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Toshiba to Pay $5.4 Billion for Westinghouse 226

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the much-longer-laptop-battery-life dept.
Philip writes "Business electronics firm Toshiba is bidding for 100% control of Westinghouse - famous for making blenders and LCD televisions, but principally in the business of building nuclear reactors. 'By 2020 the market for nuclear power generation is expected to grow 50 percent compared to 2005,' Toshiba CEO Nishida said at a London news conference. 'Toshiba is responding to this challenge by acquiring Westinghouse.'"
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Toshiba to Pay $5.4 Billion for Westinghouse More

Toshiba to Pay $5.4 Billion for Westinghouse

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  • Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by metternich ( 888601 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:28PM (#14654328)
    Nuclear Powered Laptops?

    • Re:Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)

      by 20th Century Boy ( 903797 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:30PM (#14654348)
      Gives a new meaning to the term "Blue Screen of Death".

    • Re:Does this mean... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by baryon351 ( 626717 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:33PM (#14654380)
      Small, safe and convenient [danaquarium.com] nuclear laptop batteries, right here right now. :)

      • Small, safe and convenient nuclear laptop batteries, right here right now. :)

        Heh, heh - hoax but nice pipedream^_^ The first tip-off is the skimpy details of the innerworkings of the battery in the article, but this made me laugh:

        "XCell-N is a nuclear powered laptop battery that can provide between seven and eight thousand times the life of a normal laptop battery - that's more than three and a half years worth of continuous power.............

        While Shephard says they are committed to safety, he does not re

        • Re:Does this mean... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by kesuki ( 321456 )
          there Are nuclear powered batteries, that provide 10+ years of continuous power for devices such as pacemakers. The amount of radioactive materials are so slight, that the simple battery casing provides an effective shield meaning that no more radiation thanone would recieve from normal background rads will escape it. however, such batteries are a far cry from providing enough power for a laptop.

          as far as generating electricity from radioactive materials goes there are two methodologies involved a. the ten

      • uhhh... no. (Score:3, Informative)

        by temojen ( 678985 )
        While XCell-N has obvious advantages in the area of time between battery replacements, Shephard advises there are some minor disadvantages. "Due to government regulations, use of a laptop powered by XCell-N is prohibited in airports, government offices, schools, hospitals, public transport, hotels, residential areas or within 12 miles of food preparation areas.". XCell-N also weighs substantially more than a regular laptop battery, coming in at 7 kilograms (15.4 lbs).
    • Actually that is on my wishlist. Can we not figure out how to make nuke powered batteries that can power our devices for years at a time? I'm certainly not an expert on nuke power but I'd think you could capture the power from the radioactive isotopes breaking down. That'd be awesome so long as it didn't cause cancer or some such nasty stuff.
    • Not on my lap they're not. I need those bits in later life! (Cue obligatory comments re /. and girlfriend)
  • Just what we need- another player in the household nuclear fission market. At least Apple is still trying to acquire that cold fusion outfit.
    • China is going to turn to nuclear in a major way for it's energy needs soon and will be building a ton of plants.
      You ain't seen nothing yet.

  • Boy times change (Score:3, Informative)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) * <seebert42@gmail.com> on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:29PM (#14654335) Homepage Journal
    When I was a kid, Westinghouse was REFRIDGERATORS!

  • National Security (Score:5, Interesting)

    by qwertphobia ( 825473 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:33PM (#14654387)

    Does the DOE have any limitations on foreign corporations handling parts of our Nuclear Energy programs?

    Is anyone else a little concerned about this?

  • Not necessarily (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:33PM (#14654389) Homepage Journal
    There's a campaign to ban energy-wasteful technology [banthebulb.org] where cheaper, superior alternatives exist. In the unlikely event that the campaign achieves a meaningful result, America could dispose of several existing power stations without the need for nuclear stations to replace them.


    (Better yet, if the campaign succeeds AND one of the two fusion reactor projects produces cheap energy, we could eliminate all conventional and all fission reactors entirely and have just two or three fusion reactors per continent.)

    • (snip) ...one of the two fusion reactor projects produces cheap energy, we could eliminate all conventional and all fission reactors entirely and have just two or three fusion reactors per continent.

      Hardly - the problem of transmission and distribution remain; plus what happens when 1/3 of your power goes offline unexpectedly?
      • Use extremely high voltages and very low current. Power loss is proportional to voltage, but proportional to current squared. Extremely high-tension lines with next to no current should be able to deliver power over a very large region with very little loss.

        With fewer power stations, the grid would be simpler and less likely to go into spasms when a tree falls on a power line or when some other accident occurs. Keeping things simple is Good.

        Maybe three is an underestimate, but even one per State is vastly s

        • Re:Solution to distribution issues. (Score:5, Informative)

          by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) <dfenstrate@gmaiEULERl.com minus math_god> on Monday February 06, 2006 @08:58PM (#14656040)
          My nuke plant puts out about 3400 amps at the New England Grid's 345,000 Volts. I don't know what the resistance is for the lines, but it's pretty damn low.

            The outgoing three phase lines have to be kept at a considerable distance from each other (16 feet) meaning that the minimum tower width is 32 feet or so.

          If you bring them any closer, you'd have arcing, or you'd need to heavily insulate them.

          If you increased the voltage (some places in the US run as high as 750,000 volts), you need to move the lines further apart, or insulate them greatly- not only is this expensive, but it makes them heavier, so you'd need tougher towers, you'd have less margin for ice buildup, etc, etc.

          There are numerous reasons why the main grid distribution voltage can't get substantially higher.

          Also local lines need to be kept at relatively low voltages to reduce maintanance costs. Again, the higher the voltage, the more prone a line is to arching to nearby grounds. If you run 100,000 volts through a neighborhood line you'd reduce line losses, but you'd have to send tree trimming crews out alot more often, and they'd have to cut trees much further back.

          In short, when you decide on a grid voltage for a particular line run, you have to weigh construction costs vs maintanance costs vs material cost vs line losses.

          There are numerous factors at play here.
    • The problem is that fusion energy isn't a sure thing yet. My understanding is that there are limitations that severely harm efficiency.

      Assuming it was, there is still the issue of how much one reactor can supply, I doubt that you can get to just a handful of reactors per continent unless it is only supplying a small fraction of the power. As it is now, many nuclear power stations have multiple reactors each.

      Not that I disagree with conservation, but I think you are wildly overestimating the savings with ju

    • Re:Not necessarily (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 )

      There's a campaign to ban energy-wasteful technology [banthebulb.org] where cheaper, superior alternatives exist. In the unlikely event that the campaign achieves a meaningful result, America could dispose of several existing power stations without the need for nuclear stations to replace them.

      I find that capitalism is better than banning lightbulb:/

      For instance, I use CFL (compact fluorescent light bulbs) regularly, but especially in the hot summer where the extra heat generated from traditional light-bul

  • Hydrogen Economy (Score:4, Informative)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:34PM (#14654392) Homepage
    I hope everyone realises that the much hyped hydrogen economy of the future is totally dependent on nuclear energy. If I had the money, I'd invest heavily in the companies ivolved in the nuclear industry. Solar, hydro, and wind energy will not be enough to replace oil.

    • Re:Hydrogen Economy (Score:3, Interesting)

      by plover ( 150551 ) *
      Nuclear generation isn't the only answer. A recent study here in Minnesota showed that we have enough wind resources here to provide 14 times our current electric consumption. That is, if we built all the windmills that they say we could build. And yes, the greenies are drooling all over these figures.

      Right now, we have approximately 800 megawatt-hours generated in this state by wind turbines. That's the equivalent of one or two coal-fired electric plants. Our problem right now is one of distribution

      • And the problem with that is the low density of hydrogen. Hydrogen in liquid form has 10% of the density of gasoline. And it is cryogenic, requiring a large amount of energy to put it into a cryogenic state and then a well-insulated tank and more energy to keep it cryogenic. You could easily have to send 15+ trucks in place of 1 truck with gasoline to get out the same amount of energy. Not to mention the amount of hydrogen you spend powering those trucks. People complain about the inefficiencies of power li
        • Hydrogen in liquid form has 10% of the density of gasoline.

          "Lower density" means "less mass per volume" to me, but it doesn't indicate potential energy per unit of volume, so this comparison doesn't measure apples to apples. Did you mean to say "10% energy density"? Or would you have figures on energy density that you could post?

          I get the Daimler-Chrysler "High Tech Report" annually, and they've been tracking their development of fuel cell vehicles for the last 10 years. One of their original goals w

  • For that sort of market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by faloi ( 738831 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:34PM (#14654393)
    Wouldn't certain countries have to abandon their fear of opening new reactors? After all, building nuclear reactors in some developing nations violates security restrictions. Some European countries already have a decent take rate on nuclear power, at least from what I've heard, I'm too lazy to do any research.

  • 24 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:35PM (#14654405) Homepage
    How can we developing more nuclear technology without securing the manual override from our defense contractors? Am I the only one watching these 24 Monday Marathons???

  • GE? (Score:2)

    by doormat ( 63648 )
    I thought GE owned Westinghouse?

    • Re:GE? (Score:3, Informative)

      by kram2598 ( 951474 )
      GE does not own Westinghouse proper. GE owns some of the divisions of Westinghouse when it was split up by Viacom in the 90s. GE is one of the main competitors to Westinghouse Electric Company, the nuclear division which is currently owned by British Nuclear Fuels. The other main competitor is Areva/Framatone out of France.
      • And interestingly enough, when I was working at GE Energy a few years back a lot of the control systems and high-tollerance manufacturing for nuclear reactor technology was being licensed to Toshiba to design and produce. GE could potentially lose a lot of the resources it's built over the years if Toshiba-Westinghouse decides to become a competitor (or it could gain even more if Toshiba and GE keep their alliance.)

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pmike_bauer ( 763028 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:42PM (#14654473)
    ...Iran's bid for Westinghouse is 5.5 billion

  • GE ESBWR (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chipperdog ( 169552 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:46PM (#14654502) Homepage
    As far as the next generation of "traditional" fission reactors, I guess I've been more impressed with GE's ESBWR [nrc.gov] , than Westinghouse's APxxx ... [westinghousenuclear.com]
    IANANE (I am not a Nuclear Engineer), but BWRs seem to have fewer problems (no steam gnerators to leak/plug up, no vessle head degradation) and are theroetically more efficent (single cycle)...
    I wonder if anyone is going to make a bid for GENE (General Electric Nuclear Energy)...
    I also wonder why we dont hear more about CANDU reactors [candu.org]. They use natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, which could provide more peaceful energy in unstable areas of the worls

    • CANDU (Score:5, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:02PM (#14654665) Journal
      That CANDU link is quite interesting

      http://canteach.candu.org/library/20000101.pdf [candu.org]

      Existing reactors work by using an expensive fuel (enriched uranium) and a cheap moderator (graphite or water).

      CANDU's idea is relatively safer. Instead of enriched uranium, CANDU reactors use natural uranium (which is cheap) along with an expensive moderator (heavy water). The design is a bit safer too.

      OTOH, heavy water is still a part of the nucleur weapons making process & is export controlled.

      • Re:CANDU (Score:3, Informative)

        by hayfever ( 113254 )
        CANDU reactors (as currently constructed in Canada) have a positive void coefficient and can't be licensed in the US. A next-generation design (the ACR-700) is undergoing licensing in the US but is not drawing much attention as its competitors (Framatome's EPR, GE's ABWR & ESBWR, Westinghouse's AP-1000) are all higher power output reactors.
      • In the UK Kandoo is a kind of toilet paper for kids.
    • I wonder if anyone is going to make a bid for GENE (General Electric Nuclear Energy)...

      I have a family member that is an engineer for GE. Based on what I know from him, I think it would be unlikely that GE would sell it's Nuclear division. Over the last several years many of GE's departments haven't made much money, doesn't make sense to me that they would sell off a department that has potential. Plus, GE is more known for buying other businesses, not selling them off.

      Of course this doesn't mean t
    • Well, it is 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. You either have to enrich the uranium or you have to separate heavy water out of ordinary water. In any case, you cannot use raw uranium ore - you need to extract the uranium from ore. So, no matter what you do, the process is rather complex and expensive. Furthermore, nuclear power production is usually tied to a bomb making program and the production of unstable isotopes for industrial and medical use. So to see what process is more effective, you n

  • Thank you, Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:49PM (#14654535) Homepage Journal
    If not for the hysterical campaigns against nuclear energy, we would not be having this awful dependency on oil and other grossly unhealthy fossil fuels...

    It seriously set the nuclear power industry back, which is a shame. Old plants continue to operate, but new ones are very slow to appear. Safe and non-polluting technologies were available for decades and we are wising up to using them only now.

    • Very little oil is used in the production of electricity. Most oil is used in plastics, gasosline and other products. I don't see how nuclear would cut dependence on oil much. Maybe it would cut our dependence on coal.

      • Maybe it would cut our dependence on coal.

        I said: "and other fossil fuels".

        Also, having an abundance of cheap electricity would've made things like plugin hybrids [hybridcars.com] more economically sensible and, possibly, retired the diesel railroad engines.

        The convenience of electric home heating (and hot-water) could've been much cheaper, freeing more oil and natural gas for the plastics.

    • On top of that we would have probably retired at least some of the U.S. nuclear plants by now. ALL of them are based on inherently unsafe, antiquated designs. I spend a LOT of time talking about nuclear and alternative energy with my girlfriend's housemates, one of whom has a couple of books out on the subject of humanity's future and who is getting a column in The Fifth Estate [fifthestate.org] , a leading anarchist rag, and another of whom is a professor who used to work for ARPA as a programmer/engineer and who has work

    • [QUOTE]If not for the hysterical campaigns against nuclear energy, we would not be having this awful dependency on oil and other grossly unhealthy fossil fuels...[/QUOTE]

      Nuclear is currently used primarily for non transport energy so would have near zero impact on our oil dependency unless and until we switch to hyrogen for transport and use nuclear energy as the source to generate the hydrogen. Non transport energy sector is dominated by coal for electricty and natural gas.

      The cost per kWh for nuclear is

      • Re:Thank you, Greenpeace (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:36PM (#14654980) Homepage Journal
        Nuclear is currently used primarily for non transport energy so would have near zero impact on our oil
        Electrical heating, electrical rail road engines, electrical cars [hybridcars.com] would've made far more economic sense if electricity was as cheap and abundant as nuclear power can make it.
        You need to include all costs for an accurate comparision, this site includes all costs
        That's the point. Greenpeace's et al.'s passionate protests make the nuclear power's cost much higher financially. Even worse -- politically it was prohibitively expensive for decades.

        Now that Chinese (no more willing to depend on foreign fuel suppliers, than us) are about to build dozens of new nuclear plants (Toshiba's main motivation [economist.com] for this purchase), the world is suddenly reconsidering...

    • Nuclear still has a lot of unsolved problems. Nobody knows how to deal with nuclear waste. Furthermore, while nuclear proponents love to give you estimates of how cheap nuclear energy is to produce, the market says otherwise -- every US nuclear plant was built by massive subsidies.

      The fact that no new nuclear plants are being built is not because the government is banning them (it hasnt) but because the government has refused to subsidize them. If nuclear plants were truly low cost, they would be getting bu

      • Re:Thank you, Greenpeace (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        If nuclear plants were truly low cost, they would be getting built without government subsidies.

        I wonder, then, why do Chinese plan to build dozens of nuclear plants by 2020? Do they know something, you don't?

        Perhaps, the main burden preventing new plants in the US is the unsurmountable amounts of red-tape imposed by the Greenpeace-influenced electorate and politicians? Coal-firing plants, meanwhile, are getting exemption from environmental regulations -- because someone has to keep the lights on and nu

        • China is very different. First of all China is experiencing incredible growth so it is building large numbers of powerplants of all types. Secondly China has comparatively little fossil fuels. And most importantly, the Chinese government is not accountable to its citizens and does not care much about their health.

          I know people that lived in the heavily industrialized areas of ex-communist countries. There most people would die comparatively young, age fast and suffer from many nasty cancers and other diseas
      • Nuclear energy is cheap, really cheap.

        But it still needs huge subsidies, because building a plant is far too expensiv. A nuclear plant needs a decade to bring in the construction costs. That's why nobody in today's competitiv economy is building nuclear plants. Nobody makes an investement that will pay off only after 10 years. After these are amortized however, it is one of the cheapest energy sources around.

  • Brakes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grahammm ( 9083 ) * <graham@gmurray.org.uk> on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:49PM (#14654538)
    I have never heard of Westinghouse blenders or TVs. To me the name Westinghouse means railway brake systems.
    • There have been some changes. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company, formed in 1869, was intact until the 1990s. The railroad brake business was sold off to SAB in the UK, which became SAB WABCO. The automotive brake business was sold off to American Standard, and now operates as WABCO Automotive Products Group. [wabco.info] SAB WABCO was taken over by Vestar Capital Partners LLP in a leveraged buyout in 2003. It was then sold off to Faiveley Transport [faiveleytransport.com] in 2004.

      Faively still sells railroad brakes. [faiveley.fr] But today they're axl

    • Railway Brake Systems? I assume you are joking? That is in fact how Westinghouse got its start in the 19th century - but they did quite a bit more in the ensuing 100 years.

      Ironically, I was at a friends house for the super bowl last night, and they had a new Westinghouse HD big screen TV! Obviously not manufactured by Westinghouse (the Westinghouse we all knew and loved ceased to exist some time ago, anyway) but some Japanese company, I forget who, licensed their name for televisions.

    • George Westinghouse founded (at least) two companies. Westinghouse Air Brake (WABCO) and Westinghouse Electric, back in the late 1800s. AFAIK, they were always separate companies, despite both being located in and around Pittsburgh.

    • I have never heard of Westinghouse blenders or TVs.

      Then you have missed out on a very drool-worthy piece of tech: the Westinghouse LVM-37W1, a 37" LCD with 1920x1080 resolution for under $2000.

  • It's already in play in the west (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:52PM (#14654558) Homepage Journal
    In Canada during the recent federal election campaign an add ran on national TV showing nuclear power as a clean air alternative to existing technology. The ad sported the requisite azure blue skys and big fluffy white clouds while touting nuclear power.

    In the UK the BBC website recently ran articles pointing to upcoming reviews of existing nuclear power plants and the impact of bring new plants online.

    As noted before the environmentalist camp has had some of it's big guns come out in support of nuclear power as the only alternative available to stave off global warming.

    Probably the various political power bases have decided nuclear power is the way to go and have given the spin doctors orders to soften public reaction.

    Good news for Canada with a mature nuclear technology, substantial Uranium resources, not to mention being oil and hydro rich.

    • In Canada during the recent federal election campaign an add ran on national TV showing nuclear power as a clean air alternative to existing technology. The ad sported the requisite azure blue skys and big fluffy white clouds while touting nuclear power.

      To be fair, that's what nuclear power stations put into the atmosphere. Big fluffy white clouds.

      It always annoys me when a TV news segment or a documentary illustrates 'carbon dioxide emissions' with a shot of a power station's cooling towers. The big fa

  • Toasters, LCD televisions and Alternating Current! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Omega ( 1602 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:52PM (#14654559) Homepage
    While Westinghouse may be known for it's every day electronics (elevators, microwaves, TVs) and the Westinghouse Science Award (which is still a pretty cool and pretty geeky achievement) and it's defense contracting (nuclear power), I think it's most important achievement is bringing Tesla's idea of alternating current to the consumer [pbs.org].
    • I think it's most important achievement is bringing Tesla's idea of alternating current to the consumer.

      Absolutely. Westinghouse build the first A/C power station out in Telluride, Colorado in 1891, with design help from Tesla and $100,000 from L.L. Nunn [telluridet...stival.com]. While we're on the subject, this July 9th will be Telsa's 150th birthday, so light up those Tesla Coils [telluridet...stival.com] to celebrate; we'll be doing up here so in Telluride!
  • I wonder if that means Westinghouse nuclear plants have the "Lock 'n Spin" feature, like their old washing machines from the 1960s and early 1970s (before "White Westinghouse") did.

  • The purchase of Westinghouse... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nero4wolfe ( 671100 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @05:56PM (#14654606)
    Actually, this is just about Toshiba buying the Westinghouse nuclear unit. The current owner of this unit is a British company.

    The rest of the old Westinghouse has been gone for many years. When you see a new "Westinghouse" consumer product, such as a lcd television, that's a separate individual or company that purchased the right to use the brand name in a certain product area, and then contracted with an asian manufacturer to produce the product.

    The same point is true of "Polaroid" lcd televisions; an investor bought the right to use the brand name for electronic products at Polaroids bankruptcy auction, and then contracts with asian manufacturers to bring in product.

  • The Inventors of Alternating Current (Score:3, Informative)

    by wsanders ( 114993 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:01PM (#14654653) Homepage
    Back in the Goodle Days, the battle was set for AC vs DC on the electricity grid. Thomas Edison backed DC, and Westinghouse backed AC.

    AC won, and Westinghouse became rich and famous: http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/edison/section 6.rhtml [sparknotes.com]

  • Toshiba Mini Reactors (Score:5, Informative)

    by DigitalRaptor ( 815681 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:02PM (#14654663)
    I'd love to see Toshiba's mini nuclear reactors [adn.com] widely deployed in the U.S., or at the bare minimum looked into with a few test deployments.

    They are small, safe, and cost effective.

    They are the size of a grain silo, buried 100 feet underground. They are idiot-proof (think of the causes of Chernobyl) because the nuclear reaction only happens while a plate is moving in front of the rods. If the plate stops, the reaction stops. The plate cannot move except intentionally, so the chance of a runaway meltdown approaches zero.

    If the U.S. were smart it would take a months budget for the war in Iraq and just buy the technology outright from Toshiba, then deploy them as widely and cheaply as possible.

    • My community has enough trouble getting rid of its old tires, let alone having its own nuke in the backyard. And preferebly surround each plant with lots of guys with these [com.com] the between to shred any kwaazy tewwowists who come around.
      • That's the nice thing about this Toshiba plant, because the actual nuclear stuff is 100 feet underground, it is impervious to any kind of terrorist attack.

        Our own bunker busters don't even reach 100 feet underground.

        It seems to be a very safe plan.

        Liquid sodium circulates to a steam generator on the surface, where the electricity is produced. The kwazy terrorists could disrupt the electricity (as with any plant) but wouldn't cause any kind of meltdown or fall out.

    • All those chambers, each seperated from the others by thick metal walls, guarantee that the Titanic is unsinkable! Nothing can go wrong. Trust us. :)

      But seriously, I agree that we should increase our use of nuclear reactors, but IMHO we have to be extremely careful when it comes to any talk about "foolproof" technology. Also, I am personally more fond of pebble bed style reactors [wikipedia.org].

    • Considering their costs / watt, it is cheaper to go with large systems (gigawatt) rather than do 10 to 30 of these. But these are great for developing places or where isolation exists, such as Alaska/Northern Canada. One place that I think that this would be great is if we build a maglev or other high speed electric train to russia via alaska.
  • That's what the ads use to say when they made vacuum tubes, big generators and major appliances. Yesterday I put a NOS Westinghouse 6U10 in a guitar amp.

  • not to be confused with the Westinghouse of... (Score:4, Informative)

    by swschrad ( 312009 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:17PM (#14654791) Homepage Journal
    electrical switchgear and turbines, which is part of Siemens... or the historic Westinghouse of air brakes, which is part of Honeywell, through the Allied Signal/Bendix merger... or the Westinghouse of light bulbs and fans, which is some marketer with two tin desks, two telephones, 500 folks with red ties, and containers of Stuff from China arriving daily on docks.

    such is the stuff of de-mergers of the US' industrial base in the late 80s and 1990s.
  • Got stuck trying to find how many plants were built in 2005

    Anyone? Looks like 40 plants being licensed or built currently...pretty vague info

    Since the US has done 0? lately, i was curious how many a 50% increase is....

    I find some of these numbers interesting, like the cableco paying over $3k per customer in buyouts

    Although with a product priced in the billions, it seems like there may be a little room for some profit :O
  • 'By 2020 the market for nuclear power generation is expected to grow 50 percent compared to 2005,'

    Which adds up to a whopping 2.75% annual growth rate. What's to get excited about?
    • Other news sites are saying 300% growth by 2015. Toshiba is paying
      34 times earnings, for a business that they expect to grow by 12% per
      year - unless they think that they will get significant synergy with
      their existing nuclear businesses, then I think that they are significantly
      overpaying for the business.

  • How qualified is Toshiba to managing nuclear sites (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EMIce ( 30092 ) on Monday February 06, 2006 @06:26PM (#14654885) Homepage
    Famed investor Peter Lynch says to start worrying when companies "diworsify" as he calls it. When companies find themselves unable to gain additional marketshare in the industries they already compete in, they tend to go around buying into other industries at inflated prices. Often they buy into industries that require different know how to run effectively, and many botch the job once things have played out in a few years. Think of all the internet startups that were overvalued, bought up, and mismanaged. The same thing happens in other fields as well.

    There is incentive on the part of executives to diversify, as managers can then get promoted, whereas there was little room to grow before. In the short term the stock goes up and executive salaries also rise, but in the long term, mismanaged divisions only weigh a company down, offsetting profits from the healthy divisions and hurting long term investors.

    There is a rising market for nuclear reactors, so this might turn out to be good thing for Toshiba, but I'd do more research before plopping down some coin for Toshiba stock.

    • Along with General Electric and Hitachi Ltd. (6501), Toshiba has built BWRs (boiling-water reactors) for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) and other Japanese power utilities. With little near-term growth expected in the domestic market, however, it needs to expand overseas.

      But the fact that Toshiba does not have expertise in PWRs (pressurized-water reactors) represents a major disadvantage because this technology constitutes about 70% of the nuclear reactors operating worldwide.

      By acquiring Westinghouse,

    • According to this table [toshiba.co.jp], Toshiba has been building nuclear power plants business since the 1960s, and is currently the largest nuclear plant supplier in Japan. I suspect that they're fairly qualified.
  • man opens fridge, inside is a squirrel!

    what are you doing? demands the man

    isn't this a westinghouse? asks the squirrel

    yes, but... says the man

    then I'm westing.

    ba-boom-cha! I'll be here all season, thank you.

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