The CEGB is in danger of finding itself in a Catch 22 situation. As it borrows to finance the increasing capital burden of power stations it doesn't need and which operate at uneconomic levels, and as interest payments mount, it will be forced to push up prices — in turn there will be a fall in demand for electricity.
So why is it that the CEGB and the Tories are going for PWR? Two reasons. Firstly, because that's what the bosses of the British nuclear industry want. They want to get in to the export market for nuclear power stations.
The British nuclear industry consists of two giant engineering corporations - GEC and Northern Engineering Industries. Originally tempted to develop their own type of reactor the Advance Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR)
The first AGR was Dungeness in 1965. It is still not working. The return for the massive investment in the AGR has been the intermittent output of electricity from the two (out of five) stations which have worked, whose four reactors averaged roughly 30 per design capacity since 1976.
As costs went through and work fell years behind schedule, the programme which originally had been hailed 'the breakthrough of all time' had become by 1973 'a catastrophe we must repeat' according to the CEGB boss at the time.
The nuclear industry bosses were forced to recognise that backed a non-runner. To get to the race they had to back but not with their own money. ing made killing white elephant, they now tricity.consumers to put The need for such a large ordering programme is dictated not by energy needs but by the needs of the nuclear construction industry have a guaranteed market.
For the Tories the gramme offers another considerable benefit.
Cabinet minute. nuclear gramme would have the advantage of removing a substantial portion eletricity production from the dangers of disruption by industrial action by they atstarted have cent of their ine Tool gicalesl they had back inPWR — The Tories Hav- power the AGR want elecup the stake.
who have to PWR proleaked of coal miners or transport workers?
hope that nuclear Winema break ne strength of some of the most powerful sections of the working class. They're not just out for revenge, they know and to to the chiefs Windscale AT LEAST 13 people are now known to have died from the effects of the fire at the WindRadiological Protection Board published a report last week which which cases of thyroid much cancer, 13 of them fatal, and other cancers on the results of the produced plutonium and the fire, which burned for two days, released radioactive iodine into the air spread over England, Wales and parts of So far, this has been Britain's worst nuclear disaster. that if they want to carry through their programme of destroying our unions and driving down living standards they have to take on the miners and railworkers.
The Electricity Board chiefs have shown themselves one hundred per cent loyal to the interests of their the shareholders of the GEC and NEI une bosses and bankers, to the Tories. To do that they have shown themselves quite willing ewall, cook the books, bend facts and when it suits them tell outright lies. In theory the CEGB are accountable but record under successive Labour governments shows this is a myth.
For instance, they didn't reveal the full extent of a major leak radioactivity from Windscale in 1977. They kept an internal development review outlining their future strategy a secret trom the Labour government. The plans for the PWR programme were laid before the Tories came to power - the CEGB simply omitted to send a copy of the document outlining its strategy to the energy minister Tony Benn.
There are alternatives to a nuclear Alternatives that can safeguard jobs and resources. start there is energy conservation. It is estimated that if the capital costs of a nuclear power station were spent on insulation it would save three times as ever produce. it would also produce energy the station would thousands of jobs. The view that economic growth automatically requires ever increasing energy supplies simply does not hold up. could also be spent on more efficient coal-fired plant. The most modern coal-fired stations have achieved a 25 per cent increase in fuel economy.
The biggest potential for savings is in the use combined heat and power (CHP). A normal power station is about 30 per cent efficient -the remaining 70 percent of the