear power plants are still operating but will come offline and need to be decommissioned over the next few decades. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) mandates that the operators of these plants set money aside in segregated funds to finance decommissioning work. However, it is hard for external stakeholders to verify the cost estimations, which ultimately determine how much operators are required to save. In this paper, we develop a method to validate the existing cost models and calculate a contingency empirically for these models. We extend Reference Class Forecasting methods using adaptive kernel fitting and the Wilks’ formula. Based on this method, and assuming a social tolerance for potential cost overruns of 20%, we calculate a new contingency of 48% of the estimated radiological decommissioning cost. After a “stress test” of the current decommissioning trust funds of operating reactor sites, we find that 48% of reactors have sufficient funding—in many cases substantially more than required—and could therefore finance the potential scale of overrun. However, we find that 28 plants would fall short on average $211 million. Still, overruns at every plant are not a foregone conclusion because—while overruns are probable, based on past experience, the actual scale and frequency is not known. Nevertheless, our results add further evidence to the mounting call for the NRC to revise its cost models in light of new information.
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Decommissioning of commercial nuclear power plants: Insights from a multiple-case study
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2024)

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Abstract: The decommissioning of nuclear power plants is a complex and lengthy process. But so far, of the 204 already closed reactors, only eleven with more than 100 MW of electrical capacity have been fully decommissioned, while another 200 reactors are expected to reach the end of their operational lifetime in the next two decades. Against this backdrop, this comparative cross-country case study investigates the existing structure of the decommissioning of commercial nuclear power plants in France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. The investigation is structured along five themes: 1) ownership of nuclear power plants, 2) regulation, 3) financing and liability, 4) production of nuclear decommissioning and 5) nuclear waste management. Based on thirteen factors across these themes, knowledge gaps related to the role of the government in nuclear decommissioning (i.e. the interlinkage between nuclear power plants ownership and nuclear decommissioning, the influence of the regulatory framework on nuclear decommissioning performance, and the regulation of waste management), the challenges associated to financing decommissioning (i.e. cost estimations, fund adequacy, financing liabilities, and external market influences), and the developments in the emerging decommissioning markets (i.e. the question whether to rely on market or internal decommissioning provision, the role of emerging specialized firms, and bottlenecks along the supply chain) are identified as central topics for further research to derive best practices for the commercial decommissioning industry.
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