Getting It Wrong on Westinghouse and Toshiba

Over at National Review's The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez is pointing folks to a post by a blogger named Right Wing Dad who is complaining about Toshiba's bid to purchase Westinghouse, the U.S.-based but British-owned nuclear reactor manufacturer:

Toshiba would like to become the world's leader on nuclear technology. You see, there's this little tiny country to Japan's west that is flush with cash and hungry for electricity. Toshiba is "betting China's nuclear power market will balloon. Toshiba has not built a nuclear plant yet in China but runs operations in 63 locations there, including sales outlets, distribution centers and production plants, employing 20,000 people."

So, now, the US technology of building nuclear power plants is going to end up in China. Engineers from Toshiba will know what we've done wrong and will likely improve on our designs...which I'm fine with. But again, who in China will end up with this information? Do all terrorists have to speak Arabic? How about North Korean spies in Japan? That's a real possibility.

There's something we ought to make clear here from the beginning: No matter who won the bidding for Westinghouse, even if it was an American company like General Electric, those same AP-1000 reactors would still be marketed to China.

If China was prevented from purchasing the Westinghouse design, it would likely turn to a number of other designs, like AREVA's EPR, General Electric's ESBWR or even a Russian design.

Did I forget to mention that China already has a significant fleet of nuclear reactors? And we ought to be relieved that they do.

When we look at international energy policy going forward, the big issue has to be the growing energy requirements for both China and India. And it only makes sense for nuclear to be a significant part of the equation in both countries. According to an OPEC report, China already consumes 25% of global oil demand, and that demand curve won't be going down anytime soon. And every single ounce of energy China and India are able to generate with nuclear energy, means those nations won't have to use fossil fuels, primarily coal and natural gas, to do it.

The bottom line: Encouraging the deployment of new nuclear in China and India means less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions on a global basis. It means less competition for supplies of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. It's simply in our interest to encourage these two countries to embrace nuclear energy.

Let's get back to Right Wing Dad:

Here's another threat...from the article above, "It plans to maintain at least a 51 percent stake in Monroeville, Penn.-based Westinghouse, and is in talks with several companies for minority stakes." UMMMM...don't you think we should have a clue on who these other companies are?

As to the minority partners,
reports have indicated that a number of Japanese and U.S.-based companies, including the Shaw Group, are interested in bidding.

All of this information is public, you just have to know where to look.

For the record, I'm for Dubai taking over our ports. I don't think it's as big a deal as everyone else does. But, let's take a closer look at Westinghouse. As of now, I say, "Hell, NO!"

A number of commenters at his own blog have already taken him to task for that conclusion:

China already has two Nuclear Power plants, and Nuclear weapons. You're writing as if China getting nuclear materials is some major event---they've already got it, and if you're worried about what they're doing with it, it's too late.

(snip)

Westinghouse doesn't operate nuclear power plants - utilities do. W designs pressurized water reactors and auxiliaries, sometimes offering more.

Physical security is very site specific for obvious reasons. Unless W provides security design services (maybe they do, but I'm not aware of it), their personnel need not know anything of local security beyond what is necessary to comply with its requirements.

Security requirements are set by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This includes control of documentation that could be used to compromise security ("safeguards information").

I worked as an engineer at 4 different sites over a decade and I never had cause to see any such documentation. It's treated as highly classified info, with specially trained clerks, shredders, safes, the works.

Here's hoping cooler heads prevail on this story.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Electricity, Technology, Westinghouse, Toshiba, AP-1000