nuclear-news

One of the key takeaways Modi and President Obama would would like to see come of this trip is a commitment to build six nuclear power plants by Westinghouse Electric. The Western Pennsylvania based company is an historic American electric manufacturer, but it was acquired by Toshiba in February 2006. Even the Kazakhs own 10% of it under Kazatomprom, their state-owned nuclear power company. Yet, Westinghouse is Washington’s favorite nuclear power company and next week it might make headlines again if it manages to ink a muito-billion dollar deal for its new AP-1000 reactors.

India Ambassador Arun Singh told reporters on Wednesday that the deal was in its “advanced stages.”

The two sides were largely waiting on a nuclear liability law that will essentially create a new insurance product for nuclear power utilities. Westinghouse and its partner in India, the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL), are still waiting for the details of that insurance policy to be ironed out, thinks Richard M. Rossow, a senior fellow on U.S.-India policy for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington………

Westinghouse has a long history of tapping Washington for lucrative deals abroad. Since the mid-2000s, Westinghouse has been able to count on Washington to pitch its wares to countries where Russia is a key, if not dominant player. Currently, Russia’s Rosatom has only two reactors in India, both located in Tamil Nadu state. India has 21 nuclear power plants, most of it indigenous technology.

A deal for all six power plants would be good news for Westinghouse Electric and its owners at Toshiba, which has fallen on hard luck over the past five years.

Toshiba used to design and build reactors for half of Japan, also supplying those reactors with the fuel rods that hold the uranium used to generate electricity. The March 2011 Fukushima disaster lit a match to those service contracts and Toshiba’s Fukushima reactors are decommissioned. Germany shut its reactors down after Fukushima, too. They also used Westinghouse as a source for fuel rods. In less than two years, Toshiba and Westinghouse Electric lost contracts at 60 reactors. Between 2012 and 2014, Westinghouse Electric’s cumulative operating losses reached $1.43 billion, according to Toshiba……

this [India] is a country both Wall Street and Washington have their eyes on…….http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2016/06/03/will-u-s-get-india-to-ink-big-nuclear-deal-with-japanese-owned-company/#4f7edc32c94f