Timetable

When will atom power plants be commercially feasible? Last week, from two experts, came a qualified "Now."

In Chicago, Commonwealth Edison's Chairman Willis Gale, head of the private group building the 180,000-kilowatt Dresden reactor 50 miles southwest of Chicago, told the Atomic Industrial Forum the plant would furnish power at a cost of about three-fourths of a cent per kilowatt-hour when completed in 1960. Said Gale: "This is about the same as the cost of power produced by our newest coal-fired plants." Utilityman Gale acknowledged that in computing the Dresden figures he disregarded the initial $15 million expended on researching the plant, explained, however, that the second, third and fourth reactors might well be spared this research cost, thus could be competitive with coal.

In Washington. British Atomic Chief Sir Edwin Plowden told a World Bank symposium that when the world's first civilian power plant starts operating at Calder Hall this month "the total cost of power . . . should be approximately the same as that from coal-or oil-fired stations in the United Kingdom." Plowden also sketched a timetable for commercial nuclear power in other parts of the world, foresaw its arrival in France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain and South Australia in the early 1960s. Scandinavian countries in the 1970s. Russia and the U.S., added Plowden. "will have a number of 'power demonstration' stations in operation by 1960, but with their large energy resources, the needs of these two countries for commercial nuclear electricity in the 1960s should be limited to a few special areas."

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