HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER GENERATION

Putaruru Press, Volume XXVI, Issue 1351, 13 October 1949, Page 3

HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER GENERATION

PROFESSOR DALTON’S VIEWS When atomic power becomes a peaceful commercial proposition New Zealand will do better to adhere to hydro-electric generation. This opinion was expressed by a New Zealander, Professor G. C. J. Dalton, who has been wording at the nuclear research station at Harwell, England. Professor Dalton arrived by the Rangitoto to take up the Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Auckland University College. He said that whereas atomic power involved the consumption of a scarce and expensive raw material, rivers would continue to provide hydro-electric power with no such cost.

The peaceful arrival of atomic power would, he said, bring no startling changes from the modern style of life. Power would be manifested in a form of heat which would then be used to generate power to drive turbines and so forth in the same way as the heat from fuels was now used. Professor Dalton foresaw no great change in the price of electricity to the household. Five-sixths of the cost of electric power was the transmission cost, he said, and whether 1 generation from atomic heat was

more or less expensive, it would only reflect in one-sixth of the bill. The best result, he said, would be more power. Professor Dalton said that while American nuclear scientists were possibly better off for machinery than British scientists, he thought that British research was proceeding thoroughly on a longer term basis.