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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

#331

Post by PhasmaFelis »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #268
brilliantcode wrote: post #27

I believe the nuclear power industry largely started out as a way to justify world's largest nuclear warhead stockpile. I believe it was on a show from Netflix that discussed the history of nuclear power. It worked remarkably well.

Really!? You don't think that people were honestly excited about the most energy dense fuel known to man as a low footprint clean energy source? Your lifetime of energy in 1.5 soda cans of fuel! To me this is extremely exciting and totally unrelated to weapons.

Certainly the engineers were, and that's how it was sold to the public. But the people who wrote the checks were mainly interested in weapons.

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

#332

Post by coredog64 »

skywhopper wrote: post #136
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…

Wouldn't this stuff fall under Department of Energy, ie Secretary Perry? Who didn't know what the DoE did until after he was nominated?

That was proven to be "fake news". Essentially someone talked to a source (Michael McKenna) that hadn't even talked to Perry after his name was floated. Later interviews with McKenna even had him saying that he was misquoted.

The DoE does lots of work in Texas, and as former governor Perry had experience in working with them on managing the US's nuclear weapons stockpile. Part of his campaign platform in 2011 was to split the National Nuclear Security Administration out of the DoE and give it to the DoD.

In his statement accepting the nomination, he specifically called out the role of the DoE in safeguarding the US nuclear arsenal.

Otherwise don't let me stop the "hurr Durr stupid Republicans" circle jerk.

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

#333

Post by cowardlydragon »

I have no industry wide view, but...

All existing nuclear powerplants are shitty Fukushima-style pressurized light water reactors in the US, are they not?

I'd have to think this company is an incumbent blocking entry of modern designs. Is this really a bad thing?

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

#334

Post by toomuchtodo »

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.

> Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy?

Yes.

> but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them.

This is just absurd compared to handling nuclear fuel and waste.

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf...

"Tesla set fire to a Powerpack to test its safety features – the results are impressive"

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

#335

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#337

Post by whyenot »

mikeash wrote: post #310
badloginagain wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness, there have been attempts at startups looking to disrupt the nuclear industry. It's hit several problems, in the form of bad science and harsh regulation. Apparently hacking plutonium is not easily accomplished.

Sounds like they need to adopt the Uber model. Regulations causing you trouble? Just ignore them!

move fast and irradiate things

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

#338

Post by opo »

fnj wrote: post #212
faet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you want to risk that happening to your area? Already do. 55% of my state's power comes from Nuclear. Coal releases 100x more radiation and 68x more CO2 than nuclear for equal energy production. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/202/4372/1045 And it isn't like coal is immune from having zero-notice forced evacuation, and making land uninhabitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly..…

That comparison is based on properly functioning nuclear power plants and coal. I daresay when you throw in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, the balance shifts dramatically in the opposite direction. Also, the radiation from nuclear disasters is highly concentrated, while that from coal is distributed at far lower concentrations.

No, even including Chernobyl (an inherently dangerous design that would have been illegal to build anywhere except the Soviet Union) nuclear has been far, far safer than coal. As mikeash pointed out in another comment, "Put another way: coal kills about as many people each year as nuclear has in its entire history if you include the bombs dropped on Japan."

>...Also, the radiation from nuclear disasters is highly concentrated, while that from coal is distributed at far lower concentrations.

The radiation emissions from a properly working coal plant are high enough that the plant would be shut down if the NRC regulated coal plants. But the real danger from coal plants is the massive amounts of CO2 that they emit which is one of the biggest contributors to climate change that might end up destroying our future. It is pretty obvious which power source is more dangerous.

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

#339

Post by mikeyouse »

nbanks wrote: post #221

The two new Westinghouse Vogtle pants are too expensive, at $14 billion for 2.5GW of power. If you purchased $14 billion of Tesla powerpacks, you could get 35GWh of storage--enough storage to supply 2.5GW of power for 14 hours....

The latest estimates are over $21 billion when you include financing costs. They go out of their way to hide these numbers since $10k/KW is just insanely, idiotically expensive.

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

#340

Post by Tharkun »

rtpg wrote: post #319
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…

Only tech that's advancing gets the 3-4 year cycle. Your water boiler hasn't changed in the past 70 years.

Mine sure has. It now reuses the waste heat going out the flue. It's smaller and vastly more efficient. Not to mention near silent.
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