ATOM POWER IN EUROPE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29154, 15 March 1960, Page 11

ATOM POWER IN EUROPE

Output Estimate Reduced (Special Correspondent N,ZJ>.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, March 14. A belief that Europe will have to turn again to nuclear energy within a few years is expressed in the second annual report of the European Nuclear Energy Agency. Within 10 or 20 years, says the report, industrial expansion in Europe will once more have outstripped available sources df conventional fuels or at least those which can be used without too great a strain on the external balance of payments of Europe as a whole. In the meantime, however, the agency recognised that the pace of development in atomic power would be slower than was at first thought. In particular, the estimate of nuclear energy production in Europe by 1965 of 81 million kw. has now been reduced to a maximum of 7 million kw., well .over half of which could be produced in power stations now being built in Britain. Even so, adds the agency, the cost of electricity from atomic power stations to be commissioned in the next five years will range from .73d to 1.3 d per unit, and the cost of conventional electricity production in the same period would be between .6d and ,94d a unit. This meant there were certain regions in Europe in which nuclear power stations could be installed economically.