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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
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @06:26AM (1 child)
No innovative design implemented for half a century... boiling water and pressurized water reactors since the '50-ies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Informative) by Zinho on Friday March 31 2017, @04:10PM
No innovative design implemented for half a century... boiling water and pressurized water reactors since the '50-ies.
Hey, don't go bashing boiling water! The steam cycle [engineersedge.com] has been a mainstay for converting heat energy into torque for centuries, so there's gobs of societal knowledge on how to make it work well. Even if you somehow managed to turn the Neutron emissions directly into electricity you'd still need to handle the waste heat from the fission, and a steam cycle turning a dynamo is the best way to efficiently turn that waste heat into work.
You have a great point about pressurized water as the heating medium for the boiler, though; there are lots of better ways to do that. Molten salt/metal loops are great for this, and you don't have to worry about accidental release of high-energy radioactive steam from the coolant loop. Honestly, anything that won't make a phase transition over the coolant loop's operating temperature range would be better than water for the coolant loop. Keep the steam on the boiler side where it belongs.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @06:31AM (2 children)
I just bought a reactor :-(
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday March 31 2017, @09:47AM
I just bought a reactor :-(
So did I - but mine's a Mr Fusion :-)
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday March 31 2017, @10:57AM
And tomorrow is the only day you can use it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:49AM (17 children)
As to be expected these plants were being developed by fossil fuel interests. They see nuclear as the most economically desirable transition away from fossil fuels. It has major barriers to entry, is completely centralized, and maintains a mutually empowering incestuous relationship between energy producers and the government. On that topic, these nuclear power plants were being built with $8.3 billion in guaranteed loans from the Obama administration, with no collateral required. In other words, the US taxpayer just had $8.3 go up in smoke. What I found particularly stupefying is how low power these reactors actually are. Apparently [wikipedia.org] these reactors were designed to generate slightly over 1GW of power a piece. To put these numbers in contrast China, last year alone, added more than 34GW [wikipedia.org] of solar power in 2016 alone. To put both of those numbers in contras the total US energy capacity is 1068GW [wikipedia.org].
I find the massive amount of astroturfed support for nuclear very frustrating. When you look into the numbers, it's just not a good idea. And of course while I think fear mongering is not the right path, one can't simply ignore the enormous consequences of nuclear disaster. The wiki page sources the current chances of a core damaging earthquake for the Vogtle reactor alone at 1 in 140,845. And those numbers were before the sharp spike in fracking which is now looking like to also imminently come to Georgia. That 'mysterious correlation' of increased seismic activity and fracking would likely send those odds sharply down. And of course as you add more reactors those odds also come down. And we haven't even gotten into nuclear waste, which of course increases in proportion to the number of plants. Just because something doesn't generate CO2 does not mean it's an inherently desirable energy source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @08:09AM
The answer is clear. We need to transition from fracking to nuclear.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday March 31 2017, @08:42AM (3 children)
> What I found particularly stupefying is how low power these reactors actually are.
Russia's most powerful design that has been put into operation, the VVER-1200, seems to have basically the same power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVER#VVER-1200 [wikipedia.org]
https://www.rt.com/business/354754-rosatom-power-block-russia/ [rt.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novovoronezh_Nuclear_Power_Plant_II [wikipedia.org]
Areva's EPR is to have a higher output, around 1.63 to 1.75 GWe; none are yet in operation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @08:50AM (2 children)
One Areva horror story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_3 [wikipedia.org] (a BWR)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @09:18AM
I mean to say an EPR...
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday March 31 2017, @09:35AM
the European Pressurized water Reactor (EPR) is a PWR as well..
As a sidenote - I will laugh quite a bit if Taishan-1 (the third EPR is you go on when construction started) becomes the first to enter comnericial operation, and even harder if Taishan-2 will be the secimd to enter commercial operation :)
(Both OL-3 and Taishan-1 are in testing stages)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aiwendil on Friday March 31 2017, @08:47AM (3 children)
A few things.
1) Yeah, the AP1000 is a smaller large/upper midsize reactor
1b) It's main features are enhanced modularity and ability to be built progressivly cheaper (with high cost for start of the series)
1bb) also enhanced safety
1c) Keep an eye on the upcomming CPR1400 for future info about how it will pan out when properly managed.
2) China started up 5GWe worth of nuclear in 2016 iirc (and has about 20GWe under active construction)
3) USA's nuclear generation is about 19% of it's total, that from only about 100GWe nuclear installed
3b) Capacity factor matters
3c) The US grid actually can be supplied with less than 600GWe, it has a scary high degree of mismatch and ineffeciency in it.
4) If you want to see nuclear built properly take a look at VVER-1000, APR1400, Hitachi-ABWR, Candu 6e (latest finished ahead of time and under budget), or historically the french N2, and the swedish ABB BWR-69 and -75 or Westinghouse late-70s/early-80s models.
4b) USA (and sweden, and france, and germany) lost its game in the mid-80s, sad since they made lots of good stuff.
5) Why do people only point out the failures and never the sucesses? A few reactors (including a GenIII+) has come online (or entered commercial operation) this year already
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday March 31 2017, @09:37AM
Nope, remembered wrong - they started up 7.5GWe in 2016
(Score: 3, Informative) by subs on Friday March 31 2017, @10:33AM (1 child)
China started up [7.5]GWe worth of nuclear in 2016
Comparing that to poster's 34GW for solar would seem to be leaving nuclear in the dust. Until you compare capacity factors and find out that solar is about 0.1 while nuclear is 0.9 - 0.95. So in net terms, they've brought 2x the amount of nuclear capacity online.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @07:12AM
yeah, and there's ONE hospital for the whole country and it belongs to people who for soem reason don't like you (but also service the countries presidents health).
if the top-left area of the country crashes the grid and the single nuke .. err.. hospital happens to be in that area the whole country craps out.
we don't need more centralizrd nuclear waste generation to power your shitty iPad and xploding samsung mobile phones.
power to the people and give everybody a chance to participate in generating a stable grid ... with lots of little hospitals (with some that like you).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 31 2017, @11:57AM (7 children)
I find the massive amount of astroturfed support for nuclear very frustrating.
As opposed to the astroturfed opposition to nuclear?
And of course while I think fear mongering is not the right path, one can't simply ignore the enormous consequences of nuclear disaster.
Apparently, your thoughts didn't prevent you from doing so. Not much point to your post, but I'll note that lower power per reactor can be a good thing because that can mean less fuel per reactor. After all, a key factor in the risk of nuclear reactors is the quantity of fuel that is crammed into one which is utterly massive. The less fuel that is required in order to function, then the less mess when things go wrong - all else being equal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @02:01PM (6 children)
Different AC here.
Decentralization is the future of power generation. Solar is an obvious option here, and hopefully there may be many options to choose from. The more the merrier. Just get decentralized, generate your own power, stop being beholden to megacorps, plus environmental goodies, etc etc.
I've heard of some plans for miniaturized nuclear reactors. I think it would be fantastic to be able to plunk one of those down say as a neighborhood co-op. As you note, if something goes wrong, maybe it won't be an OMG disaster. (Of course, people need to get over OMG Nuclear! Chernobyl! Three Mile Island! Fukushima! China Syndrome!) They can put it in My Back Yard. Have you been following that sort of thing and can you add more?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday March 31 2017, @04:43PM (3 children)
Decentralization is the future of power generation. Solar is an obvious option here, and hopefully there may be many options to choose from. The more the merrier. Just get decentralized, generate your own power, stop being beholden to megacorps, plus environmental goodies, etc etc.
The primary reason centralization is a factor in the first place is that there are considerable economies of scale to power generation and transmission as well as dealing with the vagaries of nuclear power regulation. A humongous reactor on an ocean shore will have access to a massive heat sink, a relatively simple and cheap link to the grid for the power supplied, and be relatively simple to deal with the paperwork, inspections, and other costs of nuclear power regulation.
Solar power can outright ignore the safety aspect of course. It has some safety issues (including an overall higher death rate per power generated), but not the enormous tail problem that nuclear power is regulated to prevent. The distributed nature of the power means a traditional power generation system would require more infrastructure in order to link it to the grid. The saving grace however is that demand is distributed as well and much of the demand has available space to link to an adequate solar power system resulting in a very parsimonious linking of supply to demand.
I've heard of some plans for miniaturized nuclear reactors. I think it would be fantastic to be able to plunk one of those down say as a neighborhood co-op. As you note, if something goes wrong, maybe it won't be an OMG disaster. (Of course, people need to get over OMG Nuclear! Chernobyl! Three Mile Island! Fukushima! China Syndrome!) They can put it in My Back Yard. Have you been following that sort of thing and can you add more?
First, this is a real thing. We actually have reactors like this. The catch is that they're intended for use in space. Russia in particular has developed the TOPAZ [wikipedia.org] reactor. The first generation has actually been used in two satellites in the 1980s. The second generation weighs about a ton and can generate around 10kW indefinitely for up to five years, if I understand the technology claims correctly. Anyway, these reactors were self-contained and designed to operate without human intervention for their entire lifespan. So that's a technology demonstration.
The problem is that currently reactors are constantly monitored and in a highly secure environment. But these would be placed in the midst of neighborhoods with modest surveillance. I doubt they've figured out how to get around the risks of someone trying to break into one while simultaneously making the reactor easy to service.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @05:46AM (2 children)
TOPAZ reactors, according to your link, run on highly enriched uranium. HEU can be used to make bombs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 02 2017, @12:08PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @03:00PM
Fair enough. My points are that the small size was achievable because of the use of HEU, and that HEU presents a greater proliferation risk than low-enriched uranium or natural uranium: the fuel can be used directly in a nuclear explosive. For that reason, a reactor running on HEU warrants extra security.
Use of Uranium enriched to significantly less than 93% U-235 (medium-enriched uranium [MEU], defined as approximately 35% U-235, or low-enriched uranium [LEU], defined as <20% U-235), always results in a mass penalty for the reactor core for a given power.
-- http://fissilematerials.org/library/doe94a.pdf [fissilematerials.org]
Fission reactors have been used to power satellites orbiting earth. Weapons-grade HEU has been exclusively used for such reactors due to the extreme size constraints imposed by space launches.
-- http://www.nti.org/analysis/reports/civilian-heu-reduction-and-elimination/ [nti.org]
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday March 31 2017, @11:10PM (1 child)
...Of course, people need to get over OMG Nuclear! Chernobyl! Three Mile Island! Fukushima! China Syndrome!...
As soon as you can show me operators I can trust...
...They can put it in My Back Yard
...but not before. It's a people problem, not a technology problem.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 02 2017, @12:10PM
As soon as you can show me operators I can trust...
You still have to show that you would trust those who are trustworthy.
...but not before. It's a people problem, not a technology problem.
Indeed.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday March 31 2017, @10:07AM (7 children)
When the core design is unsafe all the protection becomes expensive. Perhaps better to reconsider other alternatives like generation-4 reactors, molten metal reactors, thorium etc. Keeping water under high pressure to prevent it from cooking is just an accident waiting to happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @04:16PM (6 children)
Thorium will never be allowed to happen because we love the bomb.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday March 31 2017, @04:42PM (5 children)
Thorium is restricted because U-233 is a proliferation risk.
We essentially have to figure out how to live with each other before developing technologies that makes it easy to live with each other.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @06:03PM (4 children)
Oh PLEASE. The only plausible reason current (highly wasteful and dangerous) uranium-fueled designs were pursued was to enable mass production of nuclear weapons.
Extracting nuclear weapons material from an operating thorium-fueled MSR is only feasible if you have a lot of workers you don't like and want to rid yourself of in a hurry.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday April 01 2017, @05:45AM (3 children)
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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @08:21AM (2 children)
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
Personally, I think the potential benefits are worth the risk.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @11:44PM
> 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]
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Friday March 31 2017, @04:26PM
They forgot to mention that Toshiba was basically gutted by "smart businessmen" leveraging synergies or whatever:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-13/toshiba-s-nuclear-reactor-mess-winds-back-to-a-louisiana-swamp [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 31 2017, @05:08PM (1 child)
We are perfectly capable of building reactors that have safe void coefficients and passive safety, and they don't even necessarily need to be thorium-cycle, though I'd prefer that. But we don't. Why?
Like every other case where we have the technology but don't do it, the answer is political and/or economic, specifically rent-seeking. The thought of "electricity too cheap to meter" scares the ever-loving actinide slag out of the greedheads.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday April 01 2017, @05:51AM
Electricity "too cheap to meter" still costs money to send across the power grid.
I only realized significance of this recently upon learning that solar power is approaching "grid parity". That is to say, the amortised cost of solar panels will be cheaper than drawing power from the grid. Of course, solar is intermittent, so either (battery) storage or grid hook-up is still needed.