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How two cutting edge U.S. nuclear projects bankrupted Westinghouse

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thackney:
How two cutting edge U.S. nuclear projects bankrupted Westinghouse
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westinghouse-nucle-idUSKBN17Y0CQ
May 2, 2017

In 2012, construction of a Georgia nuclear power plant stalled for eight months as engineers waited for the right signatures and paperwork needed to ship a section of the plant from a factory hundreds of miles away.

The delay, which a nuclear specialist monitoring the construction said was longer than the time required to make the section, was emblematic of the problems that plagued Westinghouse Electric Co as it tried an ambitious new approach to building nuclear power plants.

The approach - building pre-fabricated sections of the plants before sending them to the construction sites for assembly - was supposed to revolutionize the industry by making it cheaper and safer to build nuclear plants.

But Westinghouse miscalculated the time it would take, and the possible pitfalls involved, in rolling out its innovative AP1000 nuclear plants, according to a close examination by Reuters of the projects.

Those problems have led to an estimated $13 billion in cost overruns and left in doubt the future of the two plants, the one in Georgia and another in South Carolina.

Overwhelmed by the costs of construction, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy on March 29, while its corporate parent, Japan's Toshiba Corp, is close to financial ruin. It has said that controls at Westinghouse were "insufficient."

The miscalculations underscore the difficulties facing a global industry that aims to build about 160 reactors and is expected to generate around $740 billion in sales of equipment in services in the coming decade, according to nuclear industry trade groups.

The sector's problems extend well beyond Westinghouse. France's Areva is being restructured, in part due to delays and huge cost overruns at a nuclear plant the company is building in Finland.

Even though Westinghouse's approach of pre-fabricated plants was untested, the company offered aggressive estimates of the cost and time it would take to build its AP1000 plants in order to win future business from U.S. utility companies. It also misjudged regulatory hurdles and used a construction company that lacked experience with the rigor and demands of nuclear work, according to state and federal regulators' reports, bankruptcy filings and interviews with current and former employees....

IsailedawayfromFR:
A $13 billion cost over-run would bankrupt almost any company, save maybe a Solar or Wind plant that uses public money instead of private money.

Fishrrman:
Start building coal-fired plants again.

Nuclear power (as I mentioned yesterday in another post) is all-but dead.
Nobody wants to get involved any longer.

Coal is cheaper, the plants can go up quickly, better for the economy (mining and transportation), the electricity produced is cheaper.

And the emissions are no longer a problem that they once were, due to cleaner-burning technology.

Joe Wooten:
I work for Westinghouse. It's both more complex than the article states, but the simple  answer is senior management screw-ups by guys who had a serious lobotomies when they moved up the ranks into those positions from Engineering. They let a con man convince them to use his newly acquired AE (S&W) firm along with his piping manufacturer to build the modules and design the plant. We had very little construction management and manufacturing experience (as did S&W) and tried to do too much without going to one of experienced firms (Fluor or Bechtel) for help.

Site construction productivity is abysmal. I hope Fluor can get it moving again.

ConstitutionRose:

--- Quote from: Joe Wooten on May 06, 2017, 11:46:20 am ---I work for Westinghouse. It's both more complex than the article states, but the simple  answer is senior management screw-ups by guys who had a serious lobotomies when they moved up the ranks into those positions from Engineering. They let a con man convince them to use his newly acquired AE (S&W) firm along with his piping manufacturer to build the modules and design the plant. We had very little construction management and manufacturing experience (as did S&W) and tried to do too much without going to one of experienced firms (Fluor or Bechtel) for help.

Site construction productivity is abysmal. I hope Fluor can get it moving again.

--- End quote ---

I was unaware of this situation.  I worked at Sequoyah for a decade.  Westinghouse was considered a reliable partner.

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