Britain: An official handbook > 1959

BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
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Hydro-Electric. The setting up of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board
in 1943 marked the beginning of a new era of intensive water power development
in the Highlands of Scotland. A development scheme drawn up by the Board in
1944, showing the water power resources which it proposed to examine, listed
102 hydro-electric projects with an estimated annual output of 6,274 million units
of electricity. The ultimate output of hydro-electric power is expected to be
substantially higher and eventually may exceed 10,000 million units. In 1957, 1,625
million units were generated from water power compared with 322 million in 1949.
Hydro-electric schemes with a total capacity of 780 MW were under promotion or
survey at the end of 1957.
Alternative Fuels. To meet increasing demands for electricity and to save coal,
generation from alternative fuels is being promoted. The chief alternatives are oil
and nuclear energy. As regards oil, dual firing apparatus able to use either coal or
oil has been fitted to a new power station at Marchwood, on Southampton Water,
and similar apparatus is being installed in other power stations also situated
on river estuaries and thus able to be fed conveniently from nearby oil refineries.
Another alternative, used in Scotland, is peat; a pilot project at Altnabreac, Caith¬
ness, is in operation, and the peat is used in the peat-burning gas turbine developed
by a Scottish firm assisted financially by the Development Fund.
Nuclear Power Stations
As an extension of its experimental work and to produce plutonium the United
Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), has built and is building a number
of reactors which also produce electricity (see map p. 203). The Calder Hall
nuclear energy establishment in Cumberland, which was officially opened by
the Queen on 17th October, 1956, is the first large-scale nuclear power station in
the world to supply electricity to a national electricity network. Calder Hall A,
consisting of two reactors, has an installed capacity of 92 MW; Calder Hall B,
due for completion in 1958, will double the installed capacity. Four more similar
reactors are being built at Chapelcross, near Annan in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
A further establishment at Dounreay, in Caithness, Scotland, includes a fast-breeder
reactor due to start working in 1959, which will produce electricity.
The main commercial power stations under the Government’s nuclear power
programme are being built for the electricity authorities by groups of manufac¬
turers specially organised for the construction of nuclear power plants. The revised
Government programme, announced in March 1957, provides for between 5,000
and 6,000 MW capacity for the generation of electricity from nuclear energy to be
brought into operation between 1961 and 1966, instead of the 1,500 to 2,000 MW
capacity planned in the provisional programme announced in February 1955. In
October 1957, the Government decided that the target date for the completion of the
programme should be extended to 1966-67, by which time nuclear energy will be
contributing some 22 per cent of total electricity consumption, assuming operation
at not less than 75 per cent load factor. It will be producing the equivalent of 18
million tons of coal (or 10 million tons of oil) required by conventional stations for
a similar output. The total cost of the programme is estimated at about £900
million, including £I7° million for the initial charges of uranium fuel.
Special factors have to be taken into account in the siting of the nuclear power
stations, notably the need for firm rock foundations to bear the great weight of
the reactors and their supporting structure, and a location distant from heavily
built-up areas. Work on two stations—at Bradwell in Essex (300 MW installed
capacity) and at Berkeley in Gloucestershire (275 MW)—started in January 1957,
and is due for completion by 1961. Two further stations at Hunterston (360 MW),