Toshiba may sell silicon biz to contain fallout of nuke plant problems

A troubled nuclear power station strategy in the USA has Toshiba considering the partial sale of its Japanese semiconductor business. Nikkei (in Japanese) names Western Digital as a potential buyer, along with several investment funds. The company hopes to get between $1.77bn and $2.65bn for a 20 per cent stake in the …

[paulf]

Westinghouse

I'll confess I'm not in the know here, and perhaps it would have been useful if the story had done some more digging on this.

I seem to recall the British Government (through BNFL) sold Westinghouse to Toshiba. About 12-18 months later they announced we needed to build (some badly needed) new Nuclear power plants with much gnashing of teeth from those who pointed out we'd recently sold the in house capability to do just that.

With Toshiba writing down the value of the purchase substantially "The 2006, $5.4 billion acquisition of Westinghouse [..] writ[ten] down [..] by $2.3 billion." does that mean HM Gubbermint dodged the bullet of hanging on to Westinghouse or are these problems caused by Toshiba's ownership? $2.3bn may be peanuts compared to the savings of having built new nuclear in house though, but I'm sure Sir Humphrey would have meddled in new build whether Westinghouse or EDF/Areva...

[Alan Brown]

"I'm sure Sir Humphrey would have meddled "

Which is one of those particular places where bureaucrats need to NOT meddle (except for safety regulators). Especially given the UK civil service's track record of backing "winners" and bankrupting private companies along the way (Beeching, Satellites, Brabazon, British Leyland, Every operating nuke plant being a unique design instead of a standard pattern, etc)

We need somewhere between 20-30 nuke plants _right now_ to replace existing power generation capacity (eliminating carbon) and include a safety margin for shutdowns plus another 30-60 to cater to eliminating gas/oil-fired central heating systems and an increased electric vehicle fleet.

I'd prefer they were LFTR but that technology isn't ready yet, which means "conventional" nukes until they are, then feed the waste into LFTR when it's ready. The absolute _LAST_ thing needed is a multiplicity of designs.

If Toshiba are laying the long game then more power to their elbow, but I suspect that noo-clea-are polyticks will get in the way.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

So, Toshiba nuked their own business?