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Even the biggest companies find the going rough. General Electric originally put a price of $45 million on the Dresden (Ill.) nuclear power plant (180,000 kw.) abuilding for Chicago's Commonwealth Edison Co.; costs already exceed that by an estimated $20 million. By the time it is finished, G.E. will be $80 million in the hole on its nuclear program, including a smaller 5,000-kw. plant it built at Pleasanton, Calif, to get experience. G.E., like the others, thinks that if it could build three big plants in a row, it could learn enough to produce competitive power. But G.E. has no plans at the moment. As one reactor builder says: "Private industry has found that there is no money in atomic energy and no prospect of making any money."
Result: U.S. industry is not getting the experience it needs. Says Westinghouse Vice President Charles H. Weaver: "We should accumulate 100 units of operating experience by the end of 1964. But by the end of 1957, we had accumulated only about one unit of experience. And it will not be until 1962 at the earliest that we start getting any substantial operating experience."
For U.S. consumers, the lag in the commercial nuclear program is no great worry. With plenty of coal, oil and gas, the U.S. can afford to wait. But what may not be economic for the U.S. is often economic for other nations with less resources. Britain, whose conventional-power costs are estimated at double those in the U.S. (7½ mills per kw-h), needs nuclear power right now; so do many other nations. Britain is going ahead under a nationalized program to build the actual power plants. It has been operating its Calder Hall plant, half again as big as Shippingport, for more than a year, is building three more with better than 200,000 kw. and a fourth with 500,000 kw., v. only 180,000 kw. for the biggest U.S. plant.
By 1964, say Britons, domestic nu clear energy will total 6 million kw., v. only 1.6 million for the U.S. The British have also landed a contract for a $72 million, 200,000-kw. power plant in Italy, expect to sew up at least five other foreign contracts totaling about $500 million by the end of 1958. Target for 1967: the bulk of the business from Europe's six-nation Euratom combine, whose purpose is to build a common nuclear power grid of 15 million kw. Russia is reportedly building a 150,000-kw. plant for Czechoslovakia, a 100,000-kw. plant for East Germany, and two 400,000-kw. plants for herself—all to be completed by 1960.
By contrast, U.S. manufacturers have only eight power-plant contracts around the world, most of them small. In addition to costs, AEC tightly restricts sales of enriched uranium, needed for U.S.-designed plants, refuses to guarantee foreign nations all they need; Britain, on the other hand, gives a lifetime fuel guarantee with each contract. Still another complaint is insurance. British underwriters have banded together to form the British Insurance (Atomic Energy) Committee to write a plan for insuring foreign nuclear plants. The U.S., while it has finally developed a joint Government-private insurance program for domestic reactors, has no plan to extend coverage to prospective customers abroad.