Full Title: Estimating Economic Impacts of Repurposing the Coronado Generating Station with Nuclear Technology
Author(s): William Jenson, Nahuel Guaita, Levi Larsen, and Jason Hansen
Publisher(s): Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear
Publication Date: June 5, 2023
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
As owners of coal-fired power plants decide to retire coal-powered generation capacity, a natural, follow-up question is: what will happen with the coal plant? Or more specifically, what will happen to the people and community where the plant is located? This report focusses on answering that question with respect to the community surrounding the Coronado Generating Station (CGS) in St Johns, Arizona where the Salt River Project (SRP) has announced the plant’s
retirement.
The report relies on an input-output model to evaluate regional economic impacts in the counties within the labor shed (i.e., commuting distance) of CGS. They are Apache and Navajo Counties (“Region”). These counties are comprised of tribal and non-tribal lands. For the purposes of this report the employment, education and income data is an aggregate of all residents and does not differentiate between tribal and non-tribal populations. The report describes the socioeconomic characteristics of these counties and then provides the results of a comparison between two states of the world: one where CGS runs as a coal power plant and one where it runs as a nuclear power plant. In the case of the nuclear power plant, the analysis evaluates four scenarios based on possible options for nuclear generating capacity in terms of MW. The analysis measures economic impacts to jobs, labor income in the Region, value added (i.e., new economic activity) and economic output. These metrics are assessed at the level of the power plant (direct impacts), at the supply chain supporting the power plant (indirect impacts), and in the community surrounding the power plant (induced impacts).