The atom row

SCIENCE ROGER WILLIAMS

Mr Duncan Burii's broadside The Political Economy of Nuclear Energy will certainly

have been compulsory reading for the mem- bers of the new select committee of Parliament on Science and Technology. Mr Burn is severely critical of Britain's prestigious achieve- ments in nuclear power, which he contends have been far too costly. This, he asserts, is the corollary of the high degree of centralisation existing in the British nuclear industry. He would destroy the monopoly of the Atomic Energy Authority by handing over most of its functions to the consortia, and the practical monopoly buying power of the Central Electri- city Generating Board by dividing it into three autonomous regional bodies. The artificial com- petition existing within the system he feels is unreal and should be replaced by the natural competition of a true market. These are still early days for what should become a great industry, and it is evidently essential to ensure that it is provided with a sound institutional framework.

Mr Burn (whose work is published by the Institute of Economic Affairs) is persuaded that the institutional arrangements for nuclear power in America have been well suited to its efficient development. The vigour of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy—perhaps the most powerful permanent committee in congressional history—he finds especially ad- mirable. It has certainly played a unique part in the formation as well as the overseeing of policy. Yet this same committee was largely responsible for the abortive expenditure of a billion dollars on a nuclear reactor for air- craft propulsion and was pressing for a further billion when President Kennedy cancelled the scheme in amazement at its wastefulness. This example reveals the shortcomings of organi- sational comparisons restricted to the civil aspect of nuclear power.

Mr Burn's methodology naturally requires comparison of outcomes which result from the quite different evolutionary contexts nuclear power has experienced in Britain and the United States. This is inevitably unsatisfactory. Thus the exigencies of Britain's apparent fuel shortage in the mid-'fifties had no American parallel, and the logic of technical factors pro- duced completely different development Philosophies in the two countries. Yet such historical features continue to have a crucial effect on present circumstances.

The comparative appraisal of British and American reactors in 1965, which determined that Britain would build her native product, admittedly appears to have been more an in- strument for resolving an institutional conflict

than an absolute comparison of alternative reactors. (There are no more internationally accepted standards of comparison for nuclear reactors than there are for motor-cars.) But subjective accounting procedures occur as fre- quently in American costings; and the uncer- tainties at the limits of design are well illustrated by the remarks of the us licensing board in its approval of the Oyster Creek power station design, which represented the American break-through to 'economic' nuclear power: 'The general power level proposed and the secondary safety equipment, while not demonstrably unsafe, leaves little margin for errors.'

The major structural changes Mr Burn recommends are hardly politically viable. Those

covering the AEA seem particularly undesirable

in view of the clear lead this country has over the us in the development of the fast reactor.

For this will be the apotheosis of the nuclear reactor and Britain absolutely must be in at the beginning of its commercial exploitation.

Surer ways of guaranteeing this can be found

than breaking up the AEA. The time for that may well arise when the fast reactor has been brought to the commercial stage. (The AEA must also have value as a British trump in the possible creation of a European Techno- logical Community.)

Even so, there is scope for profitable govern- ment action. The stagnant methods of tendering and contracting imposed upon private industry are overdue for rationalisation. This can be expected to accompany a reduction in the number of consortia. The volume of work is insufficient to support three, and a single organisation would have the disadvantage that no comparative measure of its performance

could be made. (It is salutary to recall that a decade ago the AEA were criticised for restrict-

ing the original number of consortia to five.) Whether American reactors should be included in the present nuclear programme is properly a political decision for the Government. More is at stake than the small decrease in the unit cost of electricity to the consumer which might result from having one or two American reactors. The considerations here lead to the major problem of what the strategy of countries like Britain should be when faced with American technology backed by a vastly greater home market.

In the medium term, the Government can encourage competitive innovation and com- mercial flexibility in the consortia: the advent of the third nuclear programme must find them much stronger than they were at the start of

the second. Next, the political accountability of the AEA and the cma must be scrutinised much more closely than hitherto. Treasury checks and the financial obligation of nationalised industries have proven insufficiently sensitive control mechanisms. The secrecy and pomposity of both the AEA and the CEGB have frequently sug- gested an indifference to the public interest which should be rectified. Firm direction can enhance the technical expertise and commercial enterprise of both while diminishing their industrial power. The Government's dependence on the technical advice of the public corpora- tions cannot be completely removed but it can be lessened by insistence upon a wider dis- semination of information. It may also be possible to employ management consultants to provide neutral technical and economic briefs.

Government foresight is needed to authorise a positive and permanent role for Parliament in atomic matters, perhaps through the agency of the infant committee, for this could become an invaluable check on the activities of the non- elected 'government of the atom.' The weakness of the select committee is not‘tbat it has plunged too soon into a controversial issue, but that it is at a disadvantage because of the nature of the contending arguments. Even the American joint committee, operating from a vastly firmer statutory base, took three years to become informed and influential. The select committee can only continue to demonstrate a painstaking readiness to think through problems with a highly technical content, to nurture the specialised skill it thus acquires, and to return regularly to atomic energy. It needs to convince itself, and by its report the Government, that it can both function as an investigation forum and also facilitate the administrative changes which should be the cybernetic response to technological progress. These are exacting requirements.

The overall situation requires responsible action rather than a damaging structural re- volution. So often, as Bierce observed, the latter is simply an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.