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In an earlier article the author has argued that the turbulent history of nuclear power in Britain and the USA stems from the technology itself, and has little to do with the very different institutional arrangements made for the new technology in the two countries. Nuclear plant has various features which make its planning extraordinarily difficult. Its long lead time, large unit size, capital intensity and dependence on complex infrastructure combine to ensure that mistakes are likely to be made in planning the technology and that what mistakes do occur are expensive. This article aims to expand on the earlier one in two ways; by looking at the apparent success of the French nuclear programme which seems to run...
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After harvesting energy from the wind for centuries, for a long period in history which started with the industrial revolution, wind power development has lagged behind due to the advent of other types of technologies based on fossil fuels and nuclear fission. It was not until the 20th century that technological developments in other fields revolutionized wind power conversion and ultimately led to modern wind turbine systems. This re-emergence of wind as a significant energy source is now encouraged by the need to meet increasing worldwide electricity demand and reduce the environmental impact caused by the conventional electricity generation technologies. Considerable progress in wind-power technology during the...
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