Atom-Powered Britain

In a calm, confident white paper, Britain's Ministry of Fuel and Power told last week how it plans to make Britain an atom-powered nation. The changeover will be gradual, but the program is much more ambitious than any officially advanced in the U.S.

The paper points out that Britain is a growing industrial nation that depends for energy almost entirely on coal. But Britain's coal resources are failing and the country has almost no oil. To the Fuel Ministry, nuclear power thus seems a heaven-sent answer. It will cost at first about 7 mills per kilowatt-hour. Even if this cost does not fall in the future, as is likely because of technical improvements, it will still be competitive with power from British coal.

Private & Non-Military. A striking feature of the program is that it seems to be independent of atomic weapons production. Britain's Atomic Energy Authority is not so all-embracing as the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. It is concerned with research and development, and its part in the power program will be to give scientific advice and to train engineers. Private enterprise will design and build the nuclear power plants, much as if they were conventional steam plants. They will be paid for and operated by the government-controlled Electricity Authorities.

Preliminary work is already in progress. By 1957, says the ministry, the first full-scale power stations should reach the ground-breaking stage. Meanwhile, the nuclear operating engineers will learn their trade at the Calder Hall experimental generating station, which is approaching completion, and will be feeding 50,000 kw. of atomic electricity into the high lines in 1956.

Britain's government-owned atomic industries already produce plutonium and uranium 235 for military purposes, but the Fuel Ministry apparently plans to get along without much help from them. Its first four full-sized stations (100,000 to 200,000 kw. each) will burn natural uranium, turning a little of the nonfissionable U-238 into plutonium. When enough plutonium is available, more efficient reactors will use it as fuel, some of them turning comparatively cheap thorium into fissionable U-233. Eventually Britain will build breeder reactors that produce more fuel than they consume.

Plenty of Fuel. In ten years, the ministry reckons, its nuclear power plants will be grinding out about 2,000,000 kw. During the following decade they will multiply fast enough to take care of all needs for additional electricity, rising toward 15 million kw. by 1975. The ministry does not anticipate trouble with uranium supply. "Recent evidence," it says guardedly, "suggests that uranium is more plentiful than was once thought." Available also is "the substitute fuel thorium, which should be available in considerable quantities if it is required."

In pushing the reactor program, Britain has more than domestic power in mind. "We must look forward," says the white paper, "to the time when a valuable export trade can be built up. The experience gained by British industry in designing and building nuclear power stations during the next ten years should lay the foundations for a rapid expansion both at home and overseas . . . We shall then be in a position to fulfill our traditional role as an exporter of skill."

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