OPENING ADDRESS

We meet today under the auspices of B.N.E.S. at the start of a week in which there are to be two separate, but linked Conferences - the first on the corrosion of steels in carbon dioxide and the second which is essentially to provide a status review of Alloy 800. There is to be one opening speech for the two Conferences and it falls to me. What I have to say is really very simple and I hope it will carry forward to those delegates coming only for the second Conference and who have not yet arrived.

The B.N.E.S. is concerned mainly with aspects of the design, construction and operation of nuclear power plant. Perhaps I might remind you that decisions about the choice of plant in the power industry (and, of course, about all the constituents of the plant) set off a course of events that takes more than 30 years to work through - typically up to eight years for design and construction and 25 or more years of operation. Because of this there is a temptation and certainly a tendency to push technology to its limit so that the plant is not too much out of date before it is complete and so that economic advantages can be claimed. Unfortunately this often leads to extrapolation of data and, one might say, the earlier the sell the bigger the extrapolation and the less trustworthy are the facts on which the design is based. Over the past few years, however, it has become startlingly clear that reliability and availability of generating plant are of far more value than a small, precariously won gain either in efficiency or in the estimated cost of generation. The proper choice and use of the materials of construction is one factor of particular importance to the success of the plant.