nuclear-news

America’s dying nuclear industry

The U.S. Nuclear Energy Dream Is Dying, Oil Price.com By Michael McDonald – Feb 23, 2017,  The United States was once a projected leader in the nuclear energy race. In the 20th century, the world dreamed of finding a way to provide safe, cheap, and renewable energy, and nuclear power seemed to be the manifestation of those dreams. All of this, however, seems to be coming to an end.

This past week, Toshiba decided to sell its American nuclear power subsidiary at a $6 billion loss. Westinghouse Electric Company, an American company that Toshiba acquired 10 years ago, is in the business of building and constructing nuclear power facilities. This isn’t the first time that Toshiba attempted to offload controlling interest in Westinghouse – all previous efforts, however, have failed.

Many reasons have been cited for this sell-off. Firstly, demand for electricity has been slowing down as of late. Secondly, natural-gas prices have been declining, making it harder to justify the measures necessary to make nuclear power work – one of the primary motivators for these projects was the increasingly high cost of natural-gas. Finally, integration of renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar) have been becoming more prevalent. Again, this makes it harder to justify nuclear energy projects.

This slowdown from the U.S. may be advantageous for state-owned nuclear facilities. Without America as an example, Russia, parts of Asia, and the Middle East become the example to follow – their lack of standards and regulation would be to the benefit of nuclear facilities owned by governments…….http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Nuclear-Energy-Dream-Is-Dying.html

February 25, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general