Huge lack of Water in California means Big Business for Desalination industry and their Lobbyist.

March 8th, 2011 | Natural Resources News Service | | Leave a comment
A view across a reverse osmosis delination plant. Photo: James Grellier
A view across a reverse osmosis delination plant. Photo: James Grellier

For the scores of businesses in Southern California already supplying desalination equipment around the globe, California’s impending water crisis spells opportunity.

Continue reading Huge lack of Water in California means Big Business for Desalination industry and their Lobbyist.

Conservationists Push Back Against Desalination in California

March 3rd, 2011 | Natural Resources News Service | | One comment
Photo: Poseidon Resources
Photo: Poseidon Resources

The state is running out of water. Is desalination a panacea or potential boondoggle?

California is in the process of building a series of massive ocean desalination plants on a scale not seen before in the United States. While most are at various stages, slowly slogging through bureaucratic red tape, conservationists are pushing back against powerful interests betting California’s looming water crisis occurs sooner rather than later.

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Business for Areva and B&W in Alabama reactor project

October 18th, 2010 | Environment | | Leave a comment

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is looking to restart a nuclear plant construction project in northern Alabama that stopped in 1988 due to decreased demand for electricity. Both the French state-owned company Areva and the Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) subsidiary in Canada have won contracts in the past two weeks to finish this Bellefonte Unit One reactor.

The project should cost $4.3 billion to $4.7 billion and the TVA board of directors already authorized $248 million in August.  Areva got a contract for engineering and development work on the site. It will send its employees from Lynchburg and Charlotte, North Carolina, to perform the work. B&W will be in charge of building two steam generators in Canada.  If TVA makes a final decision to resume construction, the generators will be delivered in 2015 so that the plant could start operating in 2018-2019.

Source: Newsadvance.com

 

Continue reading Business for Areva and B&W in Alabama reactor project

Veteran Hanford Engineer Says DOE’s Multi-Billion Dollar Hanford Nuclear Waste Processing Plant Might Not Work Properly and Has Serious Potential Safety Problems

October 12th, 2010 | Natural Resources News Service | | Leave a comment
Photo: DOE
Photo: DOE
A lead engineer at the $12.3 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation says the Department of Energy – along with lead contractor Bechtel National, Inc. – cannot assure the public that the plant will work properly and safely when it is completed about a decade from now despite public statements to the contrary and $5 billion spent so far.

At risk are the Columbia River, as well as the health and safety of people in southeast Washington State.

Continue reading Veteran Hanford Engineer Says DOE’s Multi-Billion Dollar Hanford Nuclear Waste Processing Plant Might Not Work Properly and Has Serious Potential Safety Problems