Nuclear industry

This paper studies the relationship between Mali civil war and the value of foreign companies in a poor, resource abundant region, the Sahel. We focus on the nuclear industry firms and we conduct an event study following a classical and a Bayesian approach as presented by Mackinlay et al(2007) and Gelbach and Hawkins(2012), respectively. The starting point of the analysis is the sudden Tuareg rebellion in January 2012 , followed by the Malian coup d'état which destabilized the entire country. The ending point of the analysis is marked by the Ceasefire of Algiers, in February 2015. Under classical approach, we find that the stock market perceived the situation of low level fighting and incomplete peace in the north of Mali as "good news" rather than "bad news", while the seizure of power of Bamako, and by extension the management of the uranium mines by northern rebels is perceived by the stock market as particularly disadvantageous for the companies of the nuclear industry. These findings are quite similar for the African portfolio, and the events have no statistical significant effect on the control portfolio . The classical approach for inference assumes normally distributed returns; however, theoretical and applied evidence suggest normality does not necessarily hold, resulting in misleading results. Assumptions of normality can be relaxed using Bayesian statistics. Using data from twenty-five nuclear firms as in the classical approach, we analyze several
parametric Bayesian models and methods of inference to compare to the classical method. Our results suggest that using a Bayesian event study relaxing the normality assumption produces an event effect posterior distribution which is quite similar to the event effect (abnormal returns) under classical approach.

The article focuses on the rise of state-supported nuclear reactor vendors in Russia, China, and to a lesser extent, South Korea, in the nuclear export market and its implication for developing country newcomers. It tackles the phenomenon in three parts. First, the article provides a historical overview, highlighting key milestones that have contributed towards the rise of these ‘emerging’ nuclear reactor vendors and the burgeoning interest of newcomer developing countries. Next, the article identifies the main reasons newcomers appear to be drawn to emerging vendors instead of their more familiar Western counterparts. The article ends by highlighting several strategic considerations for newcomers as concerns emerging vendors in the key areas of nuclear energy governance, nuclear technology development, industrial capacity and national security.

The aim of this work is to present a new analytical model to evaluate jointly the mechanical integrity and the fitness-for-service of nuclear reactor pressure-vessels steels. This new methodology integrates a robust and regulated irradiation embrittlement prediction model such as the ASTM E-900 with the ASME Fitness-for-Service code used widely in other demanding industries, such as oil and gas, to evaluate, among others, the risk of experiencing degradation mechanisms such as the brittle fracture (generated, in this case, due to the irradiation embrittlement). This multicriteria analytical model, which is based on a new formulation of the brittle fracture criterion, allows an adequate prediction of the irradiation effect on the fracture toughness of reactor pressure-vessel steels, letting us jointly evaluate the mechanical integrity and the fitness-for-service of the vessel by using standardized limit conditions. This allows making decisions during the design, manufacturing and in-service of reactor pressure vessels. The results obtained by the application of the methodology are coherent with several historical experimental works.

This paper aims at increasing understanding on a specific type of stakeholder, namely governmental stakeholders that have significant influence over projects and base their influence on a regulative framework. Different parties in nuclear projects make their own interpretations on the framework. To understand why there are differences in these interpretations, we used three institutional elements: (1) laws and rules, (2) practices, and (3) values for analysis. This paper uses interview data from a nuclear industry governmental stakeholder and a project owner. The results show that interpretations aren’t always coherent, and the incoherencies are clearest in the practice element.

This paper addresses the link between industry architectures and projects, by examining nuclear industry and projects in two separate time periods.We further develop the industry architecture concept and show the important meaning of projects in the development of an industry. We suggest that industry architecture restrains the choices for efficient project arrangements. However, projects can also advance major structural and strategic changes in an industry.