US-based Westinghouse to build 6 nuclear power plants in India

[FBaggins]

Bad title - It's almost certainly six reactors at 2-3 plants. Not six plants.

WASHINGTON: The Nuclear Power Corporation of India and US firm Westinghouse have agreed to begin engineering and site design work immediately for six nuclear power plant reactors in India and conclude contractual arrangements by June 2017, the White House said on Tuesday.

Culminating a decade of partnership on civil nuclear issues, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama during their White House meeting "welcomed" the start of preparatory work on site in India for six reactors to be built by Westinghouse, officials here said.

The two leaders also noted the intention of India and the US Export-Import Bank to work together toward a competitive financing package for the project, the White House said.

...snip...

Obama and Modi also welcomed the announcement by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Westinghouse that engineering and site design work will begin immediately and the two sides will work toward finalising the contractual arrangements by June 2017, the White House said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-based-Westinghouse-to-build-6-nuclear-power-plants-in-India/articleshow/52644065.cms

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Good to see this go forward.

[shadowmayor]

2. No No NO more goddamned nuke plants

What a sad shit-show for India. Solar and wind could easily match the power output of these plants in much less time and no waste to worry about for millennia to come. Just one word - Fukushima. What could go wrong? Fukushima! That's what. Concentrated energy production makes no sense, and the people of India will surely be fucked. Costs will overrun, decommissioning will be in the hundreds of billions and what else could go wrong? Well, check out the never operated Bataan nuclear plant built by Westinghouse in the Philippines. Built on bribes, shoddy work, and in an active volcanic zone. That's Westinghouse for you!!! AND FUKUFUCKINGSHIMA for christsakes!

[NNadir]

3. Bull. The solar industry has spent 40 years at a cost of trillions of dollars to get...

...to less than one exajoule of energy on a planet that consumes 570 each year.

It's nothing more than a front for the gas industry, a toxic nightmare.

While we have lots of poorly educated, tiresome fools prattling on mindlessly about Fukushima, seven million people die each year, every year from air pollution.

Nuclear energy saves lives, and it follows that anti-nuke rhetoric costs lives.

Have a nice evening.

[shadowmayor]

4. Nope

Solar is a front for the gas industry? A toxic nightmare? Poorly educated tiresome fools?

That my friend is some pure corporate unadulterated horseshit propaganda. Nuclear energy is an extremely stupid, concentrated corporate scheme to produce electricity, the risks of which are carried by the citizens of course. And nuclear energy has long been a front for the weapons industry, making the entire idea of nuclear anything more acceptable. And where oh where do you put the waste? Along our continental shelves like the Navy does? In festering containers where the rods are rotting and rusting into a mess like at Hanford? Into our fracking fluids?

I'm for sustainable energy that can be produced by many of us, not in the hands of a few. The less processed uranium on this planet the better off we all are.

I'm educated, I've worked in the mines, and I'm a former SAC weenie quite familiar with our Triad capabilities. I don't prattle mindlessly. And yeah, fucking Fukushima is a complete disaster.

Nuclear energy is not cost effective when you consider the entire life cycle of a plant. It kills people in the process and anti-nuke rhetoric does not cost lives - your syllogism is not complete here.

[NNadir]

5. Here, have an ignore.

I'm a scientist, not a suffer of fools.

Have a nice life.

[shadowmayor]

7. You aren't the only scientist here

There has never been a more heavily subsidized industry in the history of the USA than nuclear energy. Petroleum and coal are also so heavily subsidized that nobody even mentions this any more. External costs like pollution? Never mind. Environmental degradation - oh well. The remnant tailings piles and mines left behind from uranium mining have not been fully or properly dealt with. Think we were in Iraq because they are the turnip capital of the world? After Gingrich and too many democrats went along with de-funding the Super Fund account in SARA, who was left to clean up the corporate messes left behind? We the people. I don't like socialized risk and privatized profits generated at the expense of the population and the people.

I'm sure you think I'm delusional, and that your facts bolster your position. The same could be said of my opinion of your educated views. What I am not is a corporatist. I do not trust giant corporations like Westinghouse, PG&E, or from personal experience Kerr McGee. I also don't genuflect to the powers that be or the authorities in charge who tell us everything is working just fine. And if it has tires or testicles, it will eventually break down. Humans should not be allowed to manage nuclear weapons or power plants.

You may consider me a fool. You know nothing of my education or background. I consider you a knee-bender who believes that nuclear power is the solution rather than the problem. The potential disasters associated with nuclear power plant accidents should give you pause. People aren't all as keen or perhaps competent as yourself, and in any complex facility, people will screw up.

[hunter]

9. The automobile industry is the most subsidized, the most environmentally destructive...

... and the most deadly.

Everyone knows somebody who has been killed or maimed by automobiles, and everyone knows a pretty place that was paved over for automobiles and automobile dependent development, or opened up to car-driving litter-dumping morons with chainsaws, guns, and cans of spray paint.

[pscot]

6. You think nukes are worse than coal?

Because India is opening a huge new coal mining venture in Australia. Concerns about radiation are trivial when measured against the global catastrophe of continued coal burning.

[shadowmayor]

8. No - what would compel you to think I favor coal?

I don't see this as an either or proposition. Should I ask you if you would prefer whale oil? No - I understand that India is going to burn fossil fuels regardless of what lays ahead in the coming decades. I would much rather see large scale wind and solar rolled out rather than waiting a decade or so for a nuke plant to come on-line.

I don't think carbon based fuels are good for much, except for cheap dirty generation of electricity at the expense of current and future generations. 250 years from now, humans will look back upon this era and wonder how we could have possibly burned so much coal and oil to make our machines run and to generate juice? What a travesty. I think they may be rightly appalled and not the least impressed by the piles of nuclear waste left behind and the proliferation of atomic weapons that comes with nuclear power.

Burning carbon is stupid and not sustainable. Boiling water with uranium is dancing with the devil. I don't possess your faith in people to build, run, and maintain nuclear power facilities safely. And the corporations who own these boilers are far more concerned with short-term profits than looking at the bigger picture. I don't trust wall street. I don't trust Westinghouse, NRG, Duke, or GE at all. While their engineers and scientist and technicians may be sharp, they are still humans - hardly infallible beings. Toss in some business assholes to run the show and you've got the makings of a potential disaster - possibly a really devastating fuck-up like Fukushima. That''s all.