Friday, April 11, 2008

Why can't Canada do nuclear steel forgings?

The only rational course for new nuclear in Ontario is to pick the Westinghouse AP1000. This would work, and be very safe. The only problem is that everybody and their dog want to build these things, and there's only one tired plant in Japan that does the forgings.

It would be cost-effective to slip a company such as this, a billion dollars to increase their forging capacity to 600 tons. Right now, they're only at 15 tons, which makes it quite a stretch! The great thing is that after Ontario, they can export to the world, and we get our money back!

Right now I paint a gloomy picture of future nuclear in Ontario, since I don't believe that the AECL design will actually work. If somebody asks me "OK, smart ass, what's your solution?", then I'm ready for them!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These folks seem to do forgings.

I see that story all over the net and have to wonder if it isn't some kind of 'play' on the Nuc frenzy.

Harold Asmis said...

That other thing is a boiling water reactor, which has no pressure. The Japan people may double capacity, but I think this could be done anywhere.

Anonymous said...

If indeed a mere Billion $ would set up a Canadian company to compete on the global Nuclear PWR Core Pressure vessel market then indeed some rational capitalist would have taken advantage of the opportunity. I guess the market has spoken.

Again I has teh distractions. This! They probably want tuition or something but looks like a good resource.

Anonymous said...

And even more reader flack!!

These Doosan folks built the Yonggwang power plant and it's a PWR! I doubt they'd buy a Japanese Forging.

Harold Asmis said...

If anybody else could do the single forgings, it would be S. Korea. It used to be a very low demand, in fact the company almost went under during the great nuclear plant drought.

I still think we could do it! It would be better to slip a billion in that, rather than get an ACR1000!