Steam Generator Parts Ordered for First New US Nuclear Reactor in Decades.

[NNadir]

From the New York Times

Nuclear Power Venture Orders Crucial Parts for Reactor
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By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: August 4, 2006

Correction Appended


WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — A partnership established to build nuclear reactors has ordered the heavy steel parts needed to make a reactor vessel, as well as other crucial components, apparently the first hardware order for a plant since the 1970’s.

The order, which an executive of the partnership said was worth “tens of millions of dollars,” was a major step toward actual construction after several years of speculation about a nuclear renaissance.

The partnership, UniStar Nuclear, made up of Constellation Energy of Baltimore and Areva, a European company, did not say where the reactor would be built. But it has previously identified as possibilities the Calvert Cliffs reactors, on the Chesapeake Bay south of Washington, and the Nine Mile Point reactors, in Scriba, N.Y., on Lake Ontario. It has said that it was negotiating with other utilities that could provide sites for the reactor, called an evolutionary power reactor, or E.P.R.

One piece of steel has already been forged, a co-chief executive of UniStar, Michael J. Wallace, said, but the construction date is uncertain and the parts might be stored until needed. The company anticipates a rush of construction orders and a waiting line at the few companies equipped to make parts that weigh hundreds of tons. One part can be made by only one company, Japan Steel Works.

Some parts could be made by Le Creusot steelworks in France.

“We’re creating the certainty that the most critical early-on hardware is in hand, so we will be in position to continue to move aggressively for construction of the first E.P.R. if everything else continues to line up correctly,” Mr. Wallace said in a telephone interview...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/business/worldbusiness/04nuke.html?ex=1312344000&en=c4dcd5aa884b9c4f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[MadMaddie]

1. Anyone see a glaring problem with this.....they are going to

foreign steel companies to get the steel....if there is such an urgency to build why not invest in American companies to build these parts...?

[NNadir]

2. Americans simply don't have the capacity to build these plants.

The French have world class capability in reactor manufacture.

They went with nuclear big time. We decided on coal. They win.

The United States doesn't manufacture very much. Our chief capability in this country is paper pushing. We have the largest native deposits of ossified MBA's. We don't have all that many accomplished metallurgists, however.

[3dman]

3. We have plenty of manufacturing

capacity, it's just that France and Japan are far more advanced in the nuclear industry, so it follows that they would just be able to manufacture certain components better than we could domestically. Why re-invent the wheel when you can import one of better quality for less money? It's just more efficient that way.

[phantom power]

5. Except...

that when you go down that path long enough, you end up like we are today: with a weak manufacturing industry. At some point, you have to say "we're going to build the capability to manufacture X, Y and Z" Today, I can't think of any manufacturing sector where America is a leader in. That's a bad position to be in.

[MadMaddie]

4. You are right....it is a shame that if we had true leadership

we would be looking for ways to educate more scientists and metallurgists but with this administration that have damaged the scientific fields greatly....they have set this country back in more ways than one....

I do think that we are going to have to figure out a way to bring some critical infrastructure manufacturing back within the US borders.....

[jpak]

6. Thank you Dick Cheney

The operators of this plant will be paid by **you the taxpayers** to generate electricity that they will sell back to **you the taxpayers** - up to $2 billion per new plant.

Your taxes are also paying 50% of the cost of NRC license application ($$$millions$$$).

and, if the NRC halts construction over safety issues ***you the taxpayer** will pay the plant owners up to $2 billion in compensation.

and, if this plant is canceled, ***you the taxpayer*** will be responsible for 80% of the stranded costs ($9+ billion if all 6 plants eligible are canceled).

and **you the taxpayer** will pony up $$$mega-millions$$$ to pay for the disposal of the spent fuel that **you the taxpayer*** paid for that generated the electricity from the nuke that **you the taxpayer*** built and paid for every month on your electric bill and on April 15th.

and, this plant will not replace any existing coal-fired plants or lead to the cancellation of any of the ~100 coal-fired plants in development.


So thank you again Dick Cheney and your wonnerful Energy Task Force and our marvelous bought-and-paid-for-by-Big-Energy GOP Congress.

A Red Letter Day indeed and a HUGH!!!1111 victory for GOP energy policy.

:puke:

[Oerdin]

7. Very good news.

Either we keep burning coal or we copy the French and Japanese and move to nuclear. This is much better for the environment in the long run and helps us fight global warming.

[NNadir]

8. Well it's a start in the right direction.

Given that we've had people predicting the death of nuclear power for almost 30 years - even as nuclear production has risen - it's a beginning.

It will slow - but without a much more massive effort will probably not stop - our demise.

[dcfirefighter]

9. Domestic Manufacturing Base

Unfortunately, our country's tax codes prefer income from speculation over income from production. We tax jobs, built capital, and productivity far more than we tax speculuation, pollution, and using natural resources.

Power generated by wind, solar, and even nuclear is almost completely due to labor-built capital: fuel costs are negligible (one must pay for windy/sunny sites or uranium ore - but in any case it's a much smaller proportion of cost than that found in fossil fuel power).

Power generated by gas, oil, and coal are largely due to nature-provided fuel - what Adam Smith and Karl Marx called 'Land'.

Property taxes add 15-35% to the cost of building things.
Payroll taxes add 15% to the cost of labor, income taxes add 25% to the cost of labor: all the engineering, environmental work, marketing, skilled manufacturing, and unskilled labor costs face a 40% premium, raising the cost of building most things by 10-15%.
We give tax breaks (depletion allowances, etc.) for extracting fossil fuel.
We allow fossil plants to avoid half (or more) of their costs by ignoring their emissions - that is making everyone ELSE pay for dumping their carbon, mercury, ash, etc.

So our wind / solar / hydro / nuclear plants face as much as a 50% cost increase over what price the engineers, construction workers, machinists, etc. are willing to provide them for.

This effect is also apparent in other manufacturing sectors: it's simply a better tax deal to make your money by manipulating real estate, loans, insurance, licenses, etc. than it is to actually build something.

It makes no sense whatsoever to tax labor and produced 'goods' while not taxing the 'bads' like pollution and resource exploitation. But as long as we do so, we'll have unemployment, pollution, etc. Also, what employment we have will be based more on your ability to exploit rather than your ability to create: Bankers, Loan Brokers, and Financial Speculators will be in demand, while Engineers, Scientists, and Machinists won't.

[NNadir]

10. I never thought about it in exactly that way, but you have a point. n/t