Improved methods for managing megaprojects

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, February, 2020 ; Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. ; Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-202). ; Nuclear power is in danger of fading away as a signicant source of energy supply in some parts of the world unless it becomes more competitive. The cost of nuclear energy largely depends on capital cost because nuclear power plants are very expensive to design and build and relatively cheap to operate. The capital cost of nuclear power plants is literally dominated by factors other than those of physical equipment, such as project preparation, site preparation, engineering, planning, installation, and management. Interestingly, project planning, monitoring, execution and management is where too often the nuclear industry has failed in the past. As of 2014, the average time and cost overrun for nuclear projects worldwide are 64% and 117.3%, respectively. There is evidence showing that there is something that we fundamentally do not understand (or represent) in project planning and management. This work is based on the premise that nuclear projects are megaprojects. ; As such, they are complex systems that are (1) constantly changing, (2) tightly coupled, (3) governed by feedback, (4) non-linear, (5) history-dependent, (6) self-organizing, (7) adaptive, (8) characterized by tradeoffs, (9) counter intuitive, (10) policy resistant. Hence, traditional project management methods alone are insufficient. An alternative approach to reduce cost and uncertainties of nuclear projects is to turn them into more standard projects, in terms of scope, complexity and capital at risk. For example, the nuclear industry is pursuing the development of micro-reactors, a type of plug- and-play nuclear batteries that would be two orders of magnitude smaller in physical size, wholly manufactured and fueled in a factory, and transported to the site within standard-size freight containers, requiring minimal site ...