nuclear-news

As nuclear industry dries up in the Western world – the push to sell to dodgy regimes

So what’s driving the world’s nuclear suppliers to service such nuclear pariahs?

 First and foremost: cash. As the prospects for reactor sales in the world’s advanced economies have dried up, most nuclear vendors have been forced to go after less developed—and potentially quite lucrative—markets in the Middle and Far East. In fact, vendors are falling all over themselves to do this, particularly South Korea, which made its debut as a nuclear exporter with a $20 billion deal to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates.

Nuclear Power Goes Rogue, The Daily Beast, Henry Sokolski, Nov 28, 2011  “………What, then, is the good news for nuclear power? A handful of new reactors may be built in Eastern Europe and the U.K., and several more in South Korea, but in the North that’s pretty much it. If you head south, though, nuclear power’s prospects look much brighter. Continue reading →

December 1, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, marketing | Leave a comment

$trillions at stake, as nuclear ‘renaissance’ falters

With nuclear plants costing several billion dollars apiece, the answer to those questions may be worth a trillion dollars to the nuclear industry. Little wonder that the main players have rushed to reassure their clients that all is well. 

The American nuclear industry has also gone on a public relations drive.

Greenpeace EU Policy Campaigner Jan Haverkamp. “Fukushima will end all this talk about a nuclear renaissance. The industry says nothing will change. Forget it,”

The Nuclear Industry’s Trillion Dollar Question, 28-Nov-11, FRANCE, Muriel Boselli and Geert De Clercq “……Before Fukushima, more than 300 nuclear reactors were planned or proposed worldwide, the vast majority of them in fast-growing developing economies. While parts of the developed world might now freeze or even reduce their reliance on nuclear, emerging markets such as China, India, the Middle East and Eastern Europe will continue their nuclear drive.

But with fewer plants to bid on, the competition for new projects is likely to grow even fiercer — and more complicated. Will concern about safety benefit Western reactor builders, or will cheaper suppliers in Russia and South Korea hold their own? And what if the crisis at Fukushima drags on as appears likely? Could it still trigger the start of another ice age for nuclear power, like Chernobyl did in 1986? Or will it be a bump, a temporary dip in an upward growth curve? Continue reading →

November 29, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, marketing | Leave a comment

Desperate marketing tactics of Nuclear Suppliers Group

Trying desperately to keep itself alive at whatever cost and whatever risk to present and future human and other life on the planet, the nuclear industry has retreated into its laager mentality with technology gimmicks ranging from thorium and other non-uranium fuelled reactors, fusion reactors, and fast breeder reactors. Although no commercial – that is non subsidized and large scale – versions of these quick fixes exist, the high tech sheen on these claimed alternatives is enough to beguile some weak minded, uninformed and gullible persons. Nuclear power should be given another try, they say !

The Nuclear Power Mercantilist Myth :: The Market Oracle :: By Andrew McKillop, 19 April 11,“…The now 46-nation NSG-Nuclear Suppliers Group is mainly OECD membership but also includes Argentina, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Turkey and Ukraine, as well as some other small non-OECD countries but specifically does not include India. This traces to the 1975 founding of the NSG, in the wake of India’s 1974 test explosion of an atom bomb, and the alarmed but confused attempt by leaderships of the old nuclear nations to lock down nuclear technology but also promote nuclear power. The permanent and basic linkage between nuclear weapons, and nuclear power had been made clear for all to see by the Indian test, but business had to go on as usual. Continue reading →

April 19, 2011 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, marketing | Leave a comment