The U.S. Nuclear Renaissance: Forgings Now!

On Tuesday, I wrote about a nuclear fabrication shop in Indiana. Today, there was an equally exciting press release from UniStar Nuclear:

UniStar Companies First to Procure Components for First Potential Nuclear Power Plant in Nearly Three Decades

Constellation Energy ... and AREVA today announced that through their jointly developed UniStar business model they have entered into agreements to procure the long lead materials necessary to construct the first potential U.S. nuclear power plant of a planned U.S EPR fleet. Of the several U.S. companies considering the construction of new nuclear plants, Constellation Energy and AREVA, through the UniStar business model, are the first to procure the necessary raw materials.

This procurement includes 44 heavy forgings for a planned U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) to be supplied by AREVA. The forgings - needed for the reactor pressure vessel and steam generators - will be produced at international facilities. The completed forgings will be manufactured into final components at BWX Technologies' (BWXT) facility in Mount Vernon, Ind., or AREVA's facility in Chalon-St. Marcel.

(My guess is that the "international facilities" that will produce the forgings are at Japan Steel Works.)

My initial reaction this news was that these guys have a lot of guts. After all, they don't have an early site permit, and the design certification papers for the EPR have not been submitted to the NRC yet. One of my coworkers noted, however, that it might not be as big a risk as you would think. After all, there is an EPR under construction in Finland, and one is in the works for France. If nuclear licensing proves too cumbersome in the U.S., UniStar can probably sell the forgings in Europe, maybe even at a profit. A standardized design and a global market can be handy.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Electricity, Environment, BWX Technologies, AREVA, UniStar Nuclear