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Rolls-Royce Launches New Unit for Civil Nuclear Power
19 July 2008
Rolls-Royce is establishing a new business unit to address the global market for civil nuclear power. The company estimates that this worldwide market could be worth £50 billion (US$100 billion) a year by 2023, with £13 billion in support to existing nuclear plant, £20 billion in new build and £17 billion in support for new reactors.
Rolls-Royce currently has the largest nuclear skills base of any UK company, with around 2,000 specialist nuclear-focused employees in the UK, France and the US. It also has the UK’s most substantial nuclear supply chain, comprising around 260 proven suppliers.
The company’s position in nuclear power originates from its involvement in the development and support of the nuclear steam raising plant for the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine program. In addition it established Data Systems & Solutions (DS&S) in 1999. DS&S provides safety critical instrumentation and control for civil nuclear reactors in Europe, including France’s 58 reactors, the US and other markets such as China.
Rolls-Royce has now established a single focus for its global civil nuclear activity. The new unit will provide a service that can support a number of the phases of a civil nuclear program, including providing advice to governments and operators, technical engineering support and safety assessments, manufacturing, procurement and through life support.
July 19, 2008 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: ejj | July 19, 2008 at 07:42 AM
eii,
It is not very high profile but Rolls Royce is knee deep in the nuclear industry. They design and manufacture the cores for the Royal Navy.
Bill
Posted by: Bill Young | July 19, 2008 at 02:18 PM
It is time. Britain is running out of North Sea gas and close its coal mines. France sells nuclear power to all of its neighbors. R&R ought to get together with AECL and their CANDU reactors that can be built quickly without large pressure vessels. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | July 19, 2008 at 05:20 PM
The civil nuclear power business is money intensive and is subject to up and down fluctuations in funding. This situation makes it hard to keep expertise around of any length of time.
Their military business gives them a stable business environment to build up nuclear expertise that they now want to extract some revenue from.
If the US builds up its civil nuclear power program again, it will be foreign expertise that does it.
Posted by: Axil | July 19, 2008 at 10:14 PM
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What do you think of Rolls Royce Axil? Seems to me that other corporations are a lot further ahead than them....GE/Hitachi, PBMR, Areva....