Founding a Foundry

One thing we've mentioned here a few times is that a nuclear renaissance is going to require some oomph from the steel industry if the parts necessary to build a plant are going to be built in the United States. Well, here it comes, via the, ahem, French:

France's Areva SA said it is forming a joint venture with Northrop Grumman Corp. to build nuclear reactor vessels, steam generators and other pieces of heavy equipment at Northrop's shipyards at Newport News, Va., a sign that the planned construction of new nuclear reactors in the U.S. could help stimulate the country's manufacturing sector.

The $360 million investment in Areva Newport News LLC will result in construction of a 300,000 square-foot manufacturing and engineering facility that will support U.S. sales of Areva's nuclear reactor, called the "evolutionary power reactor," or EPR. Areva is seeking to get the reactor design certified ...

You have to pay good cash money to see the rest of the story on the Wall Street Journal site, but here's AREVA:

« AREVA Newport News s’inscrit dans le renouveau nucléaire américain », a déclaré Anne Lauvergeon, Présidente du Directoire d’AREVA. « AREVA s’est fixé comme ambition de construire un tiers du ...

Oops!

Let's try again:

“AREVA Newport News is powerful evidence of the reality of the U.S. nuclear energy resurgence and our commitment to it,” said AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon. “AREVA intends to build one-third of all new reactors around the world and at least seven in the United States."

AREVA already does this kind of work in France, but the Northrop Grumman connection helps create jobs in this country and leverages the latter's skills in fabbing big pieces - think shipbuilding, sub-genus nuclear ships and submarines - to get the effort up and running quickly.

This is very, very good news - a piece of the puzzle now fitted into place. Our jigsaw is green and getting greener.

La plume de ma tante est sur le table. Or something.