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This is a very interesting development to me. I think they wouldn't have done this if they didn't think the US would start building more nuclear power plants relatively shortly. And Toshiba has some very interesting "micro-nuke" reactor technology that is already deployed in a demonstration project in Alaska.

The thing I always remember about Westinghouse is that it was built up in large part on Nikola Tesla's inventions and the fact that he simply signed away his ongoing payments from the patents when George Westinghouse fell on hard times early on. There's a book that I've always wanted to get, but just never gotten around to it, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. Tesla is apparently a central character in the new movie The Prestige, being played by David Bowie, of all people. If it lives up to what I've heard about the character from the book that this was made from it could launch a new interest in Tesla. Everything I know about it says the conflict and interaction among those three men, and others (including Mark Twain, for example) says that it would make a great movie or mini-series.

When you walk down the hall at the energy center, there is a big LCD display that has an image of a map of the USA. It is an animation and graphics of new plants start popping up, mostly in the south east reigon, depicting proposed plants. Hopefully Toshiba knows how to manage projects, from what I experienced, if they approach the new plants as they did the upgrades to the existing plants the competition will crush them. It is only 1979 at the energy center.

And Toshiba has some very interesting "micro-nuke" reactor technology that is already deployed in a demonstration project in Alaska.

If you would carefully read the article you linked to, you would see that the NRC has yet to approve the mini reactor in Alaska.

It will generate power for 30 years before refueling and should be installed before 2010 providing an approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Tesla, an eccentric and often penniless immigrant from eastern europe, deserves credit for teaching the world how to use alternating electrical current/induction--the basis for ac transformers and the ensuing wide distribution of electricity from a single source. Thomas Edison's nemesis.

Everything I know about it says the conflict and interaction among those three men, and others (including Mark Twain, for example) says that it would make a great movie or mini-series.

Tesla and Edison especially did not get along. Tesla considered Edison a "tinkerer", whereas Tesla was a univeristy educated Electrical Engineer. That, and he thought Edison's idea of DC power distribution to be wrong. Thankfully, Tesla and AC won out.