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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

#91

Post by ericcumbee »

hristov wrote: post #68
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…

The problem isn't that westinghouse made a couple of bad deals. The problem is that westinghouse was completely incapable of finishing the nuclear plants anywhere near their budget or their scheduled time. The cost overruns were absolutely ghastly and made the plants way too expensive. All the cost was charged to consumers on their electric bills. Nobody in their right mind will order more nuclear plants when they se…

>The problem isn't that westinghouse made a couple of bad deals. The problem is that westinghouse was completely incapable of finishing the nuclear plants anywhere near their budget or their scheduled time.

There is also no accountability on the part of the customer companies either.

The public service commission pretty much votes to allow ga power to pass the costs to the rate payer.

Georgia Rate payers are already paying for the cost of votgle 3&4 in the form of rate increases when their completion is no where in sight.

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

#92

Post by MichaelApproved »

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?

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.

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

#93

Post by gozur88 »

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…

One of the reasons nuclear plants are so expensive to build is "citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power". I'm all for making sure people who build and operate plants do so without cutting corners, but the US system makes it too easy to tie up a project for years with lawfare.

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

#94

Post by badloginagain »

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.

I'd also add

3) Nuclear power technology is running on technology half a century old.

This gives you a couple interesting points to consider:

- Once built, you have reliable baseload power for generations.

- Modernized power plants could be safer, more efficient, and smaller by orders of magnitude.

Demonization of nuclear power prevents improvements to nuclear power. The industry is stuck in the 60's. The real shame is that it's the only technology we have that is really future-friendly: Planetary colonization can't rely on wind, nor solar, and certainly not fossil fuels for power. Nuclear will really be the only option for reliable baseload power to extra-terrestrial colonies.

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

#95

Post by maxfurman »

morsch wrote: post #18
andromeduck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spa…

Seems to me like the problem there stems from the French government skimping on maintenance, rather than their decision to use nuclear plants in the first place.

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

#96

Post by avar »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #88
avar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against nuclear for trivial reasons like these is why we have the alternative: coal plants. Those kill an estimated 300,000 thousand people per year[1]. It's only recently that renewables have become a realistic alternative in some (but not all) cases, but for decades we've had people dropping like flies due to coal, entirely because the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere…

170,000, according to that site (which does not seem entirely trustworthy). 0.3 million is claimed for all fossil-fuel based pollutants.

Thanks. I was trying to find some source of worldwide data. This[1] more reliable source says over 10,000 deaths in the US alone every year. It's not implausible that it's in the low hundreds of thousands annually worldwide.

1. http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-health_effects_from_US_power_plan...

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

#97

Post by philipkglass »

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…

I don't know if you have been following this saga over the past few years, but the reason that they're going bankrupt is they got several orders for new AP1000 reactors, but couldn't deliver on their planned budgets and schedules. (4 reactors under construction in China, 4 under construction in the United States, zero of them on schedule.)

Was it a court injunction that put the Vogtle project behind schedule? Local citizen protests? "Direct action" work disruption from Greenpeace hardliners? Nope! The locals are mostly looking forward to the tax revenue and employment boost from the new reactors. The project has had no legal interruptions nor on-site activist-disruptors. Whatever has gone wrong with these new reactor projects originates inside the nuclear industry itself.

(I was happy about the new AP1000 builds until they blew their budgets and schedules. Same with the disastrous EPR projects. I still believe that nuclear power is safe enough, certainly safer than continuing to burn fossils for electricity. But at this point I'll only believe the industry's next "this project will be faster and cheaper to build, I swear" promise five years after the project has met all objectives and demonstrated smooth commercial operation.)

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

#98

Post by wonderous »

striking wrote: post #75
wonderous wrote: post #53

@Dang (HN "meta" Q&A) Has HN ever looked into clustering news using Google News to do it? Reason I ask is how HN's de-dup filter works is puzzling to me and related stories would likely be useful to pool comments/de-dup/etc on a single news event. Example of dups, clusters, themes on HN on this event: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=westinghouse&sort=byDate&prefi... Google News cluster: https://news.google.com/news/m/m…

The de-dupe filter is based on how much discussion went on in past posts. But that actually doesn't affect the current case we're looking at here, as there are no duplicates of this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F... Now, in a sense, there was a duplicate, but because the URL didn't match, it didn't count. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F20... The de-dupe f…

Yes the URL is different, but the canonical URL is the same.

Not concerned about the votes, just curious if the topic of canonical URLs, clusters, etc. had come up.

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

#99

Post by cmurf »

scubaguy wrote: post #40
moomin wrote: post #29

A difficulty I've always had with nuclear power is the problem of clean-up. I'm not scaremongering and saying it's impossible, but it is inarguably expensive. Having a large amount of costs after all the revenue has gone away is a huge regulatory red flag: it's simpler to just structure things so that you won't have to pay. This problem applies to mining as well, but very little mining has to occur near residential a…

Do you have data that backs that cleanup is inarguably expensive? This article, which more concrete, suggests 5% of revenue is required to be saved. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...

Whatever estimates the nuclear power industry made in Germany, they're argued to be insufficient, so they're capping the upper liability limit for these companies. The government's own stress testing suggests there will be a shortfall that'll ultimately be picked up by taxpayers. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-utilities-buy-ou...

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

#100

Post by thewhitetulip »

As a Nikola Tesla fan, just a honorary mention, Westinghouse corporation is (one of) the (main) reason why we have AC. When nobody believed in Tesla, George did, even after the bullying by the Edison camp, the smear campaigns. I have read that per watt of AC current, Nikola Tesla was supposed to get some $2.3, but Westinghouse told Tesla that he would be bankrupt if Tesla was to be given that Royalty, the legend has it that Telsa tore the contract saying something like this, "You believed in me when the world didn't, I don't want the money", even if he didn't say something fancy during this time, but the act in itself, if it really happened, is touching. I nearly cried when I read it in a book a long long time ago.

It is sad to see that a energy giant is going bankrupt. End of an era for a Tesla fan, the company who believed in Tesla is going bankrupt.

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