Technical and economic assessments of planned and premature removal of first-generation nuclear power plants from operation in Russia
Four power-generating units are now being removed from operation in the Russian Federation - the first-second units with water-graphite reactors AMB in the Beloyarsk and VVER in the Novovoronezh nuclear power plants; these units were shut down in 1983, 1989, 1984, and 1990. respectively. Work is now being performed on these units in preparation for removal from operation. In connection with the exhaustion of the service life, from 2001 to 2010 another 15 power-generating units with a total electric capacity of about 10 GW will be removed from operation in Russia.
In order to help manager to make termination decision for the ongoing RD project timely and correctly, the authors review and compare the theory and methodology of termination decision from the literature. Furthermore, we discuss the considerable importance to identify attributes of an ongoing RD project. To identify attributes of an ongoing RD project, the authors examine characteristics and scopes of neural network. Thus, the feasibility of neural network, which is possibly used in RD project termination decisions, is further explored. On the basis of the theory and methodology of neural network, this study attempts to develop a mode identification method to make RD project termination decisions in an effective manner. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is verified by an example. The result shows that the method is both simple and practical.