Why Is General Electric Betting Billions on Nuclear Power?
Does General Electric See a Nuclear Comeback?
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) through its partnership with Japan’s Hitachi, Ltd., working together as Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd., have signed a partnership agreement to cooperate in the field of decommissioning and remediation of boiling water reactors (BWRs) in Japan. (Source: “Hitachi-GE signs BWR decommissioning agreements,” World Nuclear News, November 12, 2015.) Despite all the trepidation and hoopla at the Paris climate conference (COP21), renewables will not be replacing coal and gas as soon as regulators would like. Nuclear energy is the real alternative and GE stock will benefit.
As part of this cooperation, France’s AREVA, one of the largest, if not the largest, nuclear energy and uranium mining companies in the world, will participate in the preliminary studies for the decommissioning of BWRs in Japan along with GE and Hitachi. The groups will also study other opportunities linked to the decommissioning and remediation of these reactors.
Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy is a world leader in developing, designing, construction, and maintenance of nuclear reactors in Japan. While many investors hear about uranium mining and reactor projects, reactor decommissioning projects are more interesting from the business perspective and GE stock will benefit from the company’s significant experience in this activity, thanks to a variety of contracts undertaken in the United States and Germany. GE can exploit that experience in winning decommissioning and remediation contracts in Japan and beyond.
