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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

#241

Post by djsumdog »

vkou wrote: post #112
MichaelApproved wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind, solar, dams and wave. They may not replace coal and other fossil fuels today but we can substitute a lot of our energy needs with a concerted effort into those renewables.

I've got some bad news about hydro dams for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st... > 1,917 deaths > 26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless. > 1800 - 25000 people killed > 75 fatalities, due to turbine failure There's also the part where we have tapped out the Earth's exploitable hydro capacity. Hydro output is expected to grow by…

Hydro is also terrible for river ecology. Egypt gained a multi-billion dollar fertiliser industry (that didn't exist before) after they added dams to the Nile.

Dams hold back silt and sediment essential to farm land and despite everything you learned about fish ladders and salmon, they don't really work as well as the power companies say.

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

#242

Post by teraflop »

astrodust wrote: post #213
CamperBob2 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put the waste in Antarctica, and it won't kill anybody.

Do you have magical pixies to transport the nuclear material there that can ensure it won't be stolen in transit? Can you create a secure facility in one of the most hostile climates in the world? If not, that will never work.

The suggestion doesn't seem so obviously ridiculous that it should be dismissed that easily. Bear in mind that the total quantity of material we're talking about is relatively small: a few thousand tons a year, which is far less than the capacity of a single typical container ship.

The economic value of nuclear waste is basically zero, so you only really have to worry about theft for purposes like terrorism. And even if somebody does break into your secure facility, it's hard to imagine an easy way for them to get significant amounts of material out. Seems to me that you wouldn't have to try very hard to make a storage facility more secure than the nuclear plants themselves. Probably the biggest obstacles would be political, not technical.

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

#243

Post by RockyMcNuts »

astrodust wrote: post #210
MichaelApproved wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Statistically, it's very safe to be a turkey on a turkey farm until shortly before Thanksgiving.

A lot of stuff that is theoretically guaranteed to be a disaster looks very safe and profitable until shortly before disaster strikes.

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

#244

Post by writeslowly »

killjoywashere wrote: post #138
ptero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When N=10, and each one is a strategic asset, which, if found disabled, would cause every major head of state in the world to reassess their long-term global postures on technology, defense, and relations with the US, it doesn't take much to buy that plane ticket.

I worked as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry for a couple years and this happened frequently even for normal power plants.

Like, one of the first projects I worked on was diagnosing a malfunctioning valve where most of the work was finite element analysis on computers, but we still had to send someone to take measurements and temperature readings since the company that made the valve no longer existed (and I'm not sure how you'd ship something like that since it was very large and used with contaminated water)

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

#245

Post by kpil »

opo wrote: post #181
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.

Right now waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products…

I am not an expert but many seem to consider the increased handling risk related to the toxicity and activity of plutonium and other products, especially considering terrorism, and also the risk for weaponizing the enriched plutonium.

But I agree; Coal is not the future. Either.

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

#246

Post by kbenson »

killjoywashere wrote: post #132
badloginagain wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a world where technology seems outdated after 3-4 years, having reactors reliably serving up power for several decades is kind of amazing. On the other hand, this does keep the number of people in the industry small. Sure, demonization of the power source, and regulatory standards that inhibit the development of new technologies also help, but it seems like this would be a problem regardless. I've always wo…

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

That actually relieves some concerns I had, given the root comment (which I have to admit, caused some distress). I imagine there are more people currently in the Navy that might leave if the demand and pay were high enough. Hopefully that covers enough of the important skill-sets needed.

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

#247

Post by DrNuke »

West badly needs not surrendering Gen IV development & commercialisation to Russia and China, for geopolitics reasons and Pu stockpile re-use. Westinghouse is a chip here, a prestigious one for sure, and Gov should step in. Time to drop the energy free-market drivel and act as a superpower in a world that is dangerously going towards aggressive local superpowers. Risk! game scenarios again.

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

#248

Post by greglindahl »

erikig wrote: post #13

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...

I'm sure you read the article, which indicated that Chapter 11 is what's being used. In the US, companies always go for Chapter 11 if it looks like it's going to work, i.e. that there's a viable business in there somewhere. In Westinghouse's case, the viable business is everything other than their civilian reactor construction business.

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

#249

Post by hackuser »

vidarh wrote: post #209
hackuser wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

The carbon emissions cause climate change, which causes human suffering at a scale, as I understand it, far beyond that of the pollution you describe (which is also substantial).

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

#250

Post by monocasa »

bbcbasic wrote: post #220
1propionyl wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Needs to be IoT as well. For added security.

You know what they say, "the 'S' in IoT stands for security."
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