Bulgaria awards contract for 2 new nuclear plants to Russian firm.

[NNadir]

MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly Atomstroiexport has won a tender to build the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria, the southeast European country's electricity monopoly said Monday.

The board of Bulgaria's National Electric Company (NEK) said it had selected Atomstroiexport to build two 1,000 megawatt reactors for the NPP in Belene, about 150 miles from the country's capital, Sofia.

A spokesman for Atomstroiexport said the company also planned to attract the French firm Areva NP and Germany's Siemens to help build the plant.

The spokesman said the NPP's first unit was planned to be launched by 2011, and the second in 2013.

The Czech Republic's Skoda and British-American consortium Westinghouse were the other two bidders for the NPP's construction.

Atomstroiexport implements intergovernmental agreements to build nuclear facilities abroad. It is the world's only company simultaneously building five nuclear power units, in China, India and Iran.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20061030/55250396.html

Neighboring Romania is building four nuclear reactors using Canadian CANDU technology.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x69318

I was kind of pulling for Westinghouse on this one.

[MadMaddie]

1. This is a direct impact of the * administrations policies....

American companies will continue to lose out on these type of contracts...and so it begins folks.....

[NNadir]

2. Westinghouse's nuclear arm is now a subsidiary of Toshiba.

The acquistion of Westinghouse was completed a few weeks ago. Westinghouse was previously a unit of British Nuclear Fuels.

It hasn't been an American company for quite some time.

Americans are not much of a factor in nuclear power plant manufacture. The world leaders are the Japanese, the French, the Russians and the Canadians. The Indians have a knock off of the Canadian reactor, but I don't know that they are exporting any of their reactors. Most of their business seems to be domestic.

Interestingly the other bidder for the Belene plants was a Czech firm, Skoda. I'm not familiar with them, to be honest.

The parts for the first nuclear reactors to be constructed in many decades in the US have been ordered from France.

The only two nuclear companies in the US that could conceivably be involved in nuclear reactor design are General Atomics, which has not built a reactor in years - although they have some still intriguing high temperature designs that could be used to make liquid motor fuels and GE Nuclear - which partners extensively with Toshiba.

General Atomics was responsible for one of the least reliable nuclear reactors ever built in the US, the Fort St. Vrain facility. It was an operational disaster and was eventually converted to a natural gas plant. Many people nonetheless take the General Atomics design, the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGCR) very seriously, mostly, again, because of the motor fuel option. The famous "pebble bed" reactor, of which I'm not a great fan, is a modification of the HTGCR design.

[MadMaddie]

3. I didn't know that?

What industries do American companies lead in? It is troubling to me that only foreign countries are leading in some of the technologies...

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Porn.

Think that's about it, these days. :D

[MadMaddie]

5. I would laugh if I weren't so sad....

Our scientist are leaving in droves because of this administration....our schools are failing our kids...sigh....will we have more great American inventors?

[phantom power]

6. That's humiliating.