23 ms·

Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

416 points by mathoff 10y ago

barkingcat 10y ago
There was massive financial fraud at Westinghouse. Even though the nuclear industry is in a downturn, the troubles at Westinghouse are self inflicted - Toshiba bought them, but found out almost all of the unit's profits are misreported, leading to them spending money on "nothing" basically. The unit earned no money and was threatening to sink Toshiba the entire keiretsu. This is Toshiba trying to save itself by closing down the tide of red. The source of the troubles was Westinghouse's purchase of CB&I Stone & Webster, and it spun out of control.
- mikeash 10y ago
  That's really interesting. How did Toshiba manage to acquire them without uncovering the fraud first?
  - barkingcat 10y ago
    Lying and coverup. It's fraud - people refusing to tell or put things down on official financial reports, writing false statements, signing false financial reports, using non GAAP, unusual accounting methods, etc. Also, audits and due diligence didn't uncover the magnitude of the problem. It took a whistleblower to get the story out to upper management. https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/02/14/toshiba-chairman-resigns-over-massive-projected-nuclear-losses.html https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/02/14/toshiba-chairman... this article outlines the contract issues, but there were other issues at play at the same time http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-workingcapital-idUSKBN14H1WT http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-working...
    - amorphid 10y ago
      Reminds me of HP's acquisition of Autonomy. https://www.recode.net/2015/5/5/11562326/hps-5-billion-fraud-lawsuit-against-former-autonomy-executives-is-now https://www.recode.net/2015/5/5/11562326/hps-5-billion-fraud...
- thrillgore 10y ago
  I just don't think Japanese companies have a process on dealing with foreign M&As and fraud mitigation. When Hitachi acquired the spanish manufacturing company AnsaldoBreda, there were similar fraud accusations.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Sony's acquisition of Columbia/TriStar hasn't gone particularly well either...
    - thrillgore 10y ago
      I don't know if that's fraud as much as they just aren't using that business right. Sony is weird, having an entertainment division they keep writing off when their only profitable consumer products division is PlayStation.
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        It may not have been fraud fraud, but they paid $4.8B and wrote off $2.7B of that within five years. Somebody didn't know exactly what he was buying...
  - genkaos 10y ago
    "...When Hitachi acquired the italian manufacturing company AnsaldoBreda..."
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  It was the acquisition of an acquisition, really meta if you ask me. On its own, Toshiba acquiring Westinghouse was fine, but when Westinghouse acquired CB&I, it all went to hell.
- bhc 10y ago
  Westinghouse only closed Stone & Webster acquisition in late 2015, so it seems like the fraud started while Stone & Webster was still owned by CB&I. The whole saga is bizarre because CB&I sued Westinghouse claiming it was paid too little for S&W [1] a few months after the sale was finalized, and then a few months later sued Westinghouse again [2] seeking to wipe out their liabilities in the S&W's businesses. [1] http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closing-agreement-claim/ http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closin... [2] https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/ https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/
- masklinn 10y ago
  It doesn't seem like S&W is all of the trouble, the bankruptcy seems to be blamed on Westinghouse's inability to deliver its AP1000.
maxfurman 10y ago
This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.
- andromeduck 10y ago
  It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.
  - imglorp 10y ago
    Furthermore, China is also investigating Thorium tech. This might be the bigger news long term.
    - morsch 10y ago
      Built upon the technology of Germany's AVR[1]. We're still cleaning up that mess. "The total AVR decommissioning costs are expected to be in the order of 1.5 – 2.5 billion €, all public funds, ie to exceed its construction costs by far." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
      - imglorp 10y ago
        That sounds like a mess but it was a U/Th, pebble bed mess. Hopefully Th molten salt method works out better.
  - morsch 10y ago
    France is doing so well that during last November's cold snap they were considering cutting power to industry and rolling power outages for the population because too many of their ancient, brittle nuclear power plants were out of commission and the import capacity from neighbouring countries was at its limit. http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-idUSL8N1D92V1 http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-id... (Reuters claims that there wasn't enough spare capacity in Germany; in fact the transfer capacity of ~2 GW was the limiting factor; http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860 http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860) For what it's worth, I think the temperatures improved before the more drastic measures had to be implemented. And of course people are free to argue that taking those French plants down for review was an overreaction by an overly critical nuclear regulation regime.
freehunter 10y ago
I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few notable failures by plant operators to maintain safe operation. Of course the company that builds nuclear plants can't succeed if new plants aren't being built. Westinghouse going under isn't going to destroy nuclear power, nuclear power was already dead.
- gph 10y ago
  I feel like the only thing you did read was the headline... Westinghouse is a bit of a special case. There was accounting/financial fraud and they took on stupid fixed contracts that bit them in the ass when safety regulations forced them to spend more on design/construction. For as maligned as the nuclear industry is, a lot of this was self-inflicted.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    The headline doesn't explain my comment of "sure Westinghouse made some bad deals". I completely acknowledge that Westinghouse is a bad company. But nuclear isn't dying just because this company is going under, there are a lot more pressures killing nuclear power.
- dalyons 10y ago
  After reading years and years of discussions like this, it seems like the citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power is endlessly repeated as the reason we don't have nukes anymore, despite them being a great source of clean(ish) energy. However it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics. They're just too damn expensive to build and run, and the expected returns on investment take an extremely long time to materialise(20+ years) Noone wants to put up the enormous capital, with the very real risk that they'll never see returns as the alternative energy markets(gas, solar, etc) are evolving and dropping in price so quickly. I know I'd be pretty hesitant taking a half billion dollar 30 year bet against technology.
killjoywashere 10y ago
The real concern here is making sure the existing nuclear plants have a clear glide slope toward end-of-life. Nuclear power is an extremely tight community. On the nuclear carrier I was on (powered by Westinghouse plants), there was a valve (a valve!) malfunctioning and the tech rep flown out from the company took one look at it and said "This bit's in backward". "How do you know?" "I designed it". Which means the same guy had been working on that system for 30 years. The people working for this company are a matter of national security. I sure hope Secretary Mattis understands that. This, also, by the way, is a great illustration of Elon Musk's contention that these technologies don't just keep working. Brilliant, competent engineers and scientists have to invest themselves in making them work.
- bch 10y ago
  > This, also, by the way, is a great illustration of Elon Musk's contention that these technologies don't just keep working. Brilliant, competent engineers and scientists have to invest themselves in making them work. Is this expressed in a paper, or conference that I can watch a video of?
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Probably, but it's also intuitively obvious to anyone who's owned a car, or a house, or otherwise been responsible for the function of any reasonably complex machine. Things wear out. Things break. They have to be repaired or replaced if the process of which they're a part is to continue. Knowledge is a crucial part of that, too. The Saturn rocket program is a great example - if we decided to go back to the moon tomorrow, we'd be a decade or more in the doing of it, because all the people who knew how to build those rockets, and the tools to build those rockets, and the tools to build those tools, and so on - are by now retired or deceased. We'd have to figure all that stuff out all over again, as nearly from scratch as makes no odds. There's no reason to imagine any other similarly complex technology would be different.
- pm90 10y ago
  This is a great point, but I'm very pessimistic about existing infrastructure getting any attention from the administration. If we're unable to upgrade and secure our nukes (!), I don't see how this would be a priority for anyone. Until that is something goes bad...
deleted 10y ago
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ehnto 10y ago
There is a fantastic documentary on the namesake of Westinghouse and the company itself. I found it incredibly interesting! They go into topics such as his relationship with other inventors at the time and his perhaps philanthropic relationship with his workers, the different cycles of the company and it's various product pivots. https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BUpF__h-IY https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BUpF__h-IY
erikig 10y ago
Chapter 11 bankruptcy might be a the best thing for a critical company like Westinghouse. Unlike Chapter 7 the operations continue but the entity gets debt relief. "In Chapter 11, in most instances the debtor remains in control of its business operations as a debtor in possession, and is subject to the oversight and jurisdiction of the court." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_States_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_S...
- greglindahl 10y ago
  I'm sure you read the article, which indicated that Chapter 11 is what's being used. In the US, companies always go for Chapter 11 if it looks like it's going to work, i.e. that there's a viable business in there somewhere. In Westinghouse's case, the viable business is everything other than their civilian reactor construction business.
brilliantcode 10y ago
I believe the nuclear power industry largely started out as a way to justify world's largest nuclear warhead stockpile. I believe it was on a show from Netflix that discussed the history of nuclear power. It worked remarkably well.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Yeah the marketing worked so well you can still read it on HN from well-informed nuke fans, even those who would deny being militarists.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    I heard that solar panels are used on military satellites... Some bombs use essentially tiny wind turbines to measure fall, and ready the fuse when far enough from the releasing plane... Now who's the militarist? :)
  - fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
    I'm definitely a nuclear power proponent, and not a militarist, and I think that the militaristic-ly driven decision to prefer the uranium fuel "cycle" exclusively is the reason we're stuck with these shitty BWR's and PWR's, to the exclusion of anything else. Nuclear as it exists today definitely doesn't live up to the hype, and that's because the nuclear power industry is essentially frozen on 1960's designs, with incremental improvements tacked on. If the auto industry were as slow as the nuclear industry, we'd all be looking forward to next year's new Ford Model C.
- acidburnNSA 10y ago
  Really!? You don't think that people were honestly excited about the most energy dense fuel known to man as a low footprint clean energy source? Your lifetime of energy in 1.5 soda cans of fuel! To me this is extremely exciting and totally unrelated to weapons.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    Certainly the engineers were, and that's how it was sold to the public. But the people who wrote the checks were mainly interested in weapons.
moomin 10y ago
A difficulty I've always had with nuclear power is the problem of clean-up. I'm not scaremongering and saying it's impossible, but it is inarguably expensive. Having a large amount of costs after all the revenue has gone away is a huge regulatory red flag: it's simpler to just structure things so that you won't have to pay. This problem applies to mining as well, but very little mining has to occur near residential areas.
- scubaguy 10y ago
  Do you have data that backs that cleanup is inarguably expensive? This article, which more concrete, suggests 5% of revenue is required to be saved. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx#ECSArticleLink8 http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...
  - cmurf 10y ago
    Whatever estimates the nuclear power industry made in Germany, they're argued to be insufficient, so they're capping the upper liability limit for these companies. The government's own stress testing suggests there will be a shortfall that'll ultimately be picked up by taxpayers. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-utilities-buy-out-nuclear-waste-liability-236-bln-euros https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-utilities-buy-ou...
  - kpil 10y ago
    Truth is that no one really knows. Deep storage is one alternative, but 100.000 years is a long commitment. Breed reactors might reduce that to 1000 years, but it's still a commitment.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    You're citing a self-interested source. That's a nuclear industry trade association. Sort of like asking the Tobacco Industry Association about the healthfulness of cigarettes.
  - Tepix 10y ago
    How about the mess that long term storage in Germany is in ? The salt mine Assen that they put some nuclear waste in is now flooded. Getting the nuclear waste back out will cost several billions. I don't think they will even do it. So they risk contaminating ground water. That alone can be a cost of several billion. And even if they do clean it up they are back to square zero in their quest for long term storage.
mathattack 10y ago
Bankruptcy doesn't mean closure. Someone will bring them out of bankruptcy, but a lot of their existing creditors (and their existing owner) will get stiffed along the way. Most airlines that went backrupt didn't disappear, but their owners took a haircut.
smaili 10y ago
Is this the same Westinghouse that produces microwaves?
- shmerl 10y ago
  The energy company is owned by Toshiba. And the appliances one by Electrolux I think. So it's not the same.
- pg_bot 10y ago
  The appliance division of Westinghouse was sold off in the 70's and is now managed by Electrolux. This division of Westinghouse was spun off in the late 90's and is now owned by Toshiba. The history and scope of Westinghouse is super interesting/confusing you can read the full details here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporat... Its current incarnation is now CBS corporation which licenses out the Westinghouse name to other corporations.
caminante 10y ago
Without getting into mismanagement or environmental concerns, nuclear's economics continue to worsen. 1. The supply of nuclear expertise and trained professionals is shrinking. Thus, nuclear EPC + O&M goes up. This article cites this factor at least 3x in different paragraphs. Though, that's great news for current nukes! 2. LCOE (EPC + O&M) forecasts show nuclear on par with substitutes. I'm not taking on the ESG risks of nuclear to achieve price parity.
wonderous 10y ago
@Dang (HN "meta" Q&A) Has HN ever looked into clustering news using Google News to do it? Reason I ask is how HN's de-dup filter works is puzzling to me and related stories would likely be useful to pool comments/de-dup/etc on a single news event. Example of dups, clusters, themes on HN on this event: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=westinghouse&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=westinghouse&sort=byDate&prefi... Google News cluster: https://news.google.com/news/m/more?ncl=dGww1eRZGqsOScMMCg3U3tq_4ODEM&authuser=0&ned=us&topic=b https://news.google.com/news/m/more?ncl=dGww1eRZGqsOScMMCg3U...
- striking 10y ago
  The de-dupe filter is based on how much discussion went on in past posts. But that actually doesn't affect the current case we're looking at here, as there are no duplicates of this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F03%2F29%2Fbusiness%2Fwestinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F... Now, in a sense, there was a duplicate, but because the URL didn't match, it didn't count. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F03%2F29%2Fbusiness%2Fwestinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F20... The de-dupe filter would've turned new submissions of your post into votes for your post, if it had caught the duplicate. That being said, I don't think HN is designed to pool discussion over time, preferring to archive discussion of each story. At this point, you can't even upvote older posts; they can only be added to your favorites.
  - wonderous 10y ago
    Yes the URL is different, but the canonical URL is the same. Not concerned about the votes, just curious if the topic of canonical URLs, clusters, etc. had come up.
    - striking 10y ago
      You raise an interesting point. I'd recommend shooting the HN team an email about making use of canonical URLs for de-duping. mailto:hn@ycombinator.com
nabla9 10y ago
Westinghouse had severe technical problems with AP1000 and it's not alone. French nuclear reactor builder Areva was restructured after they could not get their new EPR reactors ready on time. Their flagship project Olkiluoto 3 is nine years late and several billions of euros over budget. Chinese are building reactors as fast as they can. They are buying reactors designs from all main manufacturers. There are 21 reactors under construction and they are three years late on average because manufacturers can't get these next generation reactors ready. Nuclear reactors being constantly late and exceeding their budgets is not new. This was true in 60's and 70's and it's true now.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  Calder Hall in the UK was only three weeks late, opening in 1956. I wonder why we find it more difficult now, is it more thorough standards perhaps?
  - nabla9 10y ago
    First Magnox reactors had very low efficiency < 20% and their electricity production was not competitive. Their main use was to produce plutonium for weapons.
Stratoscope 10y ago
When I was a kid, my most favorite plastic model kit was the Westinghouse Atomic Power Plant. It was awesome! http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=15662 http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=15662 You can even buy one today for the low price of $1250: http://www.ebay.com/itm/262902080871 http://www.ebay.com/itm/262902080871
Animats 10y ago
Does this mean the AP-1000 reactor is dead? Several of those are under construction.
- erikig 10y ago
  No, it just means Westinghouse is going to get its debt restructured. They'll still keep operating under supervision of a bankruptcy judge.
anovikov 10y ago
Why should we be worried? Nuclear power is a no go for civilized world. It is not insurable. It has well-developed, clean alternatives. Apart from carriers and subs, it has no good applications (it would be also be great to get back to nuclear missile cruisers and ideally even destroyers, but outside of the military, i can't see any use for it at all).
thewhitetulip 10y ago
As a Nikola Tesla fan, just a honorary mention, Westinghouse corporation is (one of) the (main) reason why we have AC. When nobody believed in Tesla, George did, even after the bullying by the Edison camp, the smear campaigns. I have read that per watt of AC current, Nikola Tesla was supposed to get some $2.3, but Westinghouse told Tesla that he would be bankrupt if Tesla was to be given that Royalty, the legend has it that Telsa tore the contract saying something like this, "You believed in me when the world didn't, I don't want the money", even if he didn't say something fancy during this time, but the act in itself, if it really happened, is touching. I nearly cried when I read it in a book a long long time ago. It is sad to see that a energy giant is going bankrupt. End of an era for a Tesla fan, the company who believed in Tesla is going bankrupt.
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
My dad worked for Westinghouse in the late 70s at Hanford. This really feels like an end of an era.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  I'm sure it does, but doesn't Westinghouse go way back, to the start of the electric era? Didn't they built it, or lease most of it?
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Yes, but somehow the name today only survives for their nuclear operation: > Westinghouse purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997. In 1998, CBS established a brand licensing subsidiary Westinghouse Licensing Corporation (Westinghouse Electric Corporation). In 1997/1998 the Power Generation Business Unit, headquartered in Orlando, FL, was sold to Siemens AG, of Germany. A year later, CBS sold all of its nuclear power businesses to British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). Soon after, BNFL gained license rights on the Westinghouse trademarks and they used those to reorganize their acquired assets as Westinghouse Electric Company. That company was sold to Toshiba in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation#Timeline_of_company_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporat... My dad was always in nuclear though (well, after a brief stint at Tektronix).
jartelt 10y ago
The nuclear industry was already having big issues, so I do not see this bankruptcy changing things much. The decline of nuclear wasn't even related to safety concerns, which I believe are largely exaggerated. Currently operating nuclear plants are losing money and needed to be bailed out in Illinois and New York because they cannot produce power for a low enough price. With that in mind, who wants to spend >$1B to build a new nuclear plant that will likely take >10 years to get permitted and built? For the industry to grow, there needs to be a big change in technology to decrease the capital costs needed to build plants and to decrease plant operating costs. If you cost more than a natural gas plant, you are not going to have much luck in today's market.
jiggliemon 10y ago
July 7th, 1888: Tesla Sells A.C. Patents Tesla sells patents for A.C. Polyphase System to George Westinghouse for $25,000 in cash, $50,000 in notes and a royalty of $2.50 per horsepower for each motor. https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/timeline/1888-tesla-sells-ac-patents https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/timeline/1888-tesla-s... Some tangential history regarding Westinghouse for fun.
mikikian 10y ago
Here's the declaration by Lisa J. Donahue, Managing Director and the Leader of the Global Turnaround and Restructuring Group at AlixPartners LLC, describing the circumstances leading up to the bankruptcy [1]. [1] https://pdf.inforuptcy.com/pacer/nysbke/273388/dockets/4/1-C72B395A-148B-11E7-8158-F0759EBC7B2E https://pdf.inforuptcy.com/pacer/nysbke/273388/dockets/4/1-C...
danans 10y ago
Was/Is Westinghouse doing anything with smaller scale reactor technologies (Thorium,etc). If not, does this potentially open a door for those technologies?
- nbanks 10y ago
  Westinghouse is likely too large a company to experiment--probably a smaller company will be first. Perhaps Terrestrial Energy in Canada will get their molten salt reactor to work. In Russia, the Akademik Lomonosov, a nuclear barge, will replace the power plant in Bilibino Nuclear Power plant in a couple years. This qualifies as a small reactor.
- fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
  No, Thorium is competition for them in an already difficult (economically) business. It might, maybe, indirectly shake something loose, but probably not.
kala_manus 10y ago
Power Rangers Full Movie online free http://www.totallycooked.com/assets/uploads/formidable/8/watch_power_rangers___other_top_boxoffice_movie_online_free.pdf http://www.totallycooked.com/assets/uploads/formidable/8/wat...
cpr 10y ago
Apropos of nuke subs and carriers, the thing that always blew my mind was learning later in life that they're only fueled once for their working life time...
nbanks 10y ago
The two new Westinghouse Vogtle pants are too expensive, at $14 billion for 2.5GW of power. If you purchased $14 billion of Tesla powerpacks, you could get 35GWh of storage--enough storage to supply 2.5GW of power for 14 hours....
- acidburnNSA 10y ago
  14 billion is a lot. For your storage alternative though, you'd still have to buy something to fill the storage up reliably in the other 10 hours of a day to be an even comparison.
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  The latest estimates are over $21 billion when you include financing costs. They go out of their way to hide these numbers since $10k/KW is just insanely, idiotically expensive.
DrNuke 10y ago
West badly needs not surrendering Gen IV development & commercialisation to Russia and China, for geopolitics reasons and Pu stockpile re-use. Westinghouse is a chip here, a prestigious one for sure, and Gov should step in. Time to drop the energy free-market drivel and act as a superpower in a world that is dangerously going towards aggressive local superpowers. Risk! game scenarios again.
squozzer 10y ago
Keep in mind this financial debacle occurred in spite of at least one state's electricity customers paying for nuclear plant construction in advance: http://www.ajc.com/business/psc-approves-georgia-power-rate-increase/nTuA6IAdHMNWnca6hgkPKN/ http://www.ajc.com/business/psc-approves-georgia-power-rate-... "January 2013: $1.05, third part of the three-tiered rate increase; 31-cent increase for energy-efficiency programs; 85-cent increase for Plant Vogtle Note: Figures are amounts added or reduced on a typical monthly bill based on usage of 1,000 kilowatt hours"
zollidia 10y ago
I honestly have nothing to add - most of the points I want to bring up are already discussed in the comments. But to those are actively working in a US Reactor Complex - you're working the dream I hope to achieve one day. Good job.
cowardlydragon 10y ago
I have no industry wide view, but... All existing nuclear powerplants are shitty Fukushima-style pressurized light water reactors in the US, are they not? I'd have to think this company is an incumbent blocking entry of modern designs. Is this really a bad thing?
luckyduck13 10y ago
My grandpa worked for Westinghouse as an electrical engineer. This news really bums me out.

416 points by mathoff 10y ago

There was massive financial fraud at Westinghouse. Even though the nuclear industry is in a downturn, the troubles at Westinghouse are self inflicted - Toshiba bought them, but found out almost all of the unit's profits are misreported, leading to them spending money on "nothing" basically. The unit earned no money and was threatening to sink Toshiba the entire keiretsu. This is Toshiba trying to save itself by closing down the tide of red. The source of the troubles was Westinghouse's purchase of CB&I Stone & Webster, and it spun out of control.

mikeash 10y ago
That's really interesting. How did Toshiba manage to acquire them without uncovering the fraud first?
- barkingcat 10y ago
  Lying and coverup. It's fraud - people refusing to tell or put things down on official financial reports, writing false statements, signing false financial reports, using non GAAP, unusual accounting methods, etc. Also, audits and due diligence didn't uncover the magnitude of the problem. It took a whistleblower to get the story out to upper management. https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/02/14/toshiba-chairman-resigns-over-massive-projected-nuclear-losses.html https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/02/14/toshiba-chairman... this article outlines the contract issues, but there were other issues at play at the same time http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-workingcapital-idUSKBN14H1WT http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-working...
  - amorphid 10y ago
    Reminds me of HP's acquisition of Autonomy. https://www.recode.net/2015/5/5/11562326/hps-5-billion-fraud-lawsuit-against-former-autonomy-executives-is-now https://www.recode.net/2015/5/5/11562326/hps-5-billion-fraud...
thrillgore 10y ago
I just don't think Japanese companies have a process on dealing with foreign M&As and fraud mitigation. When Hitachi acquired the spanish manufacturing company AnsaldoBreda, there were similar fraud accusations.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Sony's acquisition of Columbia/TriStar hasn't gone particularly well either...
  - thrillgore 10y ago
    I don't know if that's fraud as much as they just aren't using that business right. Sony is weird, having an entertainment division they keep writing off when their only profitable consumer products division is PlayStation.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      It may not have been fraud fraud, but they paid $4.8B and wrote off $2.7B of that within five years. Somebody didn't know exactly what he was buying...
- genkaos 10y ago
  "...When Hitachi acquired the italian manufacturing company AnsaldoBreda..."
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
It was the acquisition of an acquisition, really meta if you ask me. On its own, Toshiba acquiring Westinghouse was fine, but when Westinghouse acquired CB&I, it all went to hell.
bhc 10y ago
Westinghouse only closed Stone & Webster acquisition in late 2015, so it seems like the fraud started while Stone & Webster was still owned by CB&I. The whole saga is bizarre because CB&I sued Westinghouse claiming it was paid too little for S&W [1] a few months after the sale was finalized, and then a few months later sued Westinghouse again [2] seeking to wipe out their liabilities in the S&W's businesses. [1] http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closing-agreement-claim/ http://www.powermag.com/cbi-sues-westinghouse-over-2b-closin... [2] https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/ https://www.bna.com/chicago-bridge-iron-n73014448199/
masklinn 10y ago
It doesn't seem like S&W is all of the trouble, the bankruptcy seems to be blamed on Westinghouse's inability to deliver its AP1000.

maxfurman 10y ago

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

andromeduck 10y ago
It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.
- imglorp 10y ago
  Furthermore, China is also investigating Thorium tech. This might be the bigger news long term.
  - morsch 10y ago
    Built upon the technology of Germany's AVR[1]. We're still cleaning up that mess. "The total AVR decommissioning costs are expected to be in the order of 1.5 – 2.5 billion €, all public funds, ie to exceed its construction costs by far." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
    - imglorp 10y ago
      That sounds like a mess but it was a U/Th, pebble bed mess. Hopefully Th molten salt method works out better.
- morsch 10y ago
  France is doing so well that during last November's cold snap they were considering cutting power to industry and rolling power outages for the population because too many of their ancient, brittle nuclear power plants were out of commission and the import capacity from neighbouring countries was at its limit. http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-idUSL8N1D92V1 http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-id... (Reuters claims that there wasn't enough spare capacity in Germany; in fact the transfer capacity of ~2 GW was the limiting factor; http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860 http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860) For what it's worth, I think the temperatures improved before the more drastic measures had to be implemented. And of course people are free to argue that taking those French plants down for review was an overreaction by an overly critical nuclear regulation regime.

freehunter 10y ago

I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few notable failures by plant operators to maintain safe operation. Of course the company that builds nuclear plants can't succeed if new plants aren't being built. Westinghouse going under isn't going to destroy nuclear power, nuclear power was already dead.

gph 10y ago
I feel like the only thing you did read was the headline... Westinghouse is a bit of a special case. There was accounting/financial fraud and they took on stupid fixed contracts that bit them in the ass when safety regulations forced them to spend more on design/construction. For as maligned as the nuclear industry is, a lot of this was self-inflicted.
- freehunter 10y ago
  The headline doesn't explain my comment of "sure Westinghouse made some bad deals". I completely acknowledge that Westinghouse is a bad company. But nuclear isn't dying just because this company is going under, there are a lot more pressures killing nuclear power.
dalyons 10y ago
After reading years and years of discussions like this, it seems like the citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power is endlessly repeated as the reason we don't have nukes anymore, despite them being a great source of clean(ish) energy. However it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics. They're just too damn expensive to build and run, and the expected returns on investment take an extremely long time to materialise(20+ years) Noone wants to put up the enormous capital, with the very real risk that they'll never see returns as the alternative energy markets(gas, solar, etc) are evolving and dropping in price so quickly. I know I'd be pretty hesitant taking a half billion dollar 30 year bet against technology.

killjoywashere 10y ago

The real concern here is making sure the existing nuclear plants have a clear glide slope toward end-of-life. Nuclear power is an extremely tight community. On the nuclear carrier I was on (powered by Westinghouse plants), there was a valve (a valve!) malfunctioning and the tech rep flown out from the company took one look at it and said "This bit's in backward". "How do you know?" "I designed it". Which means the same guy had been working on that system for 30 years. The people working for this company are a matter of national security. I sure hope Secretary Mattis understands that. This, also, by the way, is a great illustration of Elon Musk's contention that these technologies don't just keep working. Brilliant, competent engineers and scientists have to invest themselves in making them work.

bch 10y ago
> This, also, by the way, is a great illustration of Elon Musk's contention that these technologies don't just keep working. Brilliant, competent engineers and scientists have to invest themselves in making them work. Is this expressed in a paper, or conference that I can watch a video of?
- throwanem 10y ago
  Probably, but it's also intuitively obvious to anyone who's owned a car, or a house, or otherwise been responsible for the function of any reasonably complex machine. Things wear out. Things break. They have to be repaired or replaced if the process of which they're a part is to continue. Knowledge is a crucial part of that, too. The Saturn rocket program is a great example - if we decided to go back to the moon tomorrow, we'd be a decade or more in the doing of it, because all the people who knew how to build those rockets, and the tools to build those rockets, and the tools to build those tools, and so on - are by now retired or deceased. We'd have to figure all that stuff out all over again, as nearly from scratch as makes no odds. There's no reason to imagine any other similarly complex technology would be different.
pm90 10y ago
This is a great point, but I'm very pessimistic about existing infrastructure getting any attention from the administration. If we're unable to upgrade and secure our nukes (!), I don't see how this would be a priority for anyone. Until that is something goes bad...

deleted 10y ago

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ehnto 10y ago

There is a fantastic documentary on the namesake of Westinghouse and the company itself. I found it incredibly interesting! They go into topics such as his relationship with other inventors at the time and his perhaps philanthropic relationship with his workers, the different cycles of the company and it's various product pivots. https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BUpF__h-IY https://youtube.com/watch?v=8BUpF__h-IY

erikig 10y ago

Chapter 11 bankruptcy might be a the best thing for a critical company like Westinghouse. Unlike Chapter 7 the operations continue but the entity gets debt relief. "In Chapter 11, in most instances the debtor remains in control of its business operations as a debtor in possession, and is subject to the oversight and jurisdiction of the court." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_States_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_S...

greglindahl 10y ago
I'm sure you read the article, which indicated that Chapter 11 is what's being used. In the US, companies always go for Chapter 11 if it looks like it's going to work, i.e. that there's a viable business in there somewhere. In Westinghouse's case, the viable business is everything other than their civilian reactor construction business.

brilliantcode 10y ago

I believe the nuclear power industry largely started out as a way to justify world's largest nuclear warhead stockpile. I believe it was on a show from Netflix that discussed the history of nuclear power. It worked remarkably well.

jessaustin 10y ago
Yeah the marketing worked so well you can still read it on HN from well-informed nuke fans, even those who would deny being militarists.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  I heard that solar panels are used on military satellites... Some bombs use essentially tiny wind turbines to measure fall, and ready the fuse when far enough from the releasing plane... Now who's the militarist? :)
- fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
  I'm definitely a nuclear power proponent, and not a militarist, and I think that the militaristic-ly driven decision to prefer the uranium fuel "cycle" exclusively is the reason we're stuck with these shitty BWR's and PWR's, to the exclusion of anything else. Nuclear as it exists today definitely doesn't live up to the hype, and that's because the nuclear power industry is essentially frozen on 1960's designs, with incremental improvements tacked on. If the auto industry were as slow as the nuclear industry, we'd all be looking forward to next year's new Ford Model C.
acidburnNSA 10y ago
Really!? You don't think that people were honestly excited about the most energy dense fuel known to man as a low footprint clean energy source? Your lifetime of energy in 1.5 soda cans of fuel! To me this is extremely exciting and totally unrelated to weapons.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Certainly the engineers were, and that's how it was sold to the public. But the people who wrote the checks were mainly interested in weapons.

moomin 10y ago

A difficulty I've always had with nuclear power is the problem of clean-up. I'm not scaremongering and saying it's impossible, but it is inarguably expensive. Having a large amount of costs after all the revenue has gone away is a huge regulatory red flag: it's simpler to just structure things so that you won't have to pay. This problem applies to mining as well, but very little mining has to occur near residential areas.

scubaguy 10y ago
Do you have data that backs that cleanup is inarguably expensive? This article, which more concrete, suggests 5% of revenue is required to be saved. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx#ECSArticleLink8 http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...
- cmurf 10y ago
  Whatever estimates the nuclear power industry made in Germany, they're argued to be insufficient, so they're capping the upper liability limit for these companies. The government's own stress testing suggests there will be a shortfall that'll ultimately be picked up by taxpayers. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-utilities-buy-out-nuclear-waste-liability-236-bln-euros https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-utilities-buy-ou...
- kpil 10y ago
  Truth is that no one really knows. Deep storage is one alternative, but 100.000 years is a long commitment. Breed reactors might reduce that to 1000 years, but it's still a commitment.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  You're citing a self-interested source. That's a nuclear industry trade association. Sort of like asking the Tobacco Industry Association about the healthfulness of cigarettes.
- Tepix 10y ago
  How about the mess that long term storage in Germany is in ? The salt mine Assen that they put some nuclear waste in is now flooded. Getting the nuclear waste back out will cost several billions. I don't think they will even do it. So they risk contaminating ground water. That alone can be a cost of several billion. And even if they do clean it up they are back to square zero in their quest for long term storage.

mathattack 10y ago

Bankruptcy doesn't mean closure. Someone will bring them out of bankruptcy, but a lot of their existing creditors (and their existing owner) will get stiffed along the way. Most airlines that went backrupt didn't disappear, but their owners took a haircut.

smaili 10y ago

Is this the same Westinghouse that produces microwaves?

shmerl 10y ago
The energy company is owned by Toshiba. And the appliances one by Electrolux I think. So it's not the same.
pg_bot 10y ago
The appliance division of Westinghouse was sold off in the 70's and is now managed by Electrolux. This division of Westinghouse was spun off in the late 90's and is now owned by Toshiba. The history and scope of Westinghouse is super interesting/confusing you can read the full details here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporat... Its current incarnation is now CBS corporation which licenses out the Westinghouse name to other corporations.

caminante 10y ago

Without getting into mismanagement or environmental concerns, nuclear's economics continue to worsen. 1. The supply of nuclear expertise and trained professionals is shrinking. Thus, nuclear EPC + O&M goes up. This article cites this factor at least 3x in different paragraphs. Though, that's great news for current nukes! 2. LCOE (EPC + O&M) forecasts show nuclear on par with substitutes. I'm not taking on the ESG risks of nuclear to achieve price parity.

wonderous 10y ago

@Dang (HN "meta" Q&A) Has HN ever looked into clustering news using Google News to do it? Reason I ask is how HN's de-dup filter works is puzzling to me and related stories would likely be useful to pool comments/de-dup/etc on a single news event. Example of dups, clusters, themes on HN on this event: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=westinghouse&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=westinghouse&sort=byDate&prefi... Google News cluster: https://news.google.com/news/m/more?ncl=dGww1eRZGqsOScMMCg3U3tq_4ODEM&authuser=0&ned=us&topic=b https://news.google.com/news/m/more?ncl=dGww1eRZGqsOScMMCg3U...

striking 10y ago
The de-dupe filter is based on how much discussion went on in past posts. But that actually doesn't affect the current case we're looking at here, as there are no duplicates of this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F03%2F29%2Fbusiness%2Fwestinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F... Now, in a sense, there was a duplicate, but because the URL didn't match, it didn't count. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F03%2F29%2Fbusiness%2Fwestinghouse-toshiba-nuclear-bankruptcy.html&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F20... The de-dupe filter would've turned new submissions of your post into votes for your post, if it had caught the duplicate. That being said, I don't think HN is designed to pool discussion over time, preferring to archive discussion of each story. At this point, you can't even upvote older posts; they can only be added to your favorites.
- wonderous 10y ago
  Yes the URL is different, but the canonical URL is the same. Not concerned about the votes, just curious if the topic of canonical URLs, clusters, etc. had come up.
  - striking 10y ago
    You raise an interesting point. I'd recommend shooting the HN team an email about making use of canonical URLs for de-duping. mailto:hn@ycombinator.com

nabla9 10y ago

Westinghouse had severe technical problems with AP1000 and it's not alone. French nuclear reactor builder Areva was restructured after they could not get their new EPR reactors ready on time. Their flagship project Olkiluoto 3 is nine years late and several billions of euros over budget. Chinese are building reactors as fast as they can. They are buying reactors designs from all main manufacturers. There are 21 reactors under construction and they are three years late on average because manufacturers can't get these next generation reactors ready. Nuclear reactors being constantly late and exceeding their budgets is not new. This was true in 60's and 70's and it's true now.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
Calder Hall in the UK was only three weeks late, opening in 1956. I wonder why we find it more difficult now, is it more thorough standards perhaps?
- nabla9 10y ago
  First Magnox reactors had very low efficiency < 20% and their electricity production was not competitive. Their main use was to produce plutonium for weapons.

Stratoscope 10y ago

When I was a kid, my most favorite plastic model kit was the Westinghouse Atomic Power Plant. It was awesome! http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=15662 http://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=15662 You can even buy one today for the low price of $1250: http://www.ebay.com/itm/262902080871 http://www.ebay.com/itm/262902080871

Animats 10y ago

Does this mean the AP-1000 reactor is dead? Several of those are under construction.

erikig 10y ago
No, it just means Westinghouse is going to get its debt restructured. They'll still keep operating under supervision of a bankruptcy judge.

anovikov 10y ago

Why should we be worried? Nuclear power is a no go for civilized world. It is not insurable. It has well-developed, clean alternatives. Apart from carriers and subs, it has no good applications (it would be also be great to get back to nuclear missile cruisers and ideally even destroyers, but outside of the military, i can't see any use for it at all).

thewhitetulip 10y ago

As a Nikola Tesla fan, just a honorary mention, Westinghouse corporation is (one of) the (main) reason why we have AC. When nobody believed in Tesla, George did, even after the bullying by the Edison camp, the smear campaigns. I have read that per watt of AC current, Nikola Tesla was supposed to get some $2.3, but Westinghouse told Tesla that he would be bankrupt if Tesla was to be given that Royalty, the legend has it that Telsa tore the contract saying something like this, "You believed in me when the world didn't, I don't want the money", even if he didn't say something fancy during this time, but the act in itself, if it really happened, is touching. I nearly cried when I read it in a book a long long time ago. It is sad to see that a energy giant is going bankrupt. End of an era for a Tesla fan, the company who believed in Tesla is going bankrupt.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

My dad worked for Westinghouse in the late 70s at Hanford. This really feels like an end of an era.

tomjen3 10y ago
I'm sure it does, but doesn't Westinghouse go way back, to the start of the electric era? Didn't they built it, or lease most of it?
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Yes, but somehow the name today only survives for their nuclear operation: > Westinghouse purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997. In 1998, CBS established a brand licensing subsidiary Westinghouse Licensing Corporation (Westinghouse Electric Corporation). In 1997/1998 the Power Generation Business Unit, headquartered in Orlando, FL, was sold to Siemens AG, of Germany. A year later, CBS sold all of its nuclear power businesses to British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). Soon after, BNFL gained license rights on the Westinghouse trademarks and they used those to reorganize their acquired assets as Westinghouse Electric Company. That company was sold to Toshiba in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation#Timeline_of_company_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporat... My dad was always in nuclear though (well, after a brief stint at Tektronix).

jartelt 10y ago

The nuclear industry was already having big issues, so I do not see this bankruptcy changing things much. The decline of nuclear wasn't even related to safety concerns, which I believe are largely exaggerated. Currently operating nuclear plants are losing money and needed to be bailed out in Illinois and New York because they cannot produce power for a low enough price. With that in mind, who wants to spend >$1B to build a new nuclear plant that will likely take >10 years to get permitted and built? For the industry to grow, there needs to be a big change in technology to decrease the capital costs needed to build plants and to decrease plant operating costs. If you cost more than a natural gas plant, you are not going to have much luck in today's market.

jiggliemon 10y ago

July 7th, 1888: Tesla Sells A.C. Patents Tesla sells patents for A.C. Polyphase System to George Westinghouse for $25,000 in cash, $50,000 in notes and a royalty of $2.50 per horsepower for each motor. https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/timeline/1888-tesla-sells-ac-patents https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/timeline/1888-tesla-s... Some tangential history regarding Westinghouse for fun.

mikikian 10y ago

Here's the declaration by Lisa J. Donahue, Managing Director and the Leader of the Global Turnaround and Restructuring Group at AlixPartners LLC, describing the circumstances leading up to the bankruptcy [1]. [1] https://pdf.inforuptcy.com/pacer/nysbke/273388/dockets/4/1-C72B395A-148B-11E7-8158-F0759EBC7B2E https://pdf.inforuptcy.com/pacer/nysbke/273388/dockets/4/1-C...

danans 10y ago

Was/Is Westinghouse doing anything with smaller scale reactor technologies (Thorium,etc). If not, does this potentially open a door for those technologies?

nbanks 10y ago
Westinghouse is likely too large a company to experiment--probably a smaller company will be first. Perhaps Terrestrial Energy in Canada will get their molten salt reactor to work. In Russia, the Akademik Lomonosov, a nuclear barge, will replace the power plant in Bilibino Nuclear Power plant in a couple years. This qualifies as a small reactor.
fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
No, Thorium is competition for them in an already difficult (economically) business. It might, maybe, indirectly shake something loose, but probably not.

kala_manus 10y ago

Power Rangers Full Movie online free http://www.totallycooked.com/assets/uploads/formidable/8/watch_power_rangers___other_top_boxoffice_movie_online_free.pdf http://www.totallycooked.com/assets/uploads/formidable/8/wat...

cpr 10y ago

Apropos of nuke subs and carriers, the thing that always blew my mind was learning later in life that they're only fueled once for their working life time...

nbanks 10y ago

The two new Westinghouse Vogtle pants are too expensive, at $14 billion for 2.5GW of power. If you purchased $14 billion of Tesla powerpacks, you could get 35GWh of storage--enough storage to supply 2.5GW of power for 14 hours....

acidburnNSA 10y ago
14 billion is a lot. For your storage alternative though, you'd still have to buy something to fill the storage up reliably in the other 10 hours of a day to be an even comparison.
mikeyouse 10y ago
The latest estimates are over $21 billion when you include financing costs. They go out of their way to hide these numbers since $10k/KW is just insanely, idiotically expensive.

DrNuke 10y ago

West badly needs not surrendering Gen IV development & commercialisation to Russia and China, for geopolitics reasons and Pu stockpile re-use. Westinghouse is a chip here, a prestigious one for sure, and Gov should step in. Time to drop the energy free-market drivel and act as a superpower in a world that is dangerously going towards aggressive local superpowers. Risk! game scenarios again.

squozzer 10y ago

Keep in mind this financial debacle occurred in spite of at least one state's electricity customers paying for nuclear plant construction in advance: http://www.ajc.com/business/psc-approves-georgia-power-rate-increase/nTuA6IAdHMNWnca6hgkPKN/ http://www.ajc.com/business/psc-approves-georgia-power-rate-... "January 2013: $1.05, third part of the three-tiered rate increase; 31-cent increase for energy-efficiency programs; 85-cent increase for Plant Vogtle Note: Figures are amounts added or reduced on a typical monthly bill based on usage of 1,000 kilowatt hours"

zollidia 10y ago

I honestly have nothing to add - most of the points I want to bring up are already discussed in the comments. But to those are actively working in a US Reactor Complex - you're working the dream I hope to achieve one day. Good job.

cowardlydragon 10y ago

I have no industry wide view, but... All existing nuclear powerplants are shitty Fukushima-style pressurized light water reactors in the US, are they not? I'd have to think this company is an incumbent blocking entry of modern designs. Is this really a bad thing?

luckyduck13 10y ago

My grandpa worked for Westinghouse as an electrical engineer. This news really bums me out.