The Problem of Power in the United Kingdom

Abstract

T . nHE Suez crisis of 1956 has served to spotlight the difficulties being experienced by North West European countries in maintaining an adequate power supply to support expanding economies. Every significant industrial nation has built its industrial potential mainly upon indigenous power resources, and there is a distinct correlation between rise in national incomes and rise in power consumption. Thus where traditional power resources are unable to sustain industrial growth a serious problem arises. The problem is not purely a British one. In many industrialized countries conventional power resources are becoming overstrained or increasingly costly to utilize. Large imports of fuel become necessary, and this raises financial, political, and strategic difficulties. The global nature of the power problem has been clearly shown in the proceedings of a number of world power conferences, although the estimates made of future power requirements in the world as a whole vary widely. Recent papers suggest that the rate of increase of energy consumption for the world as a whole is such as to double the requirements every ten years. Catering for increases as large as, or larger than, this presents grave problems in areas such as northwestern Europe where water power resources are approaching full exploitation or where the mining of coal brings difficulties of ever-growing complexity. In such areas oil is an essential supplementary fuel, but where requirements are entirely or mainly imported other difficulties arise. This is the background to the intensive work, especially in the United Kingdom, on the development of an alternative source of power to supplement traditional power resources, i.e., on the development of nuclear power. The importance of nuclear energy will vary from country to country. Where coal, oil, or water power is readily available the economic advantages of nuclear power are obviously less. Similarly, in poor or backward countries, the cost of atomic stations, plus the need for a high level of technological skill and other requirements that are by definition scarce, makes atomic power difficult to obtain. But for many countries (including the United Kingdom) and for certain areas within large countries with local power problems (e.g., New England) the stimulus to develop nuclear energy is very great. Even here nuclear power is not the sole answer to the energy problems of the future, and its contribution to the short-run problem will be comparatively small, though essential. For the United Kingdom the problem of power is urgent. The country's industrial growth has been wholly, and still is mainly, based on coal resources. These resources are not now capable of exploitation to a sufficient degree to meet present and future energy requirements. To maintain a healthy econ-