nuclear-news

Giant Siemens company may be the first to dump nuclear projects

The second thoughts at Siemens show how swiftly the accident at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has upended the nuclear-energy revival that the company and its rivals had expected

Siemens Rethinks Nuclear Ambitions – WSJ.com* APRIL 15, 2011  By VANESSA FUHRMANS German engineering giant Siemens AG is considering whether to abandon its goal of becoming a major player in the atomic-power industry, according to people familiar with the matter, as Japan’s nuclear crisis continues to unfold.

While top executives at Siemens haven’t made any decisions or proposed a pullback to its supervisory board, they have been rethinking the company’s two-year-old plan to form a partnership with the Russian State Atomic Energy Corp., or Rosatom, these people said. That plan has been the centerpiece of Siemens’s nuclear strategy.

The second thoughts at Siemens show how swiftly the accident at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has upended the nuclear-energy revival that the company and its rivals had expected amid rising global energy demand and concerns about global warming……

Some senior officials at Siemens, whose businesses range from high-speed trains to medical-imaging equipment, were already skeptical about the potential for a so-called nuclear renaissance. Even before the Fukushima crisis, many nuclear-reactor projects around the world were stalled or mired in cost-overruns. Since the crisis, those doubts have grown as many countries have started reviews or frozen plans to build new nuclear plants.

Siemens Rethinks Nuclear Ambitions – WSJ.com

April 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Germany