Toshiba takes over Westinghouse Electric

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | 10-17-2006 | Patricia Sabatini

[RS_Rider]

Ownership of Westinghouse Electric Co. was transferred from British to Japanese hands yesterday as Toshiba Corp. completed the purchase of the Monroeville-based nuclear power plant company from British Nuclear Fuels PLC for $5.4 billion. An official announcement of the deal was expected this morning. Top officials of Toshiba, who are expected to be in town Friday to speak to Westinghouse employees, have said they intend to keep the company headquartered in Monroeville and retain current management and staff, which number about 3,000 locally and 9,000 worldwide.

[Phsstpok]

This is a very interesting development to me.  I think they wouldn't have done this if they didn't think the US would start building more nuclear power plants relatively shortly.  And Toshiba has some very interesting "micro-nuke" reactor technology that is already deployed in a demonstration project in Alaska.

The thing I always remember about Westinghouse is that it was built up in large part on Nikola Tesla's inventions and the fact that he simply signed away his ongoing payments from the patents when George Westinghouse fell on hard times early on.  There's a book that I've always wanted to get, but just never gotten around to it, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World.  Tesla is apparently a central character in the new movie The Prestige, being played by David Bowie, of all people.  If it lives up to what I've heard about the character from the book that this was made from it could launch a new interest in Tesla.  Everything I know about it says the conflict and interaction among those three men, and others (including Mark Twain, for example) says that it would make a great movie or mini-series.

[RS_Rider]

When you walk down the hall at the energy center, there is a big LCD display that has an image of a map of the USA. It is an animation and graphics of new plants start popping up, mostly in the south east reigon, depicting proposed plants. Hopefully Toshiba knows how to manage projects, from what I experienced, if they approach the new plants as they did the upgrades to the existing plants the competition will crush them. It is only 1979 at the energy center.

[Republicus2001]

Maybe Westinghouse spinning in his grave could be an alternative form of energy!

[Renegade]

We don't need China :

GE has provided advanced and sophisticated technology for nuclear energy for over five decades. Four main product lines support this capability: new reactors, nuclear fuel, reactor services and performance services.

[printhead]

George Westinghouse was American. I grew up in Horseheads, NY
near a Westinghouse plant which made picture tubes for a lot of U.S. television brands. They also made specialized tubes for military satellites. Toshiba took over probably 20 years ago. The satellite tubes became Image Sensing and Technology. With the switch to flat panel displays Toshiba has now vacated. I think Eaton Industries occupies the building now.

[printhead]

I believe that was Hitachi.

[BW2221]

It's amazing what happened to Westinghouse. There was a time when it produced appliances, radios and TVs as well as commercial products.

[Tribune7]

ping

[RS_Rider]

with 10 - 12 proposed units stateside, Westinghouse doesn't need China either. Hopefully they will cater to the domestic need instead of handing their technology to the enemy... we'll see.

[RS_Rider]

Unfortunately I live in a graveyard of industrial giants. The payrolls that used to support Pittsburgh are almost all gone, just the empty manufacturing sites and the crumbling mansions of the powerful men that built them. I only got a glimpse of it as a child and have watched it disappear ever since.

[sefarkas]

And Toshiba has some very interesting "micro-nuke" reactor technology that is already deployed in a demonstration project in Alaska.

If you would carefully read the article you linked to, you would see that the NRC has yet to approve the mini reactor in Alaska.

It will generate power for 30 years before refueling and should be installed before 2010 providing an approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

[Phsstpok]

My bad.

they have the tech, however, which is the interesting part. I knew about the project, did a quick google and linked to the first article I found. I wasn't aware that it had yet to be deployed or even approved. Still, the point of my post is that they have interesting next gen technology and I interpret the acquisition of Westinghouse as positioning them for better access to the US market (think Dubai Ports).

[brityank]

http://www.japanlaw.info/lawletter/april87/fdf.htm

On May 27 1987 the Japanese police arrested two senior executives of Toshiba Machine, who had been in charge of designing and exporting machine tools to the Soviet Union, for selling four nine-axis in 1982-1984 and 4 five-axis milling machines in 1984 to the Soviets, in violation of COCOM provisions. The executives admitted the charges.

[zebra 2]

Tesla, an eccentric and often penniless immigrant from eastern europe, deserves credit for teaching the world how to use alternating electrical current/induction--the basis for ac transformers and the ensuing wide distribution of electricity from a single source. Thomas Edison's nemesis.

[Phsstpok]

Tesla invented the world we live in today.

[Quaid]

I believe that was Hitachi.

Nope. Toshiba sold the sophsticated CNC's to the Soviets. I'll never buy a Toshiba product in my life.

[Nowhere Man]

Unfortunately I live in a graveyard of industrial giants. The payrolls that used to support Pittsburgh are almost all gone, just the empty manufacturing sites and the crumbling mansions of the powerful men that built them. I only got a glimpse of it as a child and have watched it disappear ever since.

Yeah, me too, I live here in Pittsburgh and I'm turned 40 this year. I do remember all or most of the industry here at one time. Westinghouse had their labs here in the Pittsburgh area, and IIRC, back in the 1950's, they were working on things like electroluminescent panels. I remember the row of the old Westinghouse logo in Pittsburgh's Northside where the computer controlled the lighting of the logos and bits and pieces of them would light up randomly. My father was an industrial photographer and he went to Westinghouse a lot, even been to their atomic labs. One time, he told me that he accidently knocked a canister open, had he got the contents on him (very radioactive), I might have not been born. I also remember J&L, US Steel, Blawnox, Eazor Express (my aunt worked for them), Mesta Machine, Babcock and Wilcox and others.

[Nowhere Man]

Unfortunately I live in a graveyard of industrial giants. The payrolls that used to support Pittsburgh are almost all gone, just the empty manufacturing sites and the crumbling mansions of the powerful men that built them. I only got a glimpse of it as a child and have watched it disappear ever since.

Yeah, me too, I live here in Pittsburgh and I'm turned 40 this year. I do remember all or most of the industry here at one time. Westinghouse had their labs here in the Pittsburgh area, and IIRC, back in the 1950's, they were working on things like electroluminescent panels. I remember the row of the old Westinghouse logo in Pittsburgh's Northside where the computer controlled the lighting of the logos and bits and pieces of them would light up randomly. My father was an industrial photographer and he went to Westinghouse a lot, even been to their atomic labs. One time, he told me that he accidently knocked a canister open, had he got the contents on him (very radioactive), I might have not been born. I also remember J&L, US Steel, Blawnox, Eazor Express (my aunt worked for them), Mesta Machine, Babcock and Wilcox and others.

[AFreeBird]

Everything I know about it says the conflict and interaction among those three men, and others (including Mark Twain, for example) says that it would make a great movie or mini-series.

Tesla and Edison especially did not get along. Tesla considered Edison a "tinkerer", whereas Tesla was a univeristy educated Electrical Engineer. That, and he thought Edison's idea of DC power distribution to be wrong. Thankfully, Tesla and AC won out.

[AFreeBird]

Nope, it was Toshiba.