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posted by on Friday March 31 2017, @06:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-more-nukes dept.

Westinghouse Electric Company has filed for bankruptcy:

Westinghouse Electric Co, a unit of Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, hit by billions of dollars of cost overruns at four nuclear reactors under construction in the U.S. Southeast.

The bankruptcy casts doubt on the future of the first new U.S. nuclear power plants in three decades, which were scheduled to begin producing power as soon as this week, but are now years behind schedule.

The four reactors are part of two projects known as V.C. Summer in South Carolina, which is majority owned by SCANA Corp, and Vogtle in Georgia, which is owned by a group of utilities led by Southern Co.

Costs for the projects have soared due to increased safety demands by U.S. regulators, and also due to significantly higher-than-anticipated costs for labor, equipment and components.

Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse said it hopes to use bankruptcy to isolate and reorganize around its "very profitable" nuclear fuel and power plant servicing businesses from its money-losing construction operation.

Also at Ars Technica and Business Insider.

Toshiba's Westinghouse problems have caused the company to sell off other assets:
Toshiba in Trouble
Toshiba Shares Plunge Ahead of Nuclear Investment Writedown
Toshiba Considers NAND Business Split; Samsung Delays Release of 4 TB SSDs
Toshiba Nuked Half its Assets


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday April 01 2017, @05:45AM (3 children)

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday April 01 2017, @05:45AM (#487495)

    You are referring to the U-232 -> thallium 208 decay process, which is easy to detect by energetic (deadly) 2.6 MeV Gamma rays.

    Thorium fuel has risks [researchgate.net]
    Simple chemical pathways open up proliferation possibilities for the
    proposed nuclear ‘wonder fuel’, warn Stephen F. Ashley and colleagues DOI: 10.1038/492031a · Source: PubMed

    When bombarded with neutrons, thorium
    is converted through a series of decays into
    uranium-233, which is fissile and long-lived
    — its half-life is 160,000 years. A side product
    is uranium-232, which decays into other
    isotopes that give off intense γ-radiation
    that is difficult to shield against. Spent tho-
    rium fuel is typically difficult to handle and
    thus resistant to proliferation.
    We are concerned, however, that other pro-
    cesses, which might be conducted in smaller
    facilities, could be used to convert 232Th into
    233U while minimizing contamination by
    232U,
    thus posing a proliferation threat. Notably, the
    chemical separation of an intermediate iso-
    tope — protactinium-233 — that decays into
    233U is a cause for concern.
    Thorium is not a route to a nuclear future
    that is free from proliferation risks. Policies
    should be strengthened around thorium’s
    use in declared nuclear activities, and greater
    vigilance is needed to protect against surrepti-
    tious activities involving this element.
    ...
    We have three main concerns:
    First, nuclear-energy technologies that
    involve irradiation of thorium fuels for short
    periods could be used covertly to accumu-
    late quantities of 233U by parallel or batch
    means, perhaps without raising IAEA pro-
    liferation flags.
    Second, the infrastructure required to
    undertake the chemical partitioning of pro-
    tactinium could be acquired and established
    surreptitiously in a small laboratory.
    Third, state proliferators could seek to use
    thorium to acquire 233U for weapons produc-
    tion. These three points should be included
    in debates on the proliferation attributes of
    thorium.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @08:21AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @08:21AM (#487525)

    Thorium is not a route to a nuclear future that is free from proliferation risks.

    So, if I am correctly following your train of thought: "we shouldn't pursue the fantastically safer thorium/MSR power production tech versus the existing solid uranium fuel/PWR designs because the former may possibly be used for proliferation of nuclear weapons while the latter was developed explicitly for production of those very same weapons."

    Eloquently stated, sir.

    • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday April 02 2017, @10:58AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Sunday April 02 2017, @10:58AM (#487892)

      Personally, I think the potential benefits are worth the risk.

    • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @11:44PM

      by butthurt (6141) on Sunday April 02 2017, @11:44PM (#488038) Journal

      > fantastically safer

      I wonder why you say that in response to the quote, which I interpret saying it isn't markedly safer. The procedure they're describing is explained more clearly by Popular Mechanics:

      If an element known as protactinium-233 is extracted from thorium early in the irradiation process, no uranium-232 will form. Instead, the separated protactinium-233 will decay into high purity uranium-233, which can be used in nuclear weapons.

      -- http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the-superfuel-thorium-riskier-than-we-thought-14821644/ [popularmechanics.com]

      With the type of molten salt reactor that is usually touted, you'll have on-site reprocessing facilities. The removal of protactinium could be done there; in fact, separation of protactinium was a feature of some older designs for thorium-fuelled molten salt reactors.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor#Removal_of_fission_products [wikipedia.org]

      > versus the existing solid uranium fuel/PWR designs

      In a reactor designed to transmute 232Th into 233U, what stops the operator from dropping in 238U, transmuting it into 239Pu, and removing the 239Pu before it becomes 240Pu, just as one can do with a reactor designed to run on uranium? 238U appears to be easy to acquire.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium [wikipedia.org]