Samurai-Sword Maker May Cool Nuclear Revival

NobleSavage sends a story from Bloomberg about Japan Steel Works Ltd., a company that still makes Samurai swords, and how it may control the fate of the global nuclear-energy renaissance. "There stands the only plant in the world, a survivor of Allied bombing in World War II, capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor's containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak. Utilities that won't need the equipment for years are making $100 million down payments now on components Japan Steel makes from 600-ton ingots. Each year the Tokyo-based company can turn out just four of the steel forgings that contain the radioactivity in a nuclear reactor. Even after it doubles capacity in the next two years, there won't be enough production to meet building plans."

Comments

sounds like a way to re-start

[gravesb]

This sounds like an area where American metal working could enjoy some sort of renaissance. I wonder what the start-up costs for such an endeavor are, what the future growth and profit margins are, and where such competency could be applied outside of reactors and and swords. But, with low skill metal working being outsourced, such specialized skills might be a place for America to specialize, especially as the dollar continues to fall.

Candu

[BlueParrot]

As I understand it CANDU reactors don't even use a pressure vessel as such, but instead uses an assembly of pressurized tubes. One for each fuel bundle. This design was chosen precisely because it eliminated the need for this type of technological bottleneck and it is still in use today. I think tfa neglects to mention that there are several reactor designs that aren't dependent on this particular company.

Re:4 per year

[Foolicious]

However, the problem is China and its vast natural resources. I honestly don't know about China's natural resources, but they seem to be consuming so much that they need to import steel and metals in scrap form from the US like gangbusters. I think this is because it's currently cheaper to refine it from scrap than mine it, but at this point China's resources, whether vast or otherwise, aren't as big of a sticking point as some people would think. Of course, their labor -- now that's definitely a cheaper pasture!

Doesn't add up

[hcdejong]

If it takes three weeks to forge one vessel, why can they only produce four vessels per year?

Also, the forging is described as a cylinder, which leaves the top and bottom of the pressure vessel. How do you weld 30 cm thick steel? ISTR reading about submarine construction (which use a pressure hull maybe a few cm thick) where welding the hull sections had to take place at night because daytime operations would overload the local power grid. These vessels would be even more difficult to weld correctly.

Re:Japan, WWII, allied bombing, and nukes

[discogravy]

this is ha-ha-only-serious in a way; the godzilla movies serve as a kind of metric for japanese societal attitudes towards nuclear power. immediately post-war, gojira is a monster created by radiation that comes and terrorizes tokyo but within 20 years or so, he's japan's protector from outside alien monsters (mothra, gamera, etc) and is japan's big scaly mascot (with annoying "go-get-'em-pop!" godzilla-baby, godzuki.)