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Westinghouse nuclear plant design OK'd (for China, not U.S.A.)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Tuesday, September 14, 2004 | Steve Massey

Posted on 09/14/2004 12:20:33 PM PDT by Willie Green

Westinghouse Electric Co. received final design approval yesterday for a new nuclear reactor design, clearing the way for the Monroeville-based company to bid for plants China wants to build to meet its growing energy needs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission certified Westinghouse's AP1000, a safer, quicker-to-build pressurized water reactor that can generate about 1,100 megawatts of electricity -- about the same as existing nuclear plants -- with 35 percent fewer pumps, 50 percent fewer valves, 70 percent less wiring and 80 percent less piping.

Booming China needs more power and, confronting global demands to reduce pollution generated by coal-burning plants, is readying a call for bids for four more nuclear plants. The country already has nine in operation and two under construction.

Chinese officials told Vice President Dick Cheney during his visit there in April that they envision having 24 to 32 nuclear plants in operation by 2020. Cheney pushed for the use of Westinghouse technology during his visit -- a step that could ease trade pressures between the two countries in the wake of China's growing trade surplus with the United States.

~~~~SNIP~~~~

While the NRC's final design approval for the AP1000 will allow Westinghouse to build a plant in China, it still must receive federal design certification, expected early next year, before one can be built in the United States.

(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: china; electricity; energy; nuclearpower
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Once again, the Bush Administration blatantly demonstrates that its priorities are to develop foreign nuclear infrastructure that is superior to our own.
1 posted on 09/14/2004 12:20:35 PM PDT by Willie Green
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To: AAABEST; afraidfortherepublic; A. Pole; arete; billbears; Digger; DoughtyOne; ex-snook; ...

ping


2 posted on 09/14/2004 12:21:21 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
thanks to the "greens and lawyers" we'll never have another major nuke project or major airport made.

But at least the snail darter and other little creatures won't be put out.

3 posted on 09/14/2004 12:23:52 PM PDT by Dick Vomer (liberals suck......... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.)
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To: Willie Green

I'm still mad because Offshore Power got killed by the greenies. And the magnificant Westinghouse crane, the largest in the world, was sold to China.


4 posted on 09/14/2004 12:24:19 PM PDT by js1138 (Speedy architect of perfect labyrinths.)
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To: Willie Green

We whine about how you can't get anything in WalMart that's not made in China. The Chinese whine about how you can't get a nuclear power station that's not made in USA.


5 posted on 09/14/2004 12:24:33 PM PDT by megatherium
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To: Dick Vomer

"But at least the snail darter and other little creatures won't be put out."

Heck! IF they "don't put out" there won't be any of them left!

hehehhe


6 posted on 09/14/2004 12:26:06 PM PDT by steplock
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To: Dick Vomer
thanks to the "greens and lawyers" we'll never have another major nuke project or major airport made.

The invertebrate in the White House doesn't care one iota about that, or developing clean-coal technology or drilling in ANWR.
As long as he can keep the greenies off-balance with his bogus H2 junk science, screw American consumers with Enron deregulation, and use our military to secure our dependency on OPECker oil, he's more than happy to trade away our most advanced energy technology.

7 posted on 09/14/2004 12:41:45 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green

No, there isn't any kind of conspiracy here. This is more of a formality. The AP1000 is an uprated version of the AP600, which received its NRC Design Certification in 1999. China has its own certification/approval process.

The real time limiting factor is coming from potential buyers. There is a consortium (NuStart) of nine utilities working with the DOE to test the NRC's process for obtaining a Construction and Operating License (COL) for new plants. NuStart intends to submit a COL application in 2008, and expects the NRC to decide in 2010. Once the COL is obtained, then plants can be built.

The greenies don't have to go crazy until 2008.


8 posted on 09/14/2004 12:43:44 PM PDT by kidd
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To: megatherium
"The Chinese whine about how you can't get a nuclear power station that's not made in USA."

At least a nuclear power station that doesn't explode, spreading radiation over thousands of square miles like the Russkies.

9 posted on 09/14/2004 1:09:39 PM PDT by GunnyHartman (Islam + Dubya = Waslam)
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To: Willie Green

Make that foreign infrastructure in general. By the time he's out of office, China, Iraq, Mexico and Afghanistan will have better economies than ours. Ship them more jobs, put more of us out of work and bankrupt our economy. If the economies of other countries are so much more important than our own to the wealth of Bush/Kerry friends, we should run them all out of washington and start fresh.


10 posted on 09/14/2004 1:19:09 PM PDT by Havoc (.)
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To: Willie Green
Once again, the Bush Administration blatantly demonstrates that its priorities are to develop foreign nuclear infrastructure that is superior to our own.

Willie, Willie, Willie. Bush is the first president in 20 years that had the stones to publicly call for more nuclear power. Your buddies, the left and the greens that like light rail systems are the one's who won't allow nukes. Filing all those lawsuits to block stuff.

Willie, you need to get out more.

11 posted on 09/14/2004 1:23:49 PM PDT by narby (What's the provenance, Dan?)
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To: kidd
NuStart intends to submit a COL application in 2008, and expects the NRC to decide in 2010. Once the COL is obtained, then plants can be built.

That's what drives me crazy. Spending all that time and money just pushing paper around on a technology that's existed for 50 years. Ok, it's advanced a bit. But the science is the same.

From 1940 to 1944, US high tech went from a B-17 bomber with guys firing guns out open windows at -20 degrees. To a pressurized bomber with a half dozen CRT displays, analog computers to electricly track guns and compute bullet drop and windage, radar targeting, electronic counter measures, I could go on and on. But now, we've got to wait 4 years just to complete the application paperwork, and another 2 years thinking about it just to get permission.

Sheesh.

12 posted on 09/14/2004 1:31:16 PM PDT by narby (What's the provenance, Dan?)
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To: Willie Green

Not really. The 20th or 200th edition of anything usually costs less.


13 posted on 09/14/2004 1:39:36 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: narby
Bush is the first president in 20 years that had the stones to publicly call for more nuclear power.

Ronald Reagan would have never traded our nuclear technology to the Chicoms.

Your buddies, the left and the greens that like light rail systems are the one's who won't allow nukes. Filing all those lawsuits to block stuff.

Wrong again, narby.
YOUR left-wing buddies prefer converting Rails-to-trails.
Now stuff your pinko tail between your legs and skidaddle.

14 posted on 09/14/2004 1:45:29 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
Once again, the Bush Administration blatantly demonstrates that its priorities are to develop foreign nuclear infrastructure that is superior to our own.

The root of the problem is that companies in China have more technological freedom (and lower taxes) than companies in the United States where the passions of the mob dictate acceptable technologies based on feelings not facts.

15 posted on 09/14/2004 1:45:41 PM PDT by AdamSelene235
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
The 20th or 200th edition of anything usually costs less.

Not when you don't have any money left to pay for it.

FEDERAL DEFICIT REALITY-U.S. Treasury Shows Actual 2003 Federal Deficit at $3.7 Trillion

16 posted on 09/14/2004 1:49:05 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Alan Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
What is your main point?

That Bush is a commie? or that the federal deficit is his fault? or what.

If we know how to make a nuclear plant, and "we" install it. Then we know it's capabilities and the ability to monitor and destroy it. That's why "we" helped them. It benefits all of us if the Chinese go nuclear and leave oil to the US for energy production.

We've got to many lawyers and enviro-communists sucking at the court's nipple to put up a nuclear plant.

Now as far as the "national" debt or deficit, you're getting caught in the zero-sum game. How much debt do you have? When do you expect to pay it off? If you were immortal and could continually "borrow" into the future would you? as long as you knew that cash flow would continue to grow? That's why the myth about Clinton getting us into the black was as much BS as Bush getting us into the red. If you look at the budget carefully we go "bankrupt" when social security payments are do in about 25-28 years. That's if the population doesn't change it's current demographic configuration. It's a Ponzi scheme.. with a little musical chairs thrown in. The last politician in power before it all comes down is the "loser" who'll be remembered as "Herbert Hoover".

If you want the "debt" or the "deficit" to go down then you should be cheering for every American based corporation that outsources to cheaper labor and for every product we sell that is a "big ticket" item.... like a nuclear power plant.

of course that's only my opinion..... and I could be wrong.

17 posted on 09/14/2004 2:27:59 PM PDT by Dick Vomer (liberals suck......... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.)
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To: BlackElk

Ping.

Your friend in Rockford may be interested in this news item.


18 posted on 09/14/2004 2:58:15 PM PDT by ninenot (Minister of Membership, TomasTorquemadaGentlemen'sClub)
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To: Willie Green

WTF? I actually worked at the Westinghouse Energy Center, they've been working on improved reactors and approval for them for DECADES... has nothing to do with BUSH.. has to do with the fact Nuclear Reactors haven't been built in the US in decades, but technology continues to improve.....

Westinghouse Energy designs develops and builds nuclear power plants, among other things. Its their business. Blame the envirowackos on the fact that we still rely far to heavily on costly polluting coal generated power.


19 posted on 09/14/2004 3:01:16 PM PDT by HamiltonJay ("You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.")
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To: GunnyHartman

As you know, the Russkies built DUAL-PURPOSE nukes; one of the purposes was to create weapons-grade uranium.

Therefore, the Chernobyl plant's exterior was built of corrugated metal and there were plenty of entry-exit points for bomb-plant trucks to haul stuff.

Further, the plant was a "go-critical-by-itself" design using ancient carbon technology.

But the Russkies, just like the RedChinese, don't really give a damn about a few million citizens...


20 posted on 09/14/2004 3:03:25 PM PDT by ninenot (Minister of Membership, TomasTorquemadaGentlemen'sClub)
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