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Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

B&W’s Jim Ferland describes company’s global business outlook

May 28, 2013 By Rod Adams

Jim Ferland, the CEO of The Babcock & Wilcox Company, was recently interviewed by Bill Loveless of Platts Energy Week about the company’s global business outlook.

During the interview, Ferland discussed the B&W mPowerTM reactor, one of the leading small modular reactor development projects; FutureGen 2.0, a carbon capture and storage demonstration project; the impact of increasing government regulations; and the company’s technology development programs.

Disclosure: I am employed by B&W as an engineer/analyst on the B&W mPower reactor development project.

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Climate change, New Nuclear, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

About Rod Adams

Rod Adams is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience, now serving as a Managing Partner at Nucleation Capital, an emerging climate-focused fund. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial discussion and analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology and policies for several decades. He is the founder of Atomic Insights and host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Andrew Jaremko says

    May 28, 2013 at 7:25 PM

    Rod – thanks for the video. I love the statement at 1:55 about load following. I’m especially taken by the vision of a wind farm or solar installation putting in a SMR to remove variability, collecting ‘green’ subsidies to build the facility, and then collecting generous feed-in tariffs on what’s essentially nuclear energy. Hilarious!

    I’m curious about the load following ramp rates in the m-Power design. Are you at liberty to comment? I feel sure that the reactor and the generator have to be designed jointly and that there are many tradeoffs.

    Also – is there any discussion at B&W about modular reactors designed to fulfill Cal Abel and Jim Holm’s vision of replacing coal boilers with nuclear boilers in existing power plants?

    • Acme says

      May 29, 2013 at 10:41 AM

      Why we need renewables, when we have such energy density of uranium and thorium?

    • Simeon Freeman says

      June 6, 2013 at 11:44 AM

      Andrew,
      You make an interesting point that I have never heard stated as concisely. Wind and solar installations, at present, are really just remote gas plants that occasionally cycle down (between 15% and 30%) to accommodate the unreliables.

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