Slashdot Mirror
Toshiba to Pay $5.4 Billion for Westinghouse
Philip writes "Business electronics firm Toshiba is bidding for 100% control of Westinghouse - famous for making blenders and LCD televisions, but principally in the business of building nuclear reactors. 'By 2020 the market for nuclear power generation is expected to grow 50 percent compared to 2005,' Toshiba CEO Nishida said at a London news conference. 'Toshiba is responding to this challenge by acquiring Westinghouse.'"
Nuclear Powered Laptops?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Just what we need- another player in the household nuclear fission market. At least Apple is still trying to acquire that cold fusion outfit.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
When I was a kid, Westinghouse was REFRIDGERATORS!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
...Eastinghouse.
...the demand for all forms of energy will take a dramatic drop...
From blenders to refrigerators to Nuclear power plants. Sounds like something was put on a back burner for a while. Just a little difference from an electric motor to nuclear reactors!
Does the DOE have any limitations on foreign corporations handling parts of our Nuclear Energy programs?
Is anyone else a little concerned about this?
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
(Better yet, if the campaign succeeds AND one of the two fusion reactor projects produces cheap energy, we could eliminate all conventional and all fission reactors entirely and have just two or three fusion reactors per continent.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I hope everyone realises that the much hyped hydrogen economy of the future is totally dependent on nuclear energy. If I had the money, I'd invest heavily in the companies ivolved in the nuclear industry. Solar, hydro, and wind energy will not be enough to replace oil.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Wouldn't certain countries have to abandon their fear of opening new reactors? After all, building nuclear reactors in some developing nations violates security restrictions. Some European countries already have a decent take rate on nuclear power, at least from what I've heard, I'm too lazy to do any research.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
How can we developing more nuclear technology without securing the manual override from our defense contractors? Am I the only one watching these 24 Monday Marathons???
I thought GE owned Westinghouse?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I thought Siemens purchased Westinghouse Power Unit back in the late 90's.
...Iran's bid for Westinghouse is 5.5 billion
I read
The Japanese with nuclear capabilities!!! The humanity!
As far as the next generation of "traditional" fission reactors, I guess I've been more impressed with GE's ESBWR , than Westinghouse's APxxx ...
IANANE (I am not a Nuclear Engineer), but BWRs seem to have fewer problems (no steam gnerators to leak/plug up, no vessle head degradation) and are theroetically more efficent (single cycle)...
I wonder if anyone is going to make a bid for GENE (General Electric Nuclear Energy)...
I also wonder why we dont hear more about CANDU reactors . They use natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, which could provide more peaceful energy in unstable areas of the worls
Toshiba is well known (and for many despised) in Japan for being a missile-building defense contractor for Japan's army that they aren't supposed to have because of previous war-mongering. Now they are buying nuclear production capabilities. Anyone? Concerns?
I personally welcome our new laptop-manufacturing overlords.
It seriously set the nuclear power industry back, which is a shame. Old plants continue to operate, but new ones are very slow to appear. Safe and non-polluting technologies were available for decades and we are wising up to using them only now.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I have never heard of Westinghouse blenders or TVs. To me the name Westinghouse means railway brake systems.
In the UK the BBC website recently ran articles pointing to upcoming reviews of existing nuclear power plants and the impact of bring new plants online.
As noted before the environmentalist camp has had some of it's big guns come out in support of nuclear power as the only alternative available to stave off global warming.
Probably the various political power bases have decided nuclear power is the way to go and have given the spin doctors orders to soften public reaction.
Good news for Canada with a mature nuclear technology, substantial Uranium resources, not to mention being oil and hydro rich.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
While Westinghouse may be known for it's every day electronics (elevators, microwaves, TVs) and the Westinghouse Science Award (which is still a pretty cool and pretty geeky achievement) and it's defense contracting (nuclear power), I think it's most important achievement is bringing Tesla's idea of alternating current to the consumer.
I wonder if that means Westinghouse nuclear plants have the "Lock 'n Spin" feature, like their old washing machines from the 1960s and early 1970s (before "White Westinghouse") did.
Life is such a sweet insanity. The more you learn, the less you know.
Can't wait to pick up Toshiba's finest blenders and nuclear reactors.
"Oh boy"
The rest of the old Westinghouse has been gone for many years. When you see a new "Westinghouse" consumer product, such as a lcd television, that's a separate individual or company that purchased the right to use the brand name in a certain product area, and then contracted with an asian manufacturer to produce the product.
The same point is true of "Polaroid" lcd televisions; an investor bought the right to use the brand name for electronic products at Polaroids bankruptcy auction, and then contracts with asian manufacturers to bring in product.
I do see a larger issue: business acumen. Most American businesses knew, for a while, that nuclear power would come into vogue again. Did they not read the comments by Patrick Moore? He co-founded Greenspeace, the pinnacle of pro-environment thought. Even Moore supports the use of nuclear power and sees that we must use it in order to protect the environment.
I just read that GM may go into bankruptcy. 10 years later, will ExxonMobile follow? Why didn't ExxonMobile buy Westinghouse?
Why are American business conglomerates so sluggish in responding to business opportunities? Small American companies like Google are swift and nimble, but American conglomerates are slow as a snail. Clearly, size is not the problem because Toshiba just snatched Westinghouse.
Back in the Goodle Days, the battle was set for AC vs DC on the electricity grid. Thomas Edison backed DC, and Westinghouse backed AC.
n 6.rhtml
AC won, and Westinghouse became rich and famous: http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/edison/sectio
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I'd love to see Toshiba's mini nuclear reactors widely deployed in the U.S., or at the bare minimum looked into with a few test deployments.
They are small, safe, and cost effective.
They are the size of a grain silo, buried 100 feet underground. They are idiot-proof (think of the causes of Chernobyl) because the nuclear reaction only happens while a plate is moving in front of the rods. If the plate stops, the reaction stops. The plate cannot move except intentionally, so the chance of a runaway meltdown approaches zero.
If the U.S. were smart it would take a months budget for the war in Iraq and just buy the technology outright from Toshiba, then deploy them as widely and cheaply as possible.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
That CANDU link is quite interesting
http://canteach.candu.org/library/20000101.pdf
Existing reactors work by using an expensive fuel (enriched uranium) and a cheap moderator (graphite or water).
CANDU's idea is relatively safer. Instead of enriched uranium, CANDU reactors use natural uranium (which is cheap) along with an expensive moderator (heavy water). The design is a bit safer too.
OTOH, heavy water is still a part of the nucleur weapons making process & is export controlled.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's what the ads use to say when they made vacuum tubes, big generators and major appliances. Yesterday I put a NOS Westinghouse 6U10 in a guitar amp.
With fewer power stations, the grid would be simpler and less likely to go into spasms when a tree falls on a power line or when some other accident occurs. Keeping things simple is Good.
Maybe three is an underestimate, but even one per State is vastly superior to the existing setup.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Review is misleading and contains wrong info - and hence all comments are incorrect. The company being acquired is Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power/energy company.
Other references/jokes/et al are confusing it with Westinghouse, a brand owned by CBS/Viacom.
Blender, check. Last I heard, they were still working on the reactor side of their product lines.
50% by 2020? Do you have any idea how many other industries are "projected" to grow [insert big number]% by [insert distant year]??
What??? A "Challenge?" Since when is the growth of nuclear power a threat to Toshiba? Don't they make consumer electronics? 5.4 billion? Aren't they better off buying some more direct competitors that might impact their bottom line in the year 2006?
Unless of course by 2020 they're also predicting that consumer electronics will have portable nuclear power sources too...
How come this acquisition makes no sense?
Cut the power to the heating circuit by 20% each year.
If they don't acieve fusion in time, put the next generation of fusion researchers up there, give them time to read the notes, turn the heating up to 100%, then start the cutting the following year.
The researchers are bright and capable. They suffer from funding (nobody wants to pay), politics (from within themselves and from their paymasters) and complacency ("it doesn't matter if we don't solve X, Y or Z in our lifetimes").
By eliminating all three problems, progress should improve substantially. Somehow, I seriously doubt anyone is going to try this method any time soon, though.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
electrical switchgear and turbines, which is part of Siemens... or the historic Westinghouse of air brakes, which is part of Honeywell, through the Allied Signal/Bendix merger... or the Westinghouse of light bulbs and fans, which is some marketer with two tin desks, two telephones, 500 folks with red ties, and containers of Stuff from China arriving daily on docks.
such is the stuff of de-mergers of the US' industrial base in the late 80s and 1990s.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
FYI: Westinghouse small appliances are not made by Westinghouse at all. They are made by Salton. They seem to be phasing out the Westinghouse brand now - just months after pushing it aggressively, even replacing Russell Hobbs in the US. (perhaps due to this buyout, their brand license is in jeopardy)
Got stuck trying to find how many plants were built in 2005
:O
Anyone? Looks like 40 plants being licensed or built currently...pretty vague info
Since the US has done 0? lately, i was curious how many a 50% increase is....
I find some of these numbers interesting, like the cableco paying over $3k per customer in buyouts
Although with a product priced in the billions, it seems like there may be a little room for some profit
'By 2020 the market for nuclear power generation is expected to grow 50 percent compared to 2005,'
Which adds up to a whopping 2.75% annual growth rate. What's to get excited about?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Only backwards.
Famed investor Peter Lynch says to start worrying when companies "diworsify" as he calls it. When companies find themselves unable to gain additional marketshare in the industries they already compete in, they tend to go around buying into other industries at inflated prices. Often they buy into industries that require different know how to run effectively, and many botch the job once things have played out in a few years. Think of all the internet startups that were overvalued, bought up, and mismanaged. The same thing happens in other fields as well.
There is incentive on the part of executives to diversify, as managers can then get promoted, whereas there was little room to grow before. In the short term the stock goes up and executive salaries also rise, but in the long term, mismanaged divisions only weigh a company down, offsetting profits from the healthy divisions and hurting long term investors.
There is a rising market for nuclear reactors, so this might turn out to be good thing for Toshiba, but I'd do more research before plopping down some coin for Toshiba stock.
Rotary Steam Engine
Railroad Block Signal
Railroad Air Brakes
AC Power Generation
First Long-distance power transmission
Niagra Falls AC Generation
Steam turbine generators
Light Bulbs
AC Electric Locomotives
First Marine Turbine Engine
Micarta Laminate
Electric kitchen Range
Radios Receivers/Transmitters
Electric Iron
Television Cameras
Televisions
Elevators
Electrostatic Air Cleaners
First Atom Smasher
Radar
Automatic Washing Machine
Electric Clothes drier
X-Ray Machines
Self Defrosting Refridgerator
Electric Rotisserie Grills
Room Air Conditioners
Submarines
Jet Engines
Nuclear Reactors
And on and on and on
Westinghouse orginally was a power company. Westinghouse himself was a major proponent of using AC current for the US electrical grid, versus Edison's preference for DC, which was less efficient. It's not really a big stretch.
Westinghouse Electric Company
And the problem with that is the low density of hydrogen. Hydrogen in liquid form has 10% of the density of gasoline. And it is cryogenic, requiring a large amount of energy to put it into a cryogenic state and then a well-insulated tank and more energy to keep it cryogenic. You could easily have to send 15+ trucks in place of 1 truck with gasoline to get out the same amount of energy. Not to mention the amount of hydrogen you spend powering those trucks. People complain about the inefficiencies of power lines... its nothing compared to the inefficiencies of a "green" hydrogen economy.
Candu uses unenriched uranium fuel, so users don't need enriched uranium (which is inefficient to turn into a bomb). Unfortunately all that U238 hangin around where there's lots of fast neutrons means there's more Plutonium (which is efficient in bombs, and much easier to extract) in the waste product.
My community has enough trouble getting rid of its old tires, let alone having its own nuke in the backyard. And preferebly surround each plant with lots of guys with these the between to shred any kwaazy tewwowists who come around.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Other news sites are saying 300% growth by 2015. Toshiba is paying
34 times earnings, for a business that they expect to grow by 12% per
year - unless they think that they will get significant synergy with
their existing nuclear businesses, then I think that they are significantly
overpaying for the business.
But seriously, I agree that we should increase our use of nuclear reactors, but IMHO we have to be extremely careful when it comes to any talk about "foolproof" technology. Also, I am personally more fond of pebble bed style reactors.
That's the nice thing about this Toshiba plant, because the actual nuclear stuff is 100 feet underground, it is impervious to any kind of terrorist attack.
Our own bunker busters don't even reach 100 feet underground.
It seems to be a very safe plan.
Liquid sodium circulates to a steam generator on the surface, where the electricity is produced. The kwazy terrorists could disrupt the electricity (as with any plant) but wouldn't cause any kind of meltdown or fall out.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Often they buy into industries that require different know how to run effectively, and many botch the job once things have played out in a few years. Think of all the internet startups that were overvalued, bought up, and mismanaged. The same thing happens in other fields as well.
Oh yes, I've seen this happen in the games industry. When a large console manufacturer buys out a local games development studio and starts running it like a Japanese company - "never mind what the individual programmers/animators are interested in doing, just assign the most qualified staff to the hardest problems".
And watch as all the veteran staff leave to set up their own companies.
I think it's most important achievement is bringing Tesla's idea of alternating current to the consumer.
Absolutely. Westinghouse build the first A/C power station out in Telluride, Colorado in 1891, with design help from Tesla and $100,000 from L.L. Nunn. While we're on the subject, this July 9th will be Telsa's 150th birthday, so light up those Tesla Coils to celebrate; we'll be doing up here so in Telluride!
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Uranium deposit will last 150+ yrs. and Japan produces only 1percent of oil of which they consume. i don't know how much Japan is relying on Nuclear power but in South Korea(i am from here) , we rely 40% of our power source from nuclear power b/c Korea produces no oil and every drop of oil in korea is imported(South Korea is 3rd largest oil importer in the world and Japan being the first)
I assume that nuclear power is very important in Japan, too. There is Toshiba heavy industries and there are different branches under its brand name(or something like GM? someone tell me) so it may not be toshiba electronics that most of you are thinking of.
Korea is currently on the lead of developing artificial sun(nuclear fission generator using tokamak) and it is now 87% complete! it will use sea water as a power source and 1 liter of sea water will generate power equal to 100Liters of oil. for further research, google: KSTAR.
EnjoyThis strikes me as a good move as it opens up a huge worldwide market segment for Toshiba.
and as a sister post pointed out, GE too.
BTW, there is no technical difference between an electric motor and an electrical generator
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
what are you doing? demands the man
isn't this a westinghouse? asks the squirrel
yes, but... says the man
then I'm westing.
ba-boom-cha! I'll be here all season, thank you.
How about this?
...with Westinghouse (sorry, subscription req'd). It's pretty likely that the development will stop due to Toshiba's takeover. However, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has production rights to at least one reactor design.
Unless you're going to go all economic nationalist and argue that the US should control its own corporate destiny the national security implications are pretty much nonexistent.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
is that the Japanese economy is apparently coming back, as evidenced by a capital investment like that.
How fast, you suppose, does an air liner pay for itself? An oil-exploration program? An Internet startup?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Oh, No! LOOK! Godzilla! AAAaaaaaaaah!
china has some of the world's largest deposits of coal. you are flat out wrong.
According to this table, Toshiba has been building nuclear power plants business since the 1960s, and is currently the largest nuclear plant supplier in Japan. I suspect that they're fairly qualified.
For completeness, let's note that the RBMK design needs neither heavy water, nor enriched uranium. It is, however, the design whose flaws led to the Chernobyl accident, so I wouldn't be expecting any more of them to be built any time soon...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This reminds me of a time back in 90s when I circulated a fake Wall St. Journal article that said Toshiba was going to buy the company where I worked. It was April Fools Day and the Toshiba spokesman's name in the article was Igata Takashawa (say it fast). I really didn't think anyone would buy it, but they sure did. It spread through the building like wildfire, and various depts had emergency meetings to squash the rumor. We were herded into a noisy, overcrowded conference room where my article was projected on the wall. Our manager was standing on a chair trying to get control. He was a short, bulldog-like, easily antagonized Englishman who looked and sounded a lot like Bob Hoskins. The company had designated April 1st as "Funny Hat Day," and for some reason he had decided to go all the way and dress up like a pirate -- bandanna on his head, gold earring, big white shirt, black pants. He also tended to talk fast when he got excited, making him difficult to understand. Some of the people didn't seem to get that we already knew the article was fake. They were babbling away about what-if, what-if, pointing out various parts of the article and arguing about it, with this sweaty Bob Hoskins pirate on a chair sputtering away over the crowd noise, waving his arms to get everybody to shut up. For years after I left the company, I kept hearing from friends there that the story still came up every April.
Classic corporate comedy gold.
In the US, wacko evironmentalist extremists rule the roost. There hasn't been a new reactor in the US in 20 years.
And you've gotta love the quote from the linked article: "The word 'nuclear' makes me nervous," said Randy Virgin of the Alaska Center for the Environment." Typical enviro nutter. The word 'nuclear' makes him nervous.
If you think we're going to get any logic or sense out of these folks (the first step to nuclear power is an end to the currently endless legal challenges) you've got another thing coming. That big old nuclear boogey man is too scary.
Toshiba already has some very nice nuclear power plant technology. Remember this? http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/2 1/166237
The market for Nuclear Power will increase 50% by 2020? 50% in 15 years is only about 2% return on investment. It's not a particularly lucrative investment for Toshiba unless westinghouse was very cheap or has much room to grow in market share of this nuclear industry.
Keeping
When it comes to the nuke bits, there's Nuclear Data, and NoForN (No Foreign Nationals).
But, for Westinghouse to be bought out, they must be running out of steam. Would be a coup and a major event for To-shih-bah to be in control of Westing house. Maybe they ought to retain some aspect of Westinghouse's name after the pending purchase:
Toshiba-*EASTING*house.
Westinghouse: UNclear steam?
Toshiba: NUclear Steam.
Personally, in my line of interests, I am wondering if this is an *at-home-politically-acceptable* way for Japan to get into the nuke boat building business. After spending a few years culling the bets bits of Westinghouse, maybe the shore powerplants could be adapted to fit the diesel boats. Who needs 360-foot or -480-foot boats of SSN-688 or SSN-21 size when the size and existing quietness of the J-diesels and German boats beat ANY nuke when it comes to stealth. B'ides, when the J-Diesels wanted to disappear from SOSUS and aerial detection, they D-I-S-A-P-P-E-A-R-E-D!!!. VANISHED!
Hopefully, tho, unlike with propeller milling machines, no nuke bits disappear. OTOH, maybe sub proliferation could make life interesting for some nascent navies...
But, every time I see bits of news like this, I keep remembering one of the Aliens movies. Who was behind "The Company". Turned out to be Japanese. But, today, some might feel that China will be "The Company", depending on who ends up reigning in the East. Now, imagine Admiral Zheng He's fleet revived, except with stealthy subs and long-ranged surface ships. Personally, though, I am of the mind that China is NOT interested in starting WWIII--it'll take some others, some miscreants with resources to make it appear China is trying to escalate and start WWIII.
No, THEY are nascent, have a LOT of people to feed. Bellicose like the US or any country is when it comes to hegemony, empires and such, but China wants to live through this course in history, not beCOME history. But, between Japan and China and rest of Asia needing oil (and China alone is poised to outstrip world capacity to support her growth, which scares the HELL out of western power mongers), I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years China has an at-sea, bluewater, Toshiba-related navy or (paid-contract/ed) escort force that is tasked with defending merchants from rogue (maybe sour grapes) nations, terrorists and at-sea/bluewater pirates.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos;
the situation is perfect."
is a phrase that comes to mind...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
http://www.rps.psu.edu/hydrogen/form.html
I meant what I said; lower density. Hydrogen does happen to have slightly better energy density (Energy per unit volume.) But only slightly. You need a tank 4 times bigger than that of gasoline to get the same amount of energy from hydrogen.
Westingthouse built the reactor for the successful Shippingport (Pittsburgh) demonstration project in the mid-fifties. Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
Run a few hundred million volts through a powerline and you need NEVER worry about backhoes again. What's more, the manufacturers might be willing to give you a cut of the money they make selling replacements.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The Westinghouse that does nuclear engineering shares nothing but the name (and history) with the Westinghouse that makes appliances, lightbulbs and other consumer goods. The latter is owned by CBS/Disney, IIRC. The Westinghouse of this story is owned entirely by BNFL (British Nuclear Fuel LTD), which itself is owned in significant portion by the British government.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
> The Republicans control everything. They can do anything.
Actually they don't. Because Republicans aren't some borg like entity. They don't always agree on everything, plus they have very narrow majorities, a large RINO population and a MSM that seems to live to beat them up.
Do the math dude. The House is a little better but the Senate is a very near thing. On paper the Republicans have a 55-44-1 split and with Cheney available to break a tie they can win with 50 votes. But Sen Chaffee votes Dem more often than Repub so that makes 54 for all intents and purposes. Senators Snowe and Collins are also very unreliable, plus Specter and McCain aren't what I'd call rock solid either. That takes you down to about the 50 mark. Then on any given issue at least one or two more will break ranks. Which leaves you needing to pick up a couple of Democrats to be assured of passing anything important. Fortunately they aren't a total monolithic entity either, and depending on the issue a couple of Dems are fairly reliable votes.
And all that assumes the Democrats won't fillibuster. And the more often you ram important legislation through on straight party line votes the more likely a fillibuster becomes.
Which is why the Republicans need to pick up another 5-6 Senators or to dump a few RINOs in favor of actual Republicans before your assertion would be valid. Of course Chaffee, Snowe and Collins are RINOs mostly because a hardcore Republican wouldn't be likely to stay in office in Maine or Rhode Island and the first goal of a politician is getting reelected.
Democrat delenda est
Mind you, I guess that it would have avoided injury lawsuits.
I saw some photos of arcs they've had when even the SF6 breaks down. Sheesh! There are many far more powerful accelerators today, but even at 20 MeVs, you can get some serious violence. If you could get some really good film footage, it would make for a superb sci-fi special effect.
Expense is a problematic term, because you have to look at long-term as well as short-term. Let's say that you're budgeting for 10 years and - after hurricanes, tornados, snow, drunk drivers, trees and earthquakes - your total maintenance cost is comparable to your initial construction cost if you build overhead, but your total losses (lost sales, lost power, etc) is about the same again.
Let us now say that a GOOD underground solution costs three times as much to construct, but your choice of materials means that maintenance is minimal and you lose next to no power. The total cost is about the same in both cases over that timeframe.
Now, let's weigh them up. The first solution mixes costs and income, so a chart showing net profit over time is going to be somewhat chaotic and relatively shallow. On the other hand, you have more cash in hand, which means you can invest that money elsewhere and get money in that way. There will be some degree of edginess - failures will be more obvious and more common - and it would not surprise me at all if high-end executives in critical infrastructure have absurdly high blood pressure. Those who gamble and win, though, will likely have enough in the bank to deal with such inconveniences.
The second solution has virtually all the costs up-front. Virtually no expense thereon out. Your profits chart will show a big initial dip but rise much more sharply and much more steadily. You won't have as much cash, and any you do have will be from investors, but you won't need it. You won't end up rich this way, but you should end up more relaxed and saner.
Users are a tough one. Assuming that the latter case raises the cost of power only by enough to make the interest payments work out in the long-run, the second solution will be more expensive. More reliable, less likely to suffer brown-outs or black-outs at the high end of power consumption, and probably better for the environment. But would you pay the extra to get the convenience and the conservation? Some would, some won't.
It could well be that a back-of-the-envelope calculation will show that 10 years is not enough. That you'd need much more expensive materials for the latter solution and much higher quality engineering. So you just change the timescale (up or down). The costs aren't linear, in either case. There will be some combination of durability and quality of service for which, over the timescale involved, the second solution is actually the cheaper.
It is possible that the initial costs, in such a case, would be so high that private companies can't afford it. Fine. The Federal Government is designed to be the ultimate bank, in which it'll manage the initial costs and recoup the investment through taxation. That solution is even better, because loans of that kind are vastly cheaper than those from any regular bank, so the whole thing could be made to be self-supporting much more quickly.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
>If not for the hysterical campaigns against nuclear energy, we would not be having this awful dependency on oil and other grossly unhealthy fossil fuels...
Nice conspiracy theory. My government is awash in lobbyists and bribery. Non-government corporate agents write the laws, and sponsor Hawaii vacations for Congressmen to relax on, and just sign the bill when they get back.
And to think Greenpeace is behind it all.
Oh yeah, and I live in NH and remember the Seabrook Reactor fuss. 26 out of state hippies protesting in front of the plant means NOTHING. The REAL contention was all the vacation landowners and businesses protesting behind the scenes fighting the thing. These is not exactly greenpeace's power base. NH is a Republican stronghold (or was, until recently).
No nuclear plants have been built since. To this day it is a conservative smear to blame the death of nuclear power on Greenpeace. What killed it was arrogance -- building a power plant in a district with nothing but byroads and no evac route, plus wealthy 'not in my backyard' seacoast landowners.
The conservative leadership can -claim- to support nuclear power I suppose because they fight energy regulations. Supporting the corporate body is NOT supporting the energy model, if arrogant policies lead to a backlash. The nuclear industry in the US committed suicide.
Besides, where's the foreign policy adventure when you are self-reliant on energy? Something has to replace the Communist boogeyman.
It's != Its
Three in a row, that must be a new record.
Toshiba has been involved in the nuclear industry for years already. This page
shows their list of delivered units dating back to 1959.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers