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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

#201

Post by fnj »

ohyes wrote: post #61
hackuser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The economics are based on two things: 1.) Incredible cost to privately insure a nuclear power plant. 2.) There hasn't been an economy of scale when producing nuclear power plants.

A nuclear power plant disaster is pretty much going to bankrupt somebody, no matter who insures it. Even if the insurance is nationally subsidized, something like Fukushima is going to be a crushing burden on the whole country.

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

#202

Post by vidarh »

lutorm wrote: post #135
vidarh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another view is that this demonstrates that the plants are engineered to be safe enough that despite these types of mistakes, incompetence and fraud, nuclear costs far fewer lives than the alternatives.

That argument sounds precipitously close to the reasoning that led to the Challenger disaster: "Even though this isn't supposed to happen, we've seen it before and it was fine" leading to a slow eroding of safety margins over time until at some point the shit hits the fan.

We've seen what happens even when plants are mismanaged to the point of failure, and the total death toll has still been a tiny fraction of what coal causes every year.

I'm more worried about the coal plants that are still spewing ash and uranium into the atmosphere and killing people by the tens or hundreds of thousands every year.

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

#203

Post by 1propionyl »

ben_jones wrote: post #183
killjoywashere wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones I know, ex-Navy, are living pretty high on the hog.

There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it? For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional sala…

Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising Valley folk to disrupt nuclear!

I can't wait for Nucly, the only reactor control panel for iOS and Android.

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

#204

Post by nbanks »

danans wrote: post #177

Was/Is Westinghouse doing anything with smaller scale reactor technologies (Thorium,etc). If not, does this potentially open a door for those technologies?

Westinghouse is likely too large a company to experiment--probably a smaller company will be first. Perhaps Terrestrial Energy in Canada will get their molten salt reactor to work. In Russia, the Akademik Lomonosov, a nuclear barge, will replace the power plant in Bilibino Nuclear Power plant in a couple years. This qualifies as a small reactor.

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

#205

Post by bhc »

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…

Westinghouse only closed Stone & Webster acquisition in late 2015, so it seems like the fraud started while Stone & Webster was still owned by CB&I.

The whole saga is bizarre because CB&I sued Westinghouse claiming it was paid too little for S&W [1] a few months after the sale was finalized, and then a few months later sued Westinghouse again [2] seeking to wipe out their liabilities in the S&W's businesses.

[1] http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closin... [2] https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/

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

#206

Post by fnj »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131
greglindahl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have been saying "renewables don't scale" for decades, while renewables steadily beat projections for cost and installed base every year. Here are some example studies of where things could go: http://blog.ucsusa.org/mike-jacobs/suddenly-the-future-is-cl...

Renewables haven't scaled yet, even if they are making progress. Nuclear is interesting in that we have around 70-90 thousands years of fuel for the plants, which can only get cheaper/safer over time as the technology gets better. Currently, their capital requirements (they are expensive to build even if they are cheap to fuel) and waste problems make them fairly unviable. Couple that with being even less on demand t…

Oh come now. 70,000-90,000 years? If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...

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

#207

Post by krschultz »

LordKano wrote: post #32
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…

Last year, I interviewed with one of the companies that was born by Westinghouse shedding units a couple of decades ago and they still do this kind of thing. If a Naval unit has an issue, they'll attempt to reproduce it and develop a solution at a remote location. If they can't, they'll send an engineer across the planet to evaluate and fix it. They do this even for not "critical" systems. I was impressed at that lev…

Take it. I worked in a job like that, the emergencies are few & far in-between. When there is one, there are probably multiple people on the team that can handle it.

My group used to have a list to sign up for going out on sea trials. I never got high enough on it to go. If you don't want to go, I doubt you would have to.

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

#208

Post by CodeWriter23 »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #36
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This narrative holds only so long as one completely disregards the potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima. The simple fact of the matter is no technology exists to adequately and safely address the worst-case failure scenarios. We would do better to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst reversing deforestation during a transition to solar than to build even one more nuclear plant.

The Fukushima incident is very far from potentially extinction level. You provide no numbers just do the usual empty nuke-bashing. Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. I guess when it will turn out that pumping more CO2 wasn't the best idea it will also be nuclear industry's fault.

Ad hominem much? Try doing your own research rather than casting aspersions. Mutant fish turning up in the Pacific. Japanese fishermen unable to catch fish. Deleting that food source has very strong repercussions for the survival of the human race, let alone a highly radioactive payload that is god knows where and likely in the water table.

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

#209

Post by vidarh »

hackuser wrote: post #173
kpil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total cost for storing and securing shit for 100.000 years is also 'externalized.' Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.

I'm not sure what you mean. We do establish the costs for carbon. In some countries you (or major users) must buy a permit to emit carbon. Some establish the maximum carbon the environment can handle, then auction permits, establishing a market price. The U.S. effectively estimates zero cost (without looking into the details); that certainly is a bad estimate.

That's not the only cost of fossil fuel power plants. Coal plants kill huge numbers of people. The coal industry pumps huge quantities of uranium dust into the atmosphere alongside fly ash.

The biggest externality of coal in particular is not carbon emissions but the massive health costs and human suffering.

If fossil fuels were subjected to the same safety requirements as nuclear in terms of preventing public health effects, the cost would increase substantially.

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

#210

Post by astrodust »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #83
bgentry wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is not an argument against nuclear power, but an argument against the very complicated reactor designs that are in widespread use. Because they start with an inherently unsafe design, they can only be made safe with many layers of protective measures. Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. On a personal note, I grew up about 10-15 miles north of San Onofre, and I don't think many folks had an idea…

> Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. I have a fundamental mistrust of the industry and our government's ability to properly regulate it. That mistrust is based on historical facts. Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make nuclear viable.

So far the number of nuclear plant incidents has been pretty minor especially considering how many nuclear plants are in operation.

Meanwhile how many people have died in propane bottling plant explosions? In coal mining? In off-shore drilling incidents?

It's not perfectly safe, not even close, but it's statistically one of the least dangerous power generation methods.

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