Privatising Electricity Generation

An attempt is made to: 1. determine how the privatization of electricity in the UK might best be conducted, 2. discover whether denationalization is compatible with the continued construction of nuclear power stations, and 3. look at the possible consequences of privatizing the electricity industry but not the coal mines that supply it. However, first an attempt is made to find out how long it takes to build new power stations and sink new pits because it is at the end of this gestation period that the decisions that are made today will begin to have a major impact. It is unlikely that nuclear power stations would be built because private electric utilities would evaluate them with a rate of discount considerably higher than the Central Electricity Generating Board's (CEGB) 5%. However, unless nuclear power stations are constructed or the coal industry is denationalized, the UK faces the prospect of substantial coal imports.