Introduction, Chronology and Background: A “New World” with “Free Energy”

Abstract

There is an old African saying to the effect that “what goes around comes around.” In no instance is this more apt than atomic energy, especially in the US case, which has been described by a number of observers as going from a “rags to riches to rags” situation (Weingast, 1980, p. 232). In its initial phase, 1956–63, the commercial atomic energy program in the US case relied, for the most part, on direct government subsidies for research and development, as will be seen below. Afterwards, with the end of direct subsidies, costs became somewhat “competitive” (in terms of fuel but not capital cost), and orders for generating plants expanded. Due to the inflation of the late 1960s, the capital costs of nuclear plants rose more rapidly than those of other electricity generating plants (oil and coal) and plant orders fell. With the 1973– 4 oil crisis, nuclear energy ostensibly looked attractive, and orders peaked. But by the late 1970s, expectations of the “competitive advantage” of nuclear generated electricity did not materialize; and with rising externalities (safety and waste management and disposal costs), orders for new nuclear power plants in the US declined and came virtually to a halt by 1976 (Weingast, 1980, p. 240). In contrast to the view of Weingast, however, the atomic energy program in the US became stalled not only “in response to the active opposition of environmentalist groups” (Weingast, 1980. p. 231). Rather, the rise and fall of the commercial atomic energy program in the US and Britain was, in my view, due to factors beyond the opposition of one specific interest group, that is the environmentalist lobby. the factors that drove the atomic energy program and finally brought it to a halt—in the US case at least—were based upon the interactions between costs and rents, vested interest groups and power brokers, as I will try to show.