World Crisis Online

GE Hitachi, the US-Japanese nuclear joint venture, has formed an alliance with Lockheed Martin to develop high security control systems designed to protect a new generation of reactors against cyberterrorism.

The two companies will design and manufacture the main control room systems for GEH’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor, its new nuclear power plant being developed for the US and export markets such as India.

Danny Roderick, senior vice-president of new plant projects for GEH, said: “When you have cyberterrorism and cybersecurity issues, these platforms have to be completely resistant to those threats … When you look at the digital controls that we had 20 years ago, that won’t work today. The old generation was the equivalent of eight-track tape, compared to today’s technology, which is like digital music.”

GEH hopes that offering the highest level of security and reliability in computer systems will be a key selling point in a highly competitive global market, where suppliers compete ferociously for a small number of high-value contracts.

The possibility of cyberattacks on reactors was highlighted last year, when Iran’s nuclear programme was disrupted by the Stuxnet computer “worm”.

In 2009, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission added the protection of computer and communications systems and safety-related networks to its security regulations.

Lockheed, the largest US defence contractor by sales, said it would not be using any military technology for its reactor control systems.

Dan Heller, the vice-president of its nuclear business, said the company would be “starting from scratch” with a “top-down systems control approach”.

However, he said, Lockheed would be drawing on its experience of systems integration for aircraft, ships and spacecraft.

Using military technology would have caused problems in some of the markets where GEH is hoping to offer the ESBWR, including Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Taiwan, as such technology requires special export dispensation.

The most promising export prospect appears to be India, where GEH, a US-based 60/40 joint venture between General Electric of the US and Hitachi of Japan, hopes to sign a deal by the end of the year.

In the US, in spite of hopes of a renaissance for nuclear power, the market is “still sluggish”, Mr Roderick said. Just two developments, each with two reactors, have started construction and both have chosen reactors from GEH’s rival, Westinghouse.

The alliance with GEH represents a further push into civil nuclear power for Lockheed, which is being squeezed by defence budget cuts in the US and Europe.

But Mr Heller said the move was not far removed from its core defence business. “This is about energy security and that is a global security issue,” he said. “It’s about offering the US and its allies a reliable source of nuclear power.”

Control systems are a significant proportion of a reactor’s cost and can account for about 20 per cent of the value of a project.