100th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers

Atomic Power Review is proud to welcome you to the 100th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers. This rotating event is hosted at a variety of the most prominent pro-nuclear blogs and websites on a weekly basis.

One hundred of anything is an important milestone - important enough to gain considerable attention. In light of this fact, we open the event with official statements from the American Nuclear Society and from the Nuclear Energy Institute.

--------------------

Congratulations to the nuclear bloggers and advocates on the occasion of the 100th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers. This milestone is a testament to the energy and passion of the nuclear community to share information on the benefits that nuclear energy holds for humanity. You are the people with the knowledge and passion to talk with friends, neighbors, policy makers, teachers and students about these issues. It will take all of us to state the truths and take the initiative to counter fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and make others understand the importance of energy sufficiency and how it can be achieved through atomic binding energy. As a vanguard in nuclear communications, you have embraced nuclear technology—a young and still evolving science—and have adapted to new and evolving communications avenues and social media outlets to share your vision.

The very first Carnival of Nuclear Energy bloggers was on May 13, 2010, at Next Big Future. Although 2010 is not so long ago, we can all agree that much has happened over the following months—and much of it was catalogued, interpreted, and shared by the individual bloggers who join together each week for the carnivals.

The carnivals not only strengthen and extend the reach of individual blogs, but also strengthen and extend the nuclear community as a whole. I predict that the pessimism which now makes much noise in the global public about all things nuclear will be proved wrong in our own time.
Thank you for your efforts, and I look forward to reading about the 200th Carnival in March 2014!

Eric P. Loewen
President
American Nuclear Society

---------------------

When NEI Nuclear Notes debuted in February 2005, it was safe to say that a convention of nuclear energy bloggers could truly be held inside a phone booth. Outside of pioneers like Rod Adams of Atomic Insights and John Wheeler of the podcast This Week in Nuclear, there just weren't that many outlets advocating for the expanded use of nuclear energy.

Of course, that didn't mean that people weren't talking about nuclear energy online. If you only took the time to listen, it was clear that plenty of folks, many of them very conversant in terms of both technology and public policy, were talking about it all the time. In short, there was a conversation going on about our industry, and it was far passed time for NEI to get involved in that conversation. Now, it's more than seven years and over 4,800 posts later. When ANS sponsored a meeting of nuclear energy bloggers last Fall, the hotel meeting room was overflowing with people, one seemingly more enthusiastic than the next when it came to advocating for nuclear technology and the commercial industry.

So as we celebrate the 100th Carnival of Nuclear Energy, I'd like to take a moment to salute all of the nuclear bloggers, a group that's just about too large to count these days, for the great work they do every day. Needless to say, we look forward to celebrating other milestones together with you in the years to come.

Eric McErlain
Nuclear Energy Institute

--------------------

I would personally like to sincerely thank both ANS President Loewen and Mr. McErlain of the NEI for contributing these statements for this 100th Carnival.

A regular feature seen on APR when it hosts the Carnival is the "What is this?" photo, wherein I display a photograph of some indescribable piece of nuclear plant equipment, for example, and ask readers to guess what it is before presenting the answer after all of the Carnival entries. Episode 100 for the Carnival continues this tradition; since this photo is quite possibly the easiest yet to guess, I will be providing graded or graduated point value answers at the end. So - What is this?
Answer - and more - at the end. Now, on with the Carnival - surely one of the largest and best this author has seen, with plenty of excitement!

--------------------

APR leads off the Carnival this time with a post from a website that a number of us have actually been waiting some time to see. This first contribution is from the first blog post at the site of the Nuclear Literacy Project which has only just launched this weekend. Suzanne Hobbs has put a lot of work into this project over some considerable period of time; I highly suggest everyone look around the site and keep looking back at it as it grows; the whole site will be live tomorrow (4/15) according to Suzanne.

Nuclear Literacy Project / Kallie Metzger

Caldicott Encounter

Kallie Metzger recently attended a talk by anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott. Metzger's reflections on the encounter provide a stimulating and sobering look at what the anti-nuclear author delivers and doesn't deliver.

--------------------

IDAHO SAMIZDAT - Dan Yurman

Nuclear start ups have stretch goals


Two recent nuclear energy start-ups have the potential to create new business opportunities with unconventional reactor technologies. Two of them are pursuing new designs using molten salts as compared to the conventional light water design.

In Massachusetts, Transatomic Power, run by two Ph.D. candidates at MIT, Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, the effort is focused on using uranium-based spent nuclear fuel to provide the energy to run the reactor. Their business model is to license a design to a major reactor vendor or a state-owned reactor development agency.

In Alabama, Flibe Energy, named after an acronym for a a specific type of salt, is run by Kirk Sorensen who after earning a masters degree in nuclear engineering, jumped out of the corporate world to develop a start-up effort aimed at producing a thorium-fueled reactor for military applications.

TVA digs in to deliver two reactors

Delays at Watts Bar 2 push back start up at Bellefonte

While the rest of the country focuses on the NRC’s approval of four new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at two sites, the Tennessee Valley Authority has its own in-house version of the nuclear renaissance and right now it is running late.

TVA CEO Tom Kilgore said at a press briefing April 5 that TVA expects the project costs for Watts Bar 2 to increase by $1.5-2.0 billion. Also, he said the schedule will be revised with completion now set for the last quarter of 2015 compared to the original date of 2012.

--------------------

DEREGULATE THE ATOM - Rick Maltese

Your Nuclear Advocate Activist Kit

According to Rick: Light entry but has significant collection of links that will continue to grow relating to advocacy and pronuclear action. Features clothing and jewelery by popatomic plus useful reading about taking action and keeping informed.

--------------------

NEXT BIG FUTURE - Brian Wang

Energy technology - 5 years

Maxing out technology (including nuclear power) for 2027-2032. I am expecting several possible technology for an energy revolution to be proven over the next 5 years. Candidates energy technologies are advanced modular fission reactors, new hot nuclear fusion technology, or breakthrough low energy nuclear reactors.

Annular fuel (hollow cylinders with pebbles for more surface area) enables existing nuclear reactors to generate 20-50% more power. South Korea is working on developing the MIT research for commercial installation in about 2020. The company Lightbridge is developing the fuel and could have wide deployment by the early 2020s.

Japan to restart nuclear before summer?

Japan has all approvals but local consent to restart two reactors. Trade Minister Yukio Edano also said that he will visit Fukui prefecture, host to the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi nuclear power plant, on Saturday to meet with the governor and Ohi town mayor and to convince them of the necessity for the restarts.Edano set no deadline for the reactor restarts, but implied that he hopes to obtain public backing by July, when the hottest season starts.

World nuclear power generation 2011

Total nuclear electricity generation in 2011 was 2518 TWh, 4.3% less than the 2630 TWh generated in 2010, according to figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Generation had increased in 2010 following three consecutive years of decline. Japan's generation was down 127.7 TWh and world generation was down 112 TWh. Germany shutdown reactors for another 30.7 TWh decrease. So the world generated 46.4 TWh more if the effect of Japan and German shutdowns were excluded. Looking at 2012, generation will increase from 14 new nuclear reactors.

--------------------

ANS Nuclear Cafe - Paul Bowersox (submission) with article by Wes Deason.

Space Nuclear Propulsion, Part 2.

"Space nuclear propulsion: Humanity’s route to the solar system"
Part II: Electric propulsion and fission power generation in space

In Part II of his series on space nuclear propulsion, Wesley Deason of
the ANS Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology Professional Division
outlines the technology of nuclear electric propulsion for space
exploration.

--------------------

NUKE POWER TALK - Gail Marcus

Japan after Fukushima: Sustainable?

At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus takes on the claim that is beginning to circulate that "after all, Japan survived for a year without nuclear power, so it doesn't need its nuclear plants." She points out several factors that show 1) that there were a number of serious effects on the economy, and on the population, from the reduced electricity supply, and 2) there are several factors that could make next summer much worse.

Evaluating accidents: Is "No Radiation Deaths" enough?

Gail Marcus also explores the issue of how we should evaluate accidents in the future. While it is certainly a plus that Fukushima has resulted in no radiation deaths to members of the public, the collateral damage has been huge in terms of the impact on the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people. She suggests this is going to cause us to reconsider what needs to be protected. Even an accident that kills no one outright may be unacceptable if it requires long-term evacuation of large areas for long periods of time.

--------------------

NUCLEAR DINER - Cheryl Rofer

A Trip to Trinity Site

A report on one of the two yearly open houses at White Sands Missile Range that opens Trinity Site to the public. Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested, between San Antonio and Carrizozo, New Mexico.

--------------------

THE NEUTRON ECONOMY - Steve Skutnik

Cultural Cognition of Risk and Perceived Risks of Nuclear

How do cultural factors influence (and sometimes even distort) the perception of risk - particularly the relative risk of nuclear energy compared to other sources? And what can nuclear energy communicators do about it? Steve Skutnik examines how nuclear communicators and advocates can leverage understanding how cultural factors influence perceptions of risk to more effectively communicate nuclear risks in context.

--------------------

MEREDITH ANGWIN - Yes Vermont Yankee

All of Vermont Wins When Vermont Yankee Operates

Yes Vermont Yankee describes the usual arguments that opponents make against the continuing operation of Vermont Yankee past March 21, 2012. Angwin discusses the plant age, concerns based on Fukushima, and "nuclear waste on the banks of the Connecticut." She notes that plant opponents may consider every day of operation past March 21 to be a personal insult, but actually, Vermont Yankee continues to be a boon for the state of Vermont.

--------------------

CANADIAN ENERGY ISSUES - Steve Aplin

Three years of cheap gas spells NO RELIEF for Ontario electricity consumers

The price of North American natural gas has been ridiculously low since before the recession of 2008. In that time, Ontario essentially shifted from coal-fired power generation to gas-fired. Has this three-year period of low, low gas prices translated into any relief on provincial electricity prices? No. Prices for power have gone up. In this post, Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues explains why.

--------------------

THE NUCLEAR GREEN REVOLUTION - Charles Barton

More on the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor from David LeBlanc

David LeBlanc is well known and highly respected by the Internet MSR/LFTR advocacy community. David has spent a good deal of time recently working on the DMSR, a reactor concept developed by ORNL in the late 1970's. David has argued that the DMSR costs less to build and operate than either LWRs and iFRs. i
discuss some of David's concepts in "More on the Denatured Molten Salt Reactor from David LeBlanc."

--------------------

THE HIROSHIMA SYNDROME - Leslie Corrice

Leslie points us to this page on his site, which contains two items he'd like to indicate for inclusion in this 100th Carnival.

The first is the release of his book "Fukushima: The First Five Days," for which we find a description on the above linked page. I myself had a chance to review this book pre-publication and am honored to have provided the forward for it - I would suggest this book to anyone interested in the events at the site during those critical hours and days early in the accident progression.

Also on this same page is Leslie's Carnival blog post, from April 13 and which is titled "Irrational Korean missile fear replaces irrational Nuclear fear…almost." In this post, Leslie Corrice details how Fukushima provincial Governor Sato deflects attention and cultivates crisis.

--------------------

Finally, we have some more good news. Carnival 100 is not just the launch date for one new website, but two! Here is a brand new blog, just launched this weekend, by an author totally new to the world of nuclear blogging.

ENTREPRENUCLEAR - Entreprenuke

Entreprenuclear? What's that?

In the initial post on this new blog, "Entreprenuke" discusses his concept of this new term and his new blog. Two further posts of interest including a short bio are also already online as this 100th Carnival goes to press. Welcome aboard to this newest pro-nuclear blogger!

--------------------

Well, that's it for the participants in Carnival No. 100. And what a list! There is enough reading there to keep one busy for days. All that's left is to identify what was in that illustration at the top of the Carnival post.

I mentioned that the possible answers would be graded. I wasn't kidding.

If you guessed "it's a nuclear power plant" you get zero points, because that has to be so obvious - given the name and nature of this blog - that it can't count.

If you guessed "it's a lithograph" you get negative ten points.

If you guessed "it's a late 1960's or early 70's looking illustration, almost surely of a pressurized water reactor plant since boiling water reactor plants didn't have cylindrical reactor buildings yet" you get ten points. Because you'd be right.

If you said "PALISADES" you win and get one hundred points. I don't know what you'll do with them - there's no prize booth.

The illustration was furnished to the Atomic Energy Commission by Combustion Engineering for inclusion in WASH-1082, "Current Status & Future Technical & Economic Potential of Light Water Reactors," March, 1968. This is an artist's conception from architectural drawings of what the completed plant would look like; much of this kind of artwork can be found in a variety of places for nuclear plants - and you can find quite a bit of this kind of artwork for plants that were never finished or never built. Let's take a look at a few other illustrations of Palisades in the APR collection.

This is a photo that best approximates, from those available here, the illustration we've seen earlier. It is easy to see that the highly complex channeling arrangement for cooling water from and to Lake Michigan was not built as in the illustration we first saw. In fact, although not originally designed with one, Palisades eventually had cooling towers added. The illustration we see here is from a detailed book covering Palisades, issued by Combustion Engineering and Consumers Power. The cover of this book is seen below.



Below, we see a photo from the Benton Harbor News (AP Wirephoto) in the APR collection, dated 10-10-1974 and which shows one of the cooling towers. The plant (according to the caption) had just restarted after about a year having been shut down for work.


According to WASH-1203-73, "Operating History - US Nuclear Power Reactors" (USAEC Division of Reactor Development and Technology) the shutdown mentioned in this press photo was for the repair of a leak in "B" steam generator, which as we know today was successful. Palisades first achieved criticality 5/24/71 with the first electric power generation 12/31/71. Palisades is still operating today; click here for the Palisades Power Plant site.

As a final note.. this site was originally planned to host as many as four identical reactor plants, with the other three plants North of the completed one (that is to say, to the left in the illustrations we've seen.) Palisades was ordered in June, 1966 with the clear intention to eventually order more (in fact, WASH-1203-73 lists the plant as "Palisades Plant, Unit 1.") Palisades' construction permit was issued in March 1967 but no other units at the site even had construction permits issued; in fact, none of the other three plants was ever formally announced, from what I can find on file here. The only proof that further plants were planned is an illustration in the CE/Consumers Power brochure showing the four plant site layout, coupled with WASH-1203-73's delineation of the plant as Palisades 1.

That does it for this historic 100th Carnival. APR is proud to host it, and I hope that we make it to 200. Having seen the success of pro-nuclear blogging myself, first hand since APR launched in April 2010 I have no doubt we will.

6:10 PM Eastern Saturday April 14, 2012

Read More

San Onofre update 4/12

There is very little actual news to report yet; the NRC Chairman has toured the plant, and a brief report of this trip is available on the NRC's blog. Click here to read that report.

Far more interesting is the fact that apparently SoCal Ed has awakened to the need for direct approach to the public and the website I've just found which is attached to the SoCal Ed site for SONGS (San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station) is proof. The website is actually pretty impressive; it's located at "songscommunity dot com" and the entry page is found by clicking here.

Of great interest is this page, which is called "Just the Facts." This tells why this new website has appeared, gives some answers to questions and really drives home some of the real answers to questions commonly asked by those who don't know much about nuclear energy.. and as a result, it also squashes mistruths told by anti-nuclear opponents. This page is a good playbook, if you ask me. It's accurate, fair, not too heavily loaded and probably exactly what SONGS and SoCal Ed need right now.

Not only is there a great deal of information available about plant work in progress (specifically pdf files describing steam generators) there's also a plant status box which will show status in real time. There's even a link to a version of the site in Spanish, which is a great touch.

This site, when combined with the original site (see link here) about SONGS makes the web presence for SONGS move up toward the top ranks. I am fairly well impressed by the new site and am glad to see how well it's done. I suggest everyone interested in pro-nuclear outreach give the new site a look.

----------------------------------------------------------

San Onofre 2 and 3 - the plants shut down now with steam generator problems - are Combustion Engineering PWR plants. San Onofre 1 was a Westinghouse PWR which operated for many years beginning in 1968. This plant is now totally gone, at least to the naked eye; see here. This link has an interesting photo showing San Onofre 1 in process of demolition. Here are two early photos of San Onofre 1 from APR's files.


The photo above is from WASH-1082, published in March 1968 and shows San Onofre 1 in the final stages of construction and testing - at least, it would appear so by the completeness of the plant but presence of many work vehicles around.


Above is an impressive night photo of San Onofre 1 from the cover (fully open, showing front and back) from the AtomFair '68 Exhibitor Program in the APR collection. Both photos enlarge when clicked.

(APR also as of this time has new photo editing software - readers should notice an increase in photo quality even over previous versions.)

9:40 PM Eastern Thursday April 12, 2012
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

UPDATE: Af of Friday morning, there are reports from SoCal Ed that both plants are exhibiting the same kind of wear in their steam generator U-tubes, and that more damage has been found in tubes at No. 2 plant. A number of articles are out this morning; click here to read one. More details later as they're found.

Read More

Big event this weekend!

The 100th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers will be hosted here at APR this weekend. I would encourage everyone associated with any pro-nuclear / nuclear related blog to get contributions in on this one, which will be heavily promoted. And it should be heavily promoted - the world of pro-nuclear blogging has come a very long way in order to be able to reach this pinnacle. APR is proud to be hosting it.

Keep watching for further announcements.

Read More

Carnival 99 at NEI Nuclear Notes

The 99th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers is hosted presently at NEI Nuclear Notes. Click the link below to get there:

CARNIVAL 99 AT NEI NUCLEAR NOTES

The rotating Carnival is your best way to find out what the pro-nuclear world is writing about and discussing. There is no equivalent weekly media wrap-up of this sector, which is why the Carnival should be important to anyone interested in nuclear power, national energy policy, or sustainability. If you're an energy reporter for a major media outlet and you're not looking at the Carnival every week, you're making a major error.

Nest week is the 100th Carnival - sure to be an extravaganza, with lots of contributions and some extra features - and it's going to be right here at Atomic Power Review. Do not miss it.

9:15 AM Eastern Tuesday April 10, 2012
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

Read More

Catching up on developments: April 7, 2012

Atomic Power Review catches up on two of this week's developments, and offers some background as well.

NEW BOOK: My friend Leslie Corrice has just announced that his new book, "Fukushima: The First Five Days" is now ready for purchase and download. Find the book here. This volume is a highly readable account of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi following the tsunami, taken from various official sources but developed and presented in a manner that makes access to the chain of events possible for even the layman. I believe it is a very significant opening dialogue for the general public in terms of the public becoming conversant with the actual event sequence.

WESTINGHOUSE, BABCOCK & WILCOX, ETC. This week was somewhat significant in terms of news in nuclear energy because the news was of a corporate and not a safety related nature (for the most part), dominated as it was by the shakeups at Westinghouse Electric which culminated in the CEO of that firm resigning two days into his tenure only to sign immediately with competitor Babcock & Wilcox. Click here to get up to speed on these developments.

What is more interesting perhaps in the long run (for it cannot be anything but true that Westinghouse parent company Toshiba will not allow this to affect business in any meaningful way) is the fact that we now find Westinghouse and Babcock & Wilcox in direct competition for what just might be a very hot ticket - the Small Modular Reactor market. These are light water cooled reactors that are built in compact and shop-assembled form and which are easy to install .. or at least, are much easier (and cheaper) to install than a conventional plant, such as the four Westinghouse AP1000 plants being built here. These plants are at the moment generally less than 225 MWe and might be ideal for military installations, small co-op electric utility companies, multiple installations together for generating where the additive cost for the required MWe output is still less than one large plant, and probably more. What many people might not know is that these smallish plants aren't new at all - not totally.

Just briefly, we can mention the fact that very early on the United States Army and the United States Air Force were interested in small nuclear plants for various remote installations. While all of these early plants did not really fit the SMR description as we know it today (modern SMR plants have all components, including steam generators and coolant pumps inside a compact primary containment) they were much smaller than commercial or even most experimental plants in the early days. Let's take a look at just a few illustrations from the APR collection showing some early small plant components.

Above, from a 1959 ALCO Products ad, we see a representation of that company's design for packaged power plants of the general type supplied to the AEC/Army as the APPR-1A, later known as SM-1A. This plant supplied just over one and a half megawatts of electric power, but also significantly just over 11 MW of thermal energy (steam heat) for arctic facilities. A number of early small designs such as this were dual-output plants. Note the size of the primary plant components when compared with the human figures outside the containment.

Above is a reactor pressure vessel for one of this general size range reactor plants at ALCO's facility undergoing the process developed at ALCO whereby stainless steel was overlaid on a (mandrel) forged, seamless carbon steel pressure vessel, and then submerged-arc welded to the surface to provide corrosion resistance on the interior (i.e. the surface in contact with primary coolant.) The smallish size of the vessel is quite evident. This is from the same multi-page ALCO advertisement as the illustration shown above. ALCO was either reactor vendor and contractor, or else reactor vendor, for several early small sized PWR reactor plants.

The Martin Company (Nuclear Division), later Martin-Marietta was also active in supplying and advertising small pressurized water reactor systems. Below, the MPR or Martin Power Reactor which was a flexible core design allowing anywhere from 8 MWt to roughly 24 MWt and which could be ordered to develop from 1 MWe to 5 MWe plus steam heating. Martin offered just the reactor, or the whole primary system as seen below (constructed underground to avoid construction of costly shielding) or an entire plant.

1: Steel envelope. 2: Primary piping. 3: Reinforced concrete shielding. 4: Reactor. 5: Steam line to turbine. 6: Canned pumps (this means the pumps are hermetically sealed and require no external lubrication.) 7: Steam generator. 8: Shielding water.

It is clear from this illustration that the overall plant is very compact; this is a step along the way from early small nuclear plants with discrete components widely spread toward the much more economical designs that move all components possible into the containment and later all possible components into the (now expanded) reactor pressure vessel. Below, the MPR reactor itself showing the single center and three 'eccentric' control rods, and the boxed fuel elements that each contain 50 tubular fuel rods.

The offering described above (seen in a Martin sales brochure for the MPR product line) is similar in many ways to the plant actually built as the PM-1 for the Air Force and which was installed at Sundance, Wyoming. Below, an illustration of that plant from the Atomic Energy Deskbook (Hogerton, 1962.) Note the similarity, generally, of the primary plant components. This plant was rated at 1 MWe with 2 MW of steam heat additionally. Below, also from the Atomic Energy Deskbook, a view of the zero power core mockup for the PM-1 reactor. The scale is evident and the compactness notable.

Now that we've seen some of the early small plants ( a few of which indeed did have some modular construction) it is important to point out that in terms of the modern competition in this new small reactor market, the two competitors aren't new to this market at all. Westinghouse had its start in compact, highly enriched Uranium fueled pressurized water reactors with the STR project (the plant for the USS Nautilus) - that's as "at the start" as it gets. Babcock & Wilcox actually developed what we might consider the first true SMR very early on, as a result of lessons learned from the large plant designed for the NS Savannah. After that plant was built and operated, Babcock & Wilcox began studies on truly modular and self-contained pressurized water plants of an exceedingly compact nature. This first range of designs was known as the CNSG (Consolidated Nuclear Steam Generator) plant design; according to STEAM (Babcock & Wilcox 38th ed. 1975) the CNSG I plant design was developed in 1962. A modification of this design was actually built and was installed in the German nuclear merchant ship OTTO HAHN, which went to sea on trials in October 1968. This reactor was rated 38 MWt; the shaft horsepower output for propulsion was 10,000 SHP, and two 450 KW turbine generators to supply electric power. By 1975 a modified CNSG III was being offered by Babcock & Wilcox with further alterations, simplifications and improvements. By 1980 Babcock & Wilcox, in cooperation with United Engineers & Constructors was offering a land based plant it called the CNSS or Consolidated Nuclear Steam Supply system, which was a 400 MWe PWR plant based on the plans originated under the CNSG programs of earlier years. (This soon became Babcock & Wilcox's sole offering when it ceased accepting new orders for large conventional central generating station type PWR plants.)

Information about the current Westinghouse SMR offering is found here.

Information about the Babcock & Wilcox / Bechtel "Generation mPower" SMR can be found here.

Further information on the Generation mPower is found at Babcock & Wilcox's site; click here.

Readers can be certain that APR will keep an eye on the competitive situation (both are going after DOE funding for the SMR projects) and report developments here.

9:55 PM Eastern Saturday April 7, 2012
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

Read More

An interesting time for Westinghouse

Westinghouse Electric, most widely noted in recent news items as the manufacturer of the AP1000 design (1000 MWe pressurized water reactor) being built at Vogtle and now, with recent issuance of COL's at V.C. Summer (total of four units) has had quite an eventful couple of weeks in terms of business developments.

A press release from March 23 noted the movement of a two executives; click here to read it. Jim Ferland is noted as being the incoming CEO in this release (effective April 1.)

Those moves were at the top positions of Westinghouse's Nuclear Fuel Division and of its Americas Region. However, within a few days Westinghouse announced a restructuring of its nuclear power plant product line; click here to read a press release. This move, also attributed to Ferland as was the previous personnel change, was intended to improve the company's chances for continued growth in the field. The move split Westinghouse's nuclear plant manufacturing operations into two divisions; one called Nuclear Power Plant Delivery (in charge of actual manufacture and delivery of plants) and the other designated Nuclear Power Plant Business Development, which essentially appears (at least initially) to be focused on marketing Westinghouse plants.

At roughly the same time Westinghouse applied to the Department of Energy for funding to support its (rather secondary, until this time) developmental program for small, modular reactors (SMR's.) Read a release here. This move attempts to place Westinghouse directly into the fray to compete in this market sector which is rapidly gaining attention - particularly because of competitor Babcock & Wilcox's progress towards building several of its SMR designs at the TVA's former Clinch River Breeder Reactor site. In this release the Westinghouse SMR is described as 225 MWe.

Fascinatingly, there is now an upheaval in progress at Westinghouse even with all of these developments. Yesterday, news broke that incoming Westinghouse CEO Jim Ferland had resigned effective immediately. Click here for the April 3 Westinghouse press release. No reasons for the departure were given in Westinghouse's press release. No effect is noted on Ferland's previous moves as regards personnel, or as regards the division of the nuclear business, or as regards Westinghouse's approach to the SMR field. One has to wonder if some or all of these decisions will be altered or reversed.

Today we have another surprise; Jim Ferland has just this morning been announced as the incoming President and CEO of Westinghouse competitor Babcock & Wilcox. Thanks to David Bradish at Nuclear Energy Institute, we have the link for B&W's press release; click here to read the still new press release.

It is highly interesting to this writer that Ferland moves to Babcock & Wilcox, whose sole present nuclear reactor product as new build is in the SMR class, immediately after having moved to place Westinghouse in line for DOE funding in exactly this class of product. (Babcock & Wilcox has not been an active reactor vendor in large commercial nuclear plants for many years.)

The whole shakeout of the effect at Westinghouse is yet to be seen; however, the owners of Westinghouse (Toshiba) are sure not to allow these developments to affect their skyrocketing success of late with construction of numerous AP1000 large commercial nuclear plants here in the United States and in China. What happens to the personnel and operations of Westinghouse is yet to be seen, but the most interesting observations will come as Westinghouse and Babcock & Wilcox appear to prepare to go head to head in the SMR generation field.

10:12 AM Eastern Wednesday April 4, 2012
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

Read More

Carnival 98 at Idaho Samizdat

We are steaming ahead toward the landmark 100th Carnival of Nuclear Bloggers, as you'll see at this week's Carnival.

Carnival No. 98 is hosted by Dan Yurman's "Idaho Samizdat" blog .. and is headed by a wonderful looking CNJ heavy Pacific. Complete with smokebox mounted Elesco feedwater heater. ("Elesco" feedwater heaters were a product of the Locomotive Superheater Company, later a part of Combustion Engineering-Superheater Company, later simply known as Combustion Engineering.)

CLICK HERE to get to Carnival No. 98

8:20 PM Eastern Sunday April 1, 2012
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

Read More