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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

#231

Post by drdrey »

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.

FWIW, 2 of the 5 major candidates to the French presidential election (Hamon and Mélenchon) are calling for the end of nuclear power in France.

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

#232

Post by iamacynic »

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…

for westinghouse to file bankruptcy less than 90 days into a new republican administration with a focus on defense, nationalism, and domestic business is a pretty obvious move to get either a bailout or absorbed into DoD or DoE.

and i'm pretty sure the secretary of defense "understands" the people who run his entire nuclear fleet are sort of important, the question is, does rick perry? magic 8 ball says: reply hazy.

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

#233

Post by samstave »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #192
samstave wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the best annecdotal posts I have ever read on the internet. My grandfather was a nuke eng for GE his entire career, built Hanford - he is the reason I got into what I do... He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out... My dads best friend was sec energy under reagan.... I am speechless with respect to how moronic this admin is to n…

> He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out... That's putting it a bit strong, after all Marie Curie died of "aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation" in 1934. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie And "actress Midori Naka, present during the bombing, was studied extensively for radiation poisoning. Her death in 1945 was the firs…

well, yes - but maybe it was an issue of disclosure... my grandmother won a part of a class action lawsuit after my grandfather died where former GE nukes' families sued GE for wrongful death to to radiation....

They are all passed - so I dont have the details, I just recall having some minor conversations with my grandma about this.

That generation was fiercely quiet and corporate loyal...

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

#234

Post by pippy »

criddell wrote: post #81
MichaelApproved wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This bit's in backward" This is why I'm against nuclear power. As safe as the technology could be, it still run by humans who make errors. If you think a bit being put in backwards isn't a big deal, check out the history of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. > The San Onofre station had technical problems over the years. In July 1982, Time wrote, "The firm Bechtel was ... embarrassed in 1977, when it installed…

What power sources do you prefer? Coal and other fossil fuels are probably even more deadly than nuclear. What else is viable today?

Nuclear is actually one of the safest energy sources. http://i.imgur.com/EkYYLRh.png

Plus carbon pollutants are known to be carcinogenic.

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

#235

Post by greglindahl »

ptero wrote: post #62
LordKano wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I may be misreading your message, but this approach seems to be an example of rational, good engineering. If a system is broken in a faraway place it is best to analyze it and develop a fix in a well equipped lab convenient for experts to work in. Once the solution is known, deploy and validate it, ideally remotely or by shipping components, not by sending your experts on site. Sending an expert to a remote site or a…

You appear to be thinking that problems can typically be replicated in a lab without sending an expert to the remote site. My supercomputing startup (PathScale) made specialized networks for supercomputers. While most problems could be solved with remote diagnostics, I still spent a lot of time flying to customer sites. Sure, you can call it "a last resort", but it's necessary if the problem can't be replicated in the lab.

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

#236

Post by putsteadywere »

jlarocco wrote: post #185
killjoywashere wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind have no catastrophic downside, and storage is a tractable problem. A chronically small, grey-haired workforce that the population depends on both to power their lives and prevent catastrophe makes that workforce too powerful. It becomes a governance problem. I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook for more insight on this.

Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? They don't have the "nuclear" tag scaring people away, but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them.

Gravity based energy storage is inexpensive to construct and reliable. It is wasteful - but we're capturing an incredibly tiny proportion of the energy available from wind and solar for electricity.

[0]: http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/ [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hi...

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

#237

Post by pragmar »

avar wrote: post #109
MichaelApproved wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere as big of a deal by comparison. Science illiteracy has nothing to do with it. The industry has a history of non-trivial reasons for mistrust. Regarding coal plant deaths, I'm not in favor of coal either. The sooner we can move away from fossil the better.

Yes it is science illiteracy. It's being blind to a much larger diffuse harm in the face of some concentrated but much smaller harm. It's arguably the most harmful kind of science illiteracy because it has the biggest impact on public policy. Everything from people opposing mandatory seat belt laws, to being overly concerned about e.g. genetically modified food or cell phone tower radiation. I'm sure you mean well, b…

I'm from the only remaining US state without a mandatory seat belt law, New Hampshire. As far as I can tell, we pair off equally with our neighbor to the west, Vermont, in road fatalities[1]. The two states are very similar in geography and population distribution, neither having much in the way of public transportation or large cities.

Regardless of the law, people are wearing seat belts at roughly the same rates. This is to say, at least in my corner of the world--seat belts save lives, but seat belt laws don't. People oppose these laws on philosophical grounds; the role of the state, acceptable levels of police discretion, etc.. Policy is messy, but at minimum must accommodate the values of those it represents.

[1] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit...

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

#238

Post by Spooky23 »

Nrsolis wrote: post #195
cookiecaper wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We've had not one but several nuclear disasters in the past several decades and in each case the sky hasn't come crashing down. Unless of course you're one of the people who lived in the nuclear exclusion zones created by Chernobyl and Fukushima, in which case, yes, everything you own and possess, very potentially including your long-term health, were destroyed in a matter of hours. Those residents can never go back…

I would argue that if you compared the risk profiles of fossil fuels vs nuclear power you'd come to the conclusion that nuclear has and continues to have, by a wide margin, the safest profile of ANY energy source except maybe wind and solar. I'm only excluding solar because I don't think we fully understand all of the safety impact of the construction of large windmills all over the windiest parts of the planet nor d…

Risk assessment of probability of an incident and impact of an incident.

Chernobyl happened. Fukushima happened. If a similar incident happened at the plant just north of NYC, the evacuation zone would include hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

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

#239

Post by kodfodrasz »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #208
kodfodrasz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There was nothing ad hominem in my previous post, but now here is some: I'm talking about nuclear industry, but it seems you are talking about captain planet or teenage mutant turtles... Mutations happen regardless of nuclear spills. They are a driving force of evolution.

Now more seriously:

The human race would easily survive without seafish. Maybe in smaller numbers, but for example in the inlands people eat much less seafish, as they don't have seas nearby ;) A century ago not much seafish was available in the inlands, yet the European inland population was comparable in numbers to the current population.

Radioactive materials were in the ground already, and have been solved into water, which people drank, and had comparable life expectency (shorter, but also due to numerous other factors).

Poisoning the wells and ocean is not very good, especially for business, as many people are irrationally afraid of radiation, and even suspicion of possibility of radiation hurts just as much as actual hazardous contamination to the sales of a product. Apart from that it would truly cause large economic problems, as large areas would have to be excluded from agricultural use, yet nothing like extinction would happen. Even after Chernobyl some people are still alive in Eastern Europe. Even animals live mostly happily in the zone...

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

#240

Post by djsumdog »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #58
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 bit's in backward" This is why I'm against nuclear power. As safe as the technology could be, it still run by humans who make errors. If you think a bit being put in backwards isn't a big deal, check out the history of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. > The San Onofre station had technical problems over the years. In July 1982, Time wrote, "The firm Bechtel was ... embarrassed in 1977, when it installed…

You should read up on Browns Ferry Nuclear in Alabama. BFN has three reactors but one was taken out of service for decades because an engineer was checking for leaks on a hose using a flame and set the insulation on fire.

Also they had a fin on one of the turbines of another reactor break off and it the reactor wall in the mid-2000s.

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