IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019 - 8

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Disposable Costs
In the article "Nuclear Energy in a
Carbon-Constrained World," by Buongiorno et al. (IEEE Power and &
Energy Magazine, vol. 17, no. 2, pp.
69-77, March/April 2019), the authors
admit that their study "did not address
the disposal of radioactive waste (or,
more properly, spent nuclear fuel)."
In Figure 2 of the article, they offer
average generation cost (US$/MWh)
figures for nuclear power generation.
How is the cost of the disposal of radioactive waste (or spent nuclear fuel)
taken into account, for example, in the
authors' figures summarizing average
nuclear generation costs? Is the broader
concern really about the disposal and
safe storage of radioactive waste over
millions of years?
-Gerhard Juette

Author's Response
Thank you for your inquiry. The authors accounted for the cost of waste
disposal in the US$1-3/MWh range
in our analysis. The lower end is
the "waste fee" paid by U.S. nuclear
utilities, which has accumulated to
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2019.2907388
Date of publication: 18 June 2019

ieee power & energy magazine

well over US$40 billion over the past
20+ years. The higher end of that
range is the estimated cost for countries with a smaller fleet, e.g., Sweden. The whole range is in the noise
of electricity cost (typically US$40-
100/MWh). The authors feel the issue with waste is not cost but social
acceptability, which I believe is the
thrust of your point.
-Jacopo Buongiorno

A Much-Referenced Book
Thanks for the "History" article "Westinghouse T&D Book," by John Paserba,
on the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Electrical Transmission and Distribution Reference
Book, (IEEE Power and & Energy
Magazine, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 78-88,
March/April 2019). I appreciated it
very much since I loved Westinghouse
T&D, used it as text book in graduate school, and still refer to it almost
weekly, even after 64 years working
in the power and energy industry.
When I was a utility consultant and
application engineer in the Westinghouse Cincinnati district office in the
1950s, I took it with me on every customer call in the Dayton, Ohio; Louisville, Kentucky; and Evansville, Indiana areas. I had it in my car if needed
as a quick reference. I was pleased to
see the names of so many great people
referenced in your article whom I knew
very well and who were good to me.
I would like to add a postscript to
the history of the T&D book. In the late
1950s, Westinghouse was in the process

JOHN PERULFI

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figure 1. Volume 3, Distribution
Systems, of Electric Utility Engineering Reference Book, Westinghouse
Electric Corporation.

of redoing the whole book into three
separate volumes:
✔ Volume 1: "System Analysis and
Generation"
✔ Volume 2: "Transmission and
System Protection"
✔ Volume 3: "Distribution Systems."
We started with volume 3 (Figure 1),
first, and it was published in 1959.
However, as times changed and budgets were reduced, we never did volumes 1 or 2. Thanks again for your
reminder of the history of a book I
always use and cite as a backup authority for what I say or do.
-John Perulfi
july/august 2019

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019

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