French Nuclear Reactor Company Buys German Windpower Company.

[NNadir]

Rather than generate energy, I think we should generate conspiracy theories, and this sounds like an excellent opportunity for one:

The world's only fully integrated nuclear company, France's Areva, has made a friendly offer to take over Repower Systems, a wind turbine technology specialist.


Repower is a Hamburg, Germany-based wind turbine technology specialist working in the field of high-output turbine designs suitable for offshore use. It employs 740 people and earned revenues of Eur 450 million ($587 million) in 2006...

...Areva said: "The combination of Areva and Repower will create a worldwide centre of excellence in wind energy based in Germany. This acquisition will reinforce Areva's srategic position in carbon dioxide-free energy technologies. Areva's strategy of combining nuclear and renewable energies and transmission and distribution infrastructure is complementary, all seeking to address the world's growing energy demand without emitting greenhouse gases."

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/corporate/23012007Areva_buys_wind_technology_company.shtml

The Repower Executives, fucking traitors, said that the takeover was friendly.

[Buzz Clik]

1. What's your thought, NNadir?

Help the uninitiated -- I know that you are not anti-nuke. Are you suggesting that Areva bought Repower to kill it?

[NNadir]

2. Me?

I think Areva wants to be the premier company in the world for producing Greenhouse Gas Free Energy.

I'm sure though if one wanders over to the Greenpeace website - not that I have the stomache for that today - one can find a different spin.

Areva already owned 22% of Repower before this announcement.

Wind energy does not compete with nuclear energy, since nuclear energy is baseload continuous power and wind energy is not. Properly functioning well integrated wind power - coupled with appropriate geographical distribution and accurate weather forecasting so as to minimize the need for "spinning reserve" - can reduce the need for gas energy.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Hmmm. Makes sense. However,

what's the basis of your calling the Repower execs "traitors"? (Sorry. I'm probably being dense, but your opinions are always interesting.)

[NNadir]

4. It's sarcasm.

There's a well expressed conceit that the purpose of renewable energy should be to displace nuclear energy.

Wind power is incapable of displacing nuclear energy since it is not continuous. Still I might need as many hands as are in the City of Paris for sufficient fingers to count the times I have heard that we don't need nuclear because wind power is so wonderful. This is technically ridiculous.

Wind power is, in fact, wonderful. Used correctly it can displace natural gas and it can displace diesel (when used for electrical generation.) Natural gas is an unacceptably dangerous fossil fuel. But whatever wind power can do about gas fired generation, it is irrelevant to the subject of nuclear energy and its merits or demerits.

Note that wind power can do something that nuclear energy cannot, which is to generate readily accessible peak power. The current generation of nuclear power plants are respond only sluggishly to load changes, often taking a full day to restart after shut down.

By acquiring Repower, Areva has positioned itself in both baseload and one form of potential peak energy. I am quite sure that Areva's marketing contains a fair amount of reference to carbon taxes and the like, and well it should. Thus there is an excellent synergy in their marketing information.

I think Areva is an outstanding company. The EPR promises to be a great reactor and I hope many of them are built around the world. They have excellent prospects to build some reactors in the United States. Note that I would have no objection whatsoever to Repower building wind turbines here either.