Britain Speeds Up Atom Power Stations

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 15

Britain Speeds Up Atom Power Stations

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, December 17. The ill wind that has blown from the Middle East crisis is fanning Britain’s determination to lead the world with the building of atomic power stations to reduce her dependence on imports of oil and coal. By next spring, following the award of the first full-scale commercial nuclear power station contracts to be awarded anywhere in the world, Britain will have 50,000 men at work on three stations. A fourth is awaiting Government approval. The four will cost £, 155,000,000. Their total net electrical generating capacity will be 1160 megawatts. They will generate quantities of electric power equivalent to that produced by about 3,750,000 tons of coal a year. All should be fully at work by the end of 1960. Scotland will have the biggest nuclear power station in the world. It will be at Hunterston, some 35 miles from Glasgow, in Ayrshire, and willcost up to £35,000,000. The biggest crane in the world will be built to erect the station. It will span 200 feet and be capable of lifting up to 300 tons at a time. The station will have two reactors, each weighing some 70,000 tons. The total charge of uranium for the reactors will be 500 tons. The generat-

ing capacity will be 360,000 kilowatts and every day up to 5.000,000 units of electricity will be sent out to consumers. The other two stations for which contracts have been awarded will be at Bradwell in Essex (300,000 kilowatts) and Berkeley in Gloucestershire (270,000 kilowatts). A fourth station now being planned will be at Inkley Point, in Somerset (275,000 kilowatts). A significant fact which emerges from the announcement of these four stations to be built is that Britain has made more progress with her “atoms for peace” planning than was expected. These • stations will save 4,000,000 tons of coal a year, compared with the 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 tons a year saving which the Government 1955 White Paper estimated would be made by 12 stations in 1965. Britain’s plan is therefore being revised and Mr Aubrey Jones, the Minister of Fuel and Power, is to make an interim statement to the Commons today and to say just how far the Ministry has raised its sights. He will make a full statement on the new programme early in the New Year after the Commons Christmas recess. Atomic power is now becoming “big business” for Britain and British companies are also planning to provide for markets overseas. An important point is the question

of the cost of atomic or nuclear-pro-duced electricity. It is stated that it will be only a little more expensive than electricity produced by conventional means. The Central Electricity Authority, which has placed the contracts for the building of the Bradwell and Berkeley stations, has said: “It is clear that the capital cost will not be less than two and a half or three times that of a comparable coal or oil-burning station and that the cost of nuclear generation, initially, will probably be higher than that from the authority’s advanced types of thermal plant. “The hope and expectation is that the construction costs of future nuclear power stations will progressively be reduced and that when more experience has been gained on such important factors as the working life of the reactors and the cost and life of the fuel, then nuclear power will become competitive with thermal genertion and may even be cheaper.” The announcement that the four stations, followed by others, are to be built is regarded as one of the most important events in Britain since the war. It has been described as a “step into the dark and fabulous future.” And it is claimed that by 1965 the capacity of Britan’s atomic power stations should be more than half the capacity of all conventional power stations now at work.

They will also give the countryside a “new look” for they have no cooling tower, no smoke stacks, no water towers, no railway sidings and no coal dumps.