Reading Beyond the Headlines

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an article the other day with the headline “Westinghouse backs off small nuclear plants”. My first reaction was a jump for joy and a shout of “yessss”.  But then I read the article.

Since Westinghouse and Ameren can’t seem to get the U.S. Taxpayers to join them in this venture they have decided to “reprioritize”.  The Westinghouse-Ameren SMR venture has lost out twice in their bid to get a DOE grant. Now don’t get misled folks, whenever the DOE finances a project it is with your taxpayer dollars.

It is a reality that nuclear facilities are not financially viable and companies need a “partner” that is willing to front the start-up costs. The State of Missouri was sold such a bill of goods by Westinghouse and Ameren last year when the Governor and the University of Missouri backed this project.

The project was to be only 3 to 5 SMR’s. But it was going to be the economic savior of Missouri’s suffering economy.

Now that Westinghouse-Ameren has lost out the truth of the project seems to come to light. The CEO of Westinghouse makes this little revelation:

"Unless you're going to build 30 to 50 of them, you're not going to make your money back," Mr. Roderick said.

And in the end it is all about making money isn’t is? Hmmm…

You can read the full story here.