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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#11

Post by imglorp »

andromeduck wrote: post #6
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.

Furthermore, China is also investigating Thorium tech. This might be the bigger news long term.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#12

Post by mikeash »

barkingcat wrote: post #2

There was massive financial fraud at Westinghouse. Even though the nuclear industry is in a downturn, the troubles at Westinghouse are self inflicted - Toshiba bought them, but found out almost all of the unit's profits are misreported, leading to them spending money on "nothing" basically. The unit earned no money and was threatening to sink Toshiba the entire keiretsu. This is Toshiba trying to save itself by closi…

That's really interesting. How did Toshiba manage to acquire them without uncovering the fraud first?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#13

Post by erikig »

Chapter 11 bankruptcy might be a the best thing for a critical company like Westinghouse. Unlike Chapter 7 the operations continue but the entity gets debt relief.

"In Chapter 11, in most instances the debtor remains in control of its business operations as a debtor in possession, and is subject to the oversight and jurisdiction of the court." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_S...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#14

Post by massysett »

cookiecaper wrote: post #10
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…

Fossil fuels simply dump the pollutants into the atmosphere, killing people without a paper trail.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#15

Post by dalyons »

freehunter wrote: post #4

I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few nota…

After reading years and years of discussions like this, it seems like the citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power is endlessly repeated as the reason we don't have nukes anymore, despite them being a great source of clean(ish) energy.

However it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics. They're just too damn expensive to build and run, and the expected returns on investment take an extremely long time to materialise(20+ years) Noone wants to put up the enormous capital, with the very real risk that they'll never see returns as the alternative energy markets(gas, solar, etc) are evolving and dropping in price so quickly. I know I'd be pretty hesitant taking a half billion dollar 30 year bet against technology.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#16

Post by hackuser »

freehunter wrote: post #4

I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few nota…

> nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry

It's interesting that the fossil fuels do far more harm, but nuclear is what everyone fears. (In fairness, nuclear problems do far more harm locally to the plant.)

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#17

Post by pm90 »

killjoywashere wrote: post #5

The real concern here is making sure the existing nuclear plants have a clear glide slope toward end-of-life. Nuclear power is an extremely tight community. On the nuclear carrier I was on (powered by Westinghouse plants), there was a valve (a valve!) malfunctioning and the tech rep flown out from the company took one look at it and said "This bit's in backward". "How do you know?" "I designed it". Which means the sa…

This is a great point, but I'm very pessimistic about existing infrastructure getting any attention from the administration. If we're unable to upgrade and secure our nukes (!), I don't see how this would be a priority for anyone. Until that is something goes bad...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#18

Post by morsch »

andromeduck wrote: post #6
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.

France is doing so well that during last November's cold snap they were considering cutting power to industry and rolling power outages for the population because too many of their ancient, brittle nuclear power plants were out of commission and the import capacity from neighbouring countries was at its limit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-id...

(Reuters claims that there wasn't enough spare capacity in Germany; in fact the transfer capacity of ~2 GW was the limiting factor; http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860)

For what it's worth, I think the temperatures improved before the more drastic measures had to be implemented. And of course people are free to argue that taking those French plants down for review was an overreaction by an overly critical nuclear regulation regime.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#19

Post by stephenr »

maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

The huge risks (both financial type and "boom" type) with building and supporting nuclear reactors seems like pretty solid evidence that they are not "one of the best alternatives".

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#20

Post by hackuser »

dalyons wrote: post #15
freehunter wrote: post #4

I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few nota…

After reading years and years of discussions like this, it seems like the citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power is endlessly repeated as the reason we don't have nukes anymore, despite them being a great source of clean(ish) energy. However it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics. They're just too damn expensive to build and run, and the expected returns on investment…

> it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics

The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.

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