Posted on 02/28/2006 9:09:06 PM PST by demlosers
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on Tuesday said he became chairman of the U.S. unit of Areva, the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, because he wants to foster a new fleet of nuclear power plants in the United States.
"The current fleet of nuclear plants provides 20 percent of our power generation," said Abraham in a telephone interview. "If we don't build any new plants, at the rate of growth in our demand, that figure will be 14 percent by 2020."
Abraham has long been an advocate of nuclear power, which he said makes him a good fit as Paris-based Areva, seeks to expand its position in the United States.
Areva, owned by the French government, competes for design and construction of power plants mainly with Westinghouse and General Electric Co.'s unit GE Energy.
Westinghouse is being acquired by Toshiba Corp. for $5.4 billion.
Abraham, 53, was a Republican U.S. senator from Michigan, before serving as energy secretary in the first Bush administration from 2001-2005.
He says he will be a "non-executive" chairman and will not immerse himself in the day-to-day operation of Areva Inc., which is the U.S. unit of Areva.
"Secretary Abraham has been one of the true leaders for the advancement of nuclear power in America, and indeed, around the world," said Anne Lauvergeon, chairman of Areva. "He is well-respected and offers our company unique insights and authority."
Abraham declined to say how many nuclear plants he expects to be built in the United States. Industry analysts have said that 10 to 15 nuclear units will be built by 2020. And the head of Areva's international division, Jean-Jacques Gautrot, said he thinks at least 800 nuclear reactors will be built in the next 25 to 35 years.
Any new plants will be units at the site of existing ones in the United States, Abraham said.
"It's likely to be that way for a variety of reasons," Abraham said. "The site has usually gone through the challenge posed by having that facility. The public in those communities is probably more receptive to additional units."
Abraham, 53, heads The Abraham Group, a Washington-based consulting firm focusing on energy issues.
Areva Inc. has 40 locations in 20 U.S. states and had 2005 revenues of $1.8 billion.
Areva says it is the only company in the world involved in the full cycle of nuclear power activity, from mining uranium to its enrichment, fuel production, reactor design, construction and maintenance, fuel processing and recycling.
Do we have a security problem here.
Oops, forgot link:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-01T023840Z_01_N28307120_RTRUKOC_0_US-UTILITIES-AREVA-ABRAHAM.xml&archived=False
If Cuba were to develop nuclear power plants the Left would celebrate Castro's achievement.
Whatever happened with that plant Cuba was working on?
Well given that you'll fuel it with Canadian uranium (more than likely) I wouldn't panic too much.:) People might have issues with the French, but they make one hell of a reactor.
Cuba’s unfinished power source
Never finished. But if it had, nary a peep would have been heard from the enviro's.
Well, the French have an advantage in that they told NIMBY'ing citizens to get bent. 3/4 of the energy in France is Nuclear-produced, and running that many cookers means they have a commerical edge. If the United States had taken a similar approach in the 1970's, you would have had a similar edge, commerically.
Technically, an American reactor is a remarkable piece of
machinery, and the arrival of smaller modular designs is only improving this. It's all a matter of money and priorities.
As a sidenote, Canada makes a hell of a reactor too.:)
Speaking of which, did you see the little movie on the Areva website?
http://www.us.areva.com/ad-campaign-film.php
Nuclear juice has never been so darn CUTE!
That Areva ad on the page you linked is pretty funny. It is a much shorter version of one they ran a year ago that showed Uranium being dug up in Canada, then processed in large ships as it went over to China, where they put it into reactors cores to supply the city. They've made the ad shorter and cut out the ship part, but you can tell the the futuristic city they show has an Asian look to it, even though they try to pass it off as Kansas City in the zoom out.
One thing I've always admired about the French is that they have never put up with any protesters or other bullcrap getting in the way of their nuclear ambitions, either weapons or electrical power. Since the French and the Japanese have the best record of building and running nuke plants, it should not be surprising that all of the American talent in this area has withered on the vine and is all sold out to these two countries.
Now if we want nuke plants, we have to put up with Sierra Club lawsuits and then outsource the job to get it done. Talk about adding insult to injury...
Next item on the agenda -- reprocessing of spent fuel. Bet you guys didn't know that only about 5% of the fuel is actually used up during a "cycle" (which is approximately 6 years). That is, only about 5% of the enriched uranium is "burned" before the fuel assembly starts to become too inefficient for power generation.
Reprocessing that fuel would allow the US to pull out the 95% unused fuel and repackage it in new fuel assemblies. But Jimmy Carter forbid that, so we are left with lots and lots of nuclear waste with usuable fuel still in it.
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