About 10 years ago, Toshiba bought Westinghouse for $5.4 billion, primarily to acquire the company’s nuclear power plant building business. Figuring that nations around the world would further restrict carbon based energy, Toshiba thought Westinghouse would build the nuke plants and Toshiba would get the contracts to maintain them.
With losses reaching $9.8 billion this last December, obviously the gamble didn’t pay off. Now the parent company is filing bankruptcy for its acquisition with the intention of getting out of a number of building contracts and renegotiating the terms of a number of commitments.
Timing is everything. Too bad they’re going BK.
The future is definitely not solar panels, lithium batteries or whirlygigs.
I can tell ya from the inside: energy is a tenuous wager. Wasn’t always, is now.
You win some, you lose some.
The AP-1000 was dead on arrival.
Random Guy, are you in the industry? I read your comment and looked it up:
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/toshibas-westinghouse-ap1000-dangerous-nuclear-reactor-design/
I sell tools, and power generation is a key industry for us, so i’ve been in most types of power plants. What is your thinking on power sources? If you were to build a power plant, what would it be? I’m not being confrontational, genuinely interested.
@joe
I am in the industry, my take has always been that the AP-1000 should have been scrapped from the beginning and Westinghouse should have moved towards their other design options. Issue being the NRC. As far as other power methods, nuclear is still the only way to go. Nothing else comes close as far as output to square footage. Now, I can go on for a while but the key is easing on the regulatory issues. We should allow for reprocessing of spent fuel and open the MTN. For the casks, allow for the construction of older designs like Gen 2 or 3 BWRs which have a life span of 60 – 80 years (not fuel but system life).
Still not sold on the SMR’s but I love the Naval Reactors, so much power in such a tiny package