Did a little more reading on Wikipedia, and found this bit of "oof"[0]:
> Cost overruns at Vogtle and the cancellation of Summer [Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina] led to Westinghouse's bankruptcy in 2017.
This raises a somewhat-scary question: in this case, Westinghouse's bankrupt remains were bought out by a private equity firm, and they presumably took on Westinghouse's obligations toward in-progress nuclear plant construction, but... what if that hadn't been the case? What if Westinghouse had just completely failed and ceased operations? Who would support the remainder of projects like Vogtle 3 & 4, and ongoing maintenance for the next however-many decades?
I guess a company in a heavily-regulated sector like this must have some sort of succession plan, but it's not clear to me how this would work, in the case of e.g. the company going bankrupt, and all the staff with institutional knowledge about a reactor design dispersing to various other companies. Hell, that could have even happened in Westinghouse's case.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
> Cost overruns at Vogtle and the cancellation of Summer [Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina] led to Westinghouse's bankruptcy in 2017.
This raises a somewhat-scary question: in this case, Westinghouse's bankrupt remains were bought out by a private equity firm, and they presumably took on Westinghouse's obligations toward in-progress nuclear plant construction, but... what if that hadn't been the case? What if Westinghouse had just completely failed and ceased operations? Who would support the remainder of projects like Vogtle 3 & 4, and ongoing maintenance for the next however-many decades?
I guess a company in a heavily-regulated sector like this must have some sort of succession plan, but it's not clear to me how this would work, in the case of e.g. the company going bankrupt, and all the staff with institutional knowledge about a reactor design dispersing to various other companies. Hell, that could have even happened in Westinghouse's case.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000