Favourable trends with gas-cooled reactors

There is a lot to be said for gas-cooled reactors - over 160 papers from nine countries to this Conference alone. And not just in principle, but in the ever-increasing amount of practical power generation going back over more than 25 years which we shall hear about at this important session today. Perhaps even more eloquent testimony to the system at this time of severe price competition between energy sources is the presence here and the relaxed attitude of our Chairman, the Director General of CEGB's South Western Region, and his contented looking operations staff who are, I think, responsible for more gas-cooled reactor power generation than any other generating board region. Indeed, it is quite common for the whole of the South Western Region, which let me remind you takes in half of Wales and stretches from Lands End to the outskirts of London, to be supplied solely by the four reactors of the Hinkley Point A and B stations.