Question

•South Park Energy is considering replacing the company's Methane Plant with a Nuclear Plant.

•The Methane Plant was built two years ago at a cost of $120M with an expected useful life of 5 years. This plant is being depreciated to zero using 5-year straight-line depreciation. The Methane Plant can be sold today for $70M. If this plant had been kept, it would have had no salvage value at the end of its expected useful life three years from today.

•The Nuclear Plant would cost $500M to build today. Since the Nuclear plant will just be a working prototype, its expected useful life is only 3 years and it falls in the 3-year MACRS depreciation class (yr 1: 33%, yr 2: 45%, yr 3: 15%, yr 4: 7%). The Nuclear Plant is expected to have a salvage value of $40M at the end of the plant's 3-year life. The Nuclear Plant is expected to reduce operating expenses by $150M each year during the plant's 3-year expected life and increase revenues by $40 million each year. The company's marginal tax rate is 40%, and this project has a weighted average cost of capital of 13%.

(Q1) What is the total cash flows during year 3 for this replacement analysis?

(Q2) What is the initial cash flow for this replacement analysis?

Answer 1