Nuke plant makers cast eye abroad: With global
warming in the spotlight, greenhouse gas emitters turn to atomic power
Jul 10 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kanako Takahara Japan Times,
Tokyo
The voice of Atsutoshi Nishida, president of Toshiba Corp., rose an octave
as he talked about the electronic giant's quest to build atomic power
plants.
"Our plan calls for us to either sign or start constructing 33 nuclear power
plants by 2015," Nishida said in May. "The figures are conservative,
however."
Atomic plant construction has become a key strategy at Toshiba, which
purchased U.S. reactor builder Westinghouse Electric Co. in 2006 for $5.4
billion.
"In 2030, Toshiba and Westinghouse will aim for ¥1 trillion in sales,"
Nishida said.
As global warming gains the political spotlight worldwide, including at the
Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, major greenhouse gas emitters are looking
at nuclear power as an effective way to cut pollution.
If the global community wants to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, 32
nuclear reactors will have to be built every year and nations will need to
make greater use of wind and solar power, according to the Paris-based
International Energy Agency.
As of January, there were 435 nuclear reactors operating worldwide and 96
either under construction or in the planning stage, according to the
nonprofit organization Japan Atomic Industrial Forum.
There are three worldwide alliances of nuclear plant builders all scrambling
to boost their share in an ever-expanding market, and Japanese companies
have joined all three.
"In the worldwide nuclear plant market, Japanese companies are not
well-known," said Tomoko Murakami, head of the atomic energy group at the
Institute of Energy Economics, Japan.
That is why they are joining with the big nuclear plant builders to expand
overseas, as in the case of Toshiba and Westinghouse, she said.
Hitachi Ltd. and General Electric Co. merged their reactor divisions last
year and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. agreed in 2006 to cooperate with
France's Areva SA, the world's largest nuclear plant maker, to jointly
develop reactors.
"GE creates the plant design and Hitachi supplies plant parts," Murakami
said. "It seems to be working."
The Toshiba-Westinghouse alliance holds about a third of the global atomic
plant market, while the Hitachi-GE group has about 25 percent and Mitsubishi
Heavy-Areva roughly 15 percent, she said.
Although Mitsubishi Heavy is partnered with Areva, they remain rivals in
many fields. This leaves the Japanese company, known for its pressurized
water reactor technology, to be basically on its own when it expands
overseas.
Mitsubishi Heavy, which lost out to Toshiba in a bidding war for
Westinghouse, plans to invest about ¥50 billion in the reactor business
between business 2008 and 2010.
"We aim to sign two contracts a year. This will increase (our) global share
to up to 25 percent" by 2030, Akira Sawa, general manager of Mitsubishi
Heavy's nuclear energy system division, said in May.
The Hitachi-GE group, known for its boiling water reactors, hopes to get
orders for a third of future U.S. atomic plants.
The fortunes of Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy are closely linked to
Japan's 55 reactors and the nation's reliance on atomic power in line with
an energy security policy initiated after the oil crises of the 1970s.
This linkage has helped nurture their reactor technology and allowed them to
gain a foothold in the global market, observers say.
However, Tomohiko Kita, who heads JAIF's information and communications
division, said the trend would have been unpredictable a decade ago.
"For a long time, nuclear power was believed to be in a downtrend," Kita
said, adding that the business went through a "winter" in the 1990s when
there were few new projects.
"But due to rising oil prices, the need for energy security and the need to
curb carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power started to gain more attention
starting around 2003," he said.
No nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. for the past three decades,
due in no small part to the fear generated by the partial core meltdown at
Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979.
But U.S. policy took a significant turn when George W. Bush became president
and announced in 2001 that the federal government would push nuclear power
as a key energy source.
In April, Southern Co., the biggest U.S. power producer, contracted for two
reactors in Georgia with Westinghouse and other companies looking to build
the first nuclear plant in the U.S. in 30 years.
The market is not limited to the U.S. and other rich countries in Europe.
Atomic power demand is rising rapidly in emerging nations, including China
and India. According to JAIF, 16 plants are planned or under construction in
China and 14 in India.
But whether the Japanese companies can increase their presence in the U.S.
and Europe as well as emerging nations remains to be seen.
Government-level diplomacy is usually effective to promote reactor sales if
they are national projects.
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited China last November, he
reportedly signed an 8 billion euro Areva nuclear plant deal with his
Beijing counterpart, Hu Jintao.
Murakami of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan acknowledges that
politics, brand name and marketing power are keys to increasing global
share.
But in the end it all boils down to whether the companies can continue to
develop high-quality technology in building plants, she said.
"Japanese companies have supplied key components for the U.S., Europe, China
and other nations," she said, and developing high-quality technology will be
the key to survival. |