NEI Nuclear Notes

The Wall Street Journal has a story about Warren Buffett's pending purchase of Constellation Energy and, particularly from our point of view, its UniStar subsidiary, a nuclear consortia that includes Electricite de France , AREVA and Bechtel . The WSJ has no idea how Buffett might proceed with its Unistar subsidiary: On Thursday, MidAmerican chief executive Greg Abel sounded more enthusiastic about the technology, saying "we're committed to new nuclear." But: Mr. Buffett's sudden emergence raises questions about whether nuclear development, in general, has viability, according to Paul Patterson, head of Glenrock Associates LLC in New York, a research firm. "It's a very cloudy picture," Mr. Patterson says, "And, so far, we don't have anyone making a firm decision to go forward." [We're not sure if he means Buffett, which would be an awfully early call, or the industry, which is plainly false.] What is not fully noted in the sto...

That's what they're aiming for : Areva aims to build more than 100 gigawatts of new nuclear power capacity by 2030, one third of the 344 GW that the company expects to be developed around the world by that date, a spokeswoman said. AREVA's Evolutionary Power Reactor is 1.6 GW therefore 100 GW would equate to 63 new EPRs. Is that doable? Well, if we look back over the past 50 years, the world built more than 120 GW of nuclear capacity in the '70s and more than 200 GW in the '80s. So yes, their goal is definitely doable. Hopefully they will build more than that.