The study “Innovation benefits from nuclear phase-out: can they compensate the costs?
” by CMCC researchers E. De Cian, S. Carrara and M. Tavoni from CIP Division was recently published on the journal Climatic Change.
Inspired by the re-thinking about nuclear power deployment which took place in some countries after the Fukushima accident in March 2011, the study analyzes whether a nuclear power phase-out and endogenous technical change in energy efficiency and alternative low carbon technologies can promote innovation in new technologies and have a positive impact on welfare.
Results show that phasing out nuclear power stimulates R&D investments and deployment of technologies with large learning potential. Nevertheless, the extent of technology benefits depends on the stringency of the climate policy and is distributed unevenly across countries.

Read the integral version of the paper:

De Cian E., Carrara S., Tavoni M.
Innovation benefits from nuclear phase-out: can they compensate the costs?
2013, Climatic Change, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0870-9