COST AND PERFORMANCE Table 3 shows the nominal capital costs and capital cost uncertainty factors that were developed for the SPS and the six alternative technologies. The following three factors were considered to include the major capital cost uncertainties and were used to derive the capital cost uncertainty ratios shown in Table 3. 1. Uncertainty about future costs of materials, supplies, and labor necessary to construct powerplant facilities; 2. Uncertainty about the future requirements and associated costs of environmental and safety equipment; and 3. Uncertainty about the capability of technologies to perform as conceptualized. The analysis of the alternative energy supply/demand scenarios resulted in the range of fuel prices shown in Fig. 1. The range of coal prices seems to bracket forecasts made by others, and the light water reactor fuel price is similar to that in other projections. The capital cost ranges and scenario-dependent fuel prices were used to calculate levelized energy cost ranges for each technology. Table 4 shows the levelized energy cost ranges for the SPS and the six alternatives for scenario CI (constrained coal and nuclear, intermediate energy demand). Similar energy cost ranges were calculated for other scenarios with similar cost ranges. These cost ranges were developed with independent reference costs so that the degree of overlap between coal and nuclear technologies and the SPS systems is not as large as shown in Table 4, because there is probably some correlation between the SPS cost base and coal/nuclear data bases that are not accounted for in these calculations. Table 3 Capital Cost Ranges for Technical and Regulatory Uncertainty ($/kW)
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