To Whom Should We Grant a Power Plant? Economic Effects of Investment in Nuclear Energy in Poland

Abstract

Poland is the most coal-dependent economy and one of the biggest polluters in the EU. In order to alleviate this problem, meet CO2 emission requirements set by EU, and improve the country’s energy security, Poland decided to introduce nuclear power to its energy mix. So far, several potential locations for nuclear power plants have been officially proposed, mainly based on technical parameters, but no comparisons of the economic impact of such locations have been considered. Consequently, the main goal of this paper is to compare the national and regional economic effects of investments in nuclear power plants—for both the construction and exploitation phases—in the four most probable locations, which are similarly beneficial from a technical point of view. In order to simulate these effects, the spatial recursive dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model was calibrated until 2050 including agglomeration effects and featuring the regional economies of all Polish regions. The results show that although the construction phase is beneficial for economic development in all four regions, the exploitation phase is good for only one. The economies of the other regions suffer, to a greater or lesser extent, from the Dutch disease. The paper argues that the regional economic effects of such an investment differ significantly, due to differences in the regions’ economic structures; hence, they should always be taken into account in the final decisions on the power plants’ locations.

Impact of the Energy Sector on the Quality of the Environment in the Opinion of Energy Consumers from Southeastern Poland

“…The second most important source of energy mentioned by the respondents was nuclear energy, and the third was wind energy. This means that in the group studied the support for nuclear energy is relatively high [77].…”

Energy and Climate Policy—An Evaluation of Global Climate Change Expenditure 2011–2018

“…Another concern is the risk of project overruns in the development of new plants, although this is a concern with any megaproject [153]. In this Special Issue of Energies, Zawalińska et al (2020) [154] modeled the effects of building a new nuclear power plant in one of four regions in Poland. They found that the project made sense for one of those regions, but not the other three.…”

“…They found that the project made sense for one of those regions, but not the other three. That is, new plants should be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis [154] (as with all megaprojects [153]).…”

The Importance of Renewable Energy Sources in Poland’s Energy Mix

“…Another related issue is the growing pollution of the environment and the climate change caused by conventional sources of energy [5][6][7]. During the process of power generation based on conventional resources, many hazardous substances are released into the waters and atmosphere; besides, the environment is polluted by dust.…”