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.

Re:sounds like a way to re-start

[Mr. Slippery]

This sounds like an area where American metal working could enjoy some sort of renaissance.

How? We have no industrial base anymore. It's the "information age", we're a "service economy", remember? Actually making steel is, like, so 1970s.

U.S. Steel now makes about as much steel now as it did in 1902. The once-mighty Bethlehem Steel? Gone. National Steel? Kaput.

We traded our ability to make stuff, for our ability to by cheap imports at Wal*Mart.

Re:sounds like a way to re-start

[maxume]

On the other hand, the steel that U.S. Steel makes now is high quality, special purpose alloys, and Alcoa is refining quite a bit more aluminum than they were in 1902 and Caterpillar is doing 'OK' globally. No one scoffs at Intel chips, and they are among the most intensely manufactured objects in existence.

It really doesn't matter where cheap steel is coming from; it isn't particularly profitable to make, and it is the easiest capacity to add, so why should anybody be surprised that American companies aren't trying to compete with cheaper foreign labor for the title of biggest steel company?

May be a stupid question...

[Tom90deg]

But can't you make more places to build them? I realize that you may need specific hardware to forge this stuff out of one piece of steel, but seems to me that if you really needed them, you could make more than one factory.

Re:Hm

[scubamage]

Psh, you're missing the point. URANIUM SWORD! And we could create uranium sword wielding robots. This has badass written all over it and highlighted with AWESOME.

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!

Re:4 per year

[Zerth]

>I don't think I would want to be near a Chinese forged reactor core
>any time in my life. QC does not seem to be their strong point.

On the plus side, it is very likely to come coated in lead.

That's good in this case, right?

Re:old article

[ThirdPrize]

There is, that is why it (the article) was updated this week.

Re:Change the design

[rbanffy]

The problem here is not wanting to stick with currently proven designs, but the hideous cost of certifying a new design. It is so expensive to re-certify a project after a design change people really don't want to do it often.

The certification process probably makes the design safer, but it also disincentives innovation in ways that would horrify someone used to the rapid pace of consumer electronics.

On the other hand, the kind of reliability standards we see on consumer electronics would horrify me if they ever happened be applied to a nuclear facility or an airplane.

Re:Hm

[scubamage]

That's incorrect. The US Military admitted there were 'some unknown dangers' associated with DU after Dr. Doug Rokke (US Army Physicist) got cancer and is suffering numerous other ill effects from radiation poisoning whilst leading efforts to clean up the radiation after the first Iraq war. He also has explained that the US Military actively suppressed a WHO study which showed DU has the same effects as normal uranium on the human body. I only know because his brother, General Irving Rokke was the Dean of my college and I got to speak with him. I also learned about how the US and UK have been pressed about the issue numerous times in the UN and have used their comfy chairs on the UN Security Council to veto any sort of punitive action.

Re:Hm

[webrunner]

So.. it's less toxic than one of the world's most famous deadly poisons

That's really reassuring.

Re:All makes perfect sense, until

[maxume]

Understand what? That we haven't lost our industrial base? That we have a huge export economy?

(and Alcoa and Intel make stuff all over the world; this doesn't change the fact that they have significant production operations in the United States)

I'm wasn't responding to the lamentation that the U.S. is apparently incapable of producing one of these giant forgings, I was responding to the ridiculous idea that all the economic activity of whatever golden age of American industry up and disappeared. It didn't disappear, it shifted to other activity, and when you count things up, there is more industry here than there was 25 or 50 years ago. So yes, as a percentage of our overall economy, heavy industry has dropped, but the economy has grown so much that the actual amount of heavy industry has increased, and instead of just paying people to work in steel mills, we can pay them to do silly things like program computers.

And the U.S. is actually a pretty popular place to do heavy industry. We are politically stable, have cheap, available energy(Coal!) and a good portion of the workforce is highly skilled. We certainly don't have a monopoly on any of those things, but it's hard to argue that we should.