nuclear-news

Nuclear energy not safe for USA, but fine to export to ‘developing’ countries

For the United States, nuclear power has become an export industry….“Most of the action that one can really care about, frankly, is in the developing world,”

Nuclear Industry Thrives in the U.S., but for Export – NYTimes.com By MATTHEW L. WALD March 30, 2011 THE American nuclear renaissance is going strong, even if hardly any nuclear reactors are being built in the United States.

Japan’s continuing nuclear calamity has heightened concerns about the future of nuclear power and its safety, but in China, India and other regions, the push for nuclear power seems likely to continue to surge. Those are the countries that provide a strong market for the American companies that build nuclear reactors and their components…….For the United States, nuclear power has become an export industry. And here in western Pennsylvania, production is going full tilt……

Westinghouse Electric. The company had hoped for many reactors to be under construction in this country by now, he said, but “overseas projects are growing a lot faster than we are and are picking up the slack.”

The result is some odd alliances. For example, the United Arab Emirates last year picked a consortium led by South Korea to build four reactors in a contract valued at an estimated $20 billion. It could be worth more because it could lead to yet more reactors.

About 20 percent of the “nuclear island,” meaning the reactor and immediately associated parts, will come from Westinghouse, according to a company spokesman, H. Vaughn Gilbert. The flip side is that some of the biggest parts of the Vogtle and Summer reactors will come from Japan Steel Works. American steel makers never developed the equipment needed for the next generation of nuclear plants because there has been no new construction here…….

The focus for all these companies is on Asia and India. “Most of the action that one can really care about, frankly, is in the developing world,” said Stewart Brand, the futurist and developer of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Mr. Brand, a proponent of nuclear power, said, “Those are the places where the massive amounts of power demand are coming on, every month, over the next couple of decades. They’re the ones building all kinds of new coal-fired plants,” plants that could have been nuclear.

March 31, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | marketing, USA