Time is money, but sometimes it costs more: an economic history perspective into nuclear projects’ pitfalls

Abstract The changing socio-economic context has a crucial impact in nuclear decisions and execution of the projects. The nuclear projects initiated over the past 20 years reduced their construction times relative to those initiated before. Of the over 600 the nuclear projects built over the past 70 years only 3% took longer than 15 years to complete. Analysing the lengthiest projects within their economic context, reveals that ‘when and where’, (i.e., the contextual risks) explains most the delays, thus questioning whether nuclear power plant projects are inherently examples of the megaproject ‘pathologies.’ The analysis of the lengthiest nuclear power projects makes evident that the failure to deliver nuclear plants on time and within budget was related to the historical period and/or the specific location more than to any inherent characteristics of nuclear power plants. Stakeholders of nuclear projects (and megaprojects in general) should be attentive to socio-economic changes and macro-economic impacts to avoid pitfalls.