Word: reactor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...possess one after trying to fake your way through the tests--your soul. First there's the pre-employment drug test, now routine at more than 80% of large companies--and not just for the person who will be piloting the executive jet or loading plutonium rods into the reactor. Winn-Dixie tests the people who stack Triscuit boxes; Wal-Mart tests its people greeters. What a preference for weed over Bud as a Saturday-night relaxation aid says about your work habits has never been established, but this in no way dulls management's eagerness to pry into your...
...Exelon (formed by the merger of Philadelphia-based PECO Energy and Chicago native Unicom), have shelled out nearly $4 billion to purchase 15 of the nation's 103 operating plants--including such unlikely prizes as the surviving sister unit of Pennsylvania's infamous Three Mile Island No. 2 reactor. These new nuclear powers, which also include Duke Energy, Southern Co., Dominion Resources and Constellation Energy, have reversed years of mismanagement and cost overruns to turn the plants into the reliable, profitable atomic engines they were meant...
...plants, Exelon is already working on the next generation, exemplified by a helium-cooled, pebble-bed test reactor it is helping build in South Africa that, theoretically at least, wouldn't ever need to be shut down for refueling and is practically meltdown-proof. Of course, the company would still have to find a place in the U.S. to put it. Many homeowners would sooner burn coal in their own fireplace than live next to a reactor. So rather than try to find converts, the industry hopes to construct new facilities on existing sites, in communities that already depend...
...plants, Exelon is already working on the next generation, exemplified by a helium-cooled, pebble-bed test reactor it is helping build in South Africa that, theoretically at least, wouldn't ever need to be shut down for refueling and is practically meltdown-proof. Of course, the company would still have to find a place in the U.S. to put it. Many homeowners would sooner burn coal in their own fireplace than live next to a reactor. So rather than try to find converts, the industry hopes to construct new facilities on existing sites, in communities that already depend...
...Still, when it comes to safety, there's no denying that the industry has made great strides. The annual number of protective automatic shutdowns at each reactor, for instance, has fallen tenfold in the past 16 years, to 0.5. Exelon and Entergy have a lot more riding on their vast nuclear portfolios than an old-line utility with one measly reactor and a guaranteed rate of return. By pooling the expertise of a much larger, dedicated staff and spreading out the fixed costs, they've been able to reduce the length of refueling outages from 100 days...