Fukushima Dai-Ichi and the Economics of Nuclear Decontamination

Economic analysis of nuclear accidents and their aftermath is comparatively rare. In this paper, in the light of the Japanese government’s intensive efforts to decontaminate areas affected by radioactive Caesium from Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear power plant, we create a cost-benefit framework for assessing the merits of decontamination strategies. Using some benchmark data for Japan we estimate that optimal delay is positive for most reasonable parameter values. For low value land, optimal delay could be in excess of 30 years. For higher value, urban land, optimal delay generally lies in the range of 5-10 years.

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