<2Early holidays at Sizewell>2 BY NOW Sir Frank Layfield QC will be well aware of the task that is before him. It is nearly a year and a half since David Howell, the then Secretary of State for Energy, announced that Sir Frank would be the inspector at the public inquiry into the plans of the Central Electricity Generating Board to build a pressurised-water reactor (PWR) at Sizewell in Suffolk, and there has been a veritable deluge of documentation from all sides in the past 18 months, giving Sir Frank more than enough preliminary reading. There are various theories as to how long the inquiry will last, ranging from four months to nine months, or even longer. The shorter estimate comes from one or two "optimists" within the electricity supply industry who believe that the opponents to the plans to build the Sizewell PWR will prove less persistent than they were at the inquiry into the plans to expand the nuclear fuel plant at Windscale in Cumbria. The longer timescale comes from those who will have to spend most of the inquiry commuting to and from the Maltings at Snape to defend the CEGB's case. The consensus has it that economics will be the key stick with which the CEGB's opponents, and perhaps even a few of its friends, will beat the board. The CEGB has probably been unwise in its emphasis on the economic benefits to be had from building a PWR at Sizewell. This is not only because it has a weak case--as we show elsewhere (this issue, p 76), there are certainly some doubts about the validity of the CEGB's claims that Sizewell B will reduce the cost of electricity in England and Wales by allowing the board to burn less coal--but also because it is difficult to see what the inspector can say about economics when he comes to writing his final report. Isn't it really up to the board to decide how it wants to spend money, and to persuade the government, as holder of the public purse, that its plans are wise? It is just possible that this is a master stroke on the part of the CEGB: focus attention on a topic that really has little to do with the inspector. Then again it is difficult to find anything that is his concern. Planning, it seems, is not a matter that need concern him. The CEGB already has one nuclear power station at Sizewell, as well as planning permission to build at least one more. Safety was, once upon a time, an issue that concerned the opposition to nuclear power. It would be mischievous to suggest that the opponents no longer see safety as a problem, but it does seem to have receded from the foreground, despite the fact that--or could it be because?--there was a serious nuclear accident in the US, in a PWR very different from that designed for Sizewell. If anything the expensive fiasco at Three Mile Island (this issue, p 79) could be interpreted as showing that even when a bunch of incompetents is let loose on a nuclear power station and does its best to help an accident along, the chances of harming the public are slim. On top of all this there is the pronouncement by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate that it sees no reason why the PWR should not receive a licence for construction and operation in the UK, so long as the CEGB and the people who are to build the power station get it right. Thus the inspector is deprived of any real say in planning and safety. That leaves the weapons connection, but it is inappropriate for the Sizewell inquiry to delve deeply into this issue. The link between civil nuclear power and military weaponry is, in Britain at least, tenuous. The military bomb boys can churn out their own fissile materials without difficulty. Thus the Sizewell inquiry is little more than an expensive public relations exercise. Its outcome is not really in doubt, not because it is a put-up job but because the CEGB would not go into such an exercise if it had only a 50-50 chance of success. The opponents see this near certainty of success as proof that the whole thing is rigged, but they would say that wouldn't they? The inspector may have a few unkind words to say about the CEGB's case, especially its economics, but it will, in all probability, be pretty tame stuff. That will leave the Secretary of State for Energy free to do as he pleases: to follow the precedent set by other ministers in the present government by casting aside the inspector's advice on the grounds of national need; or to use the report as a "don't blame me" rubber stamp for the project. It is certainly right to hold the inquiry but we should not expect too much from it. If nothing else it will give the landladies of Aldeburgh a chance to turn in an honest penny at a time when holidaymakers are few and far between in Suffolk. [] The public inquiry started earlier this week Into the plans of the Central Electricity Generating Board to build a pressurised-water reactor at Sizewell in Suffolk. The inquiry, under Sir Frank Layfield, the inspector, is taking place in the Maltings at Snape. It may well last more than six months. Already many thousands of words have appeared on the subject--in official reports and other publications. The result of the inquiry will determine the future of nuclear power in Britain--it will also influence nuclear programmes in other countries, for the UK is pretty well the last of the industrialised nations to adopt this particular reactor technology. Here we con- sider the economics of the project--perhaps the most important of the arguments that will be aired at the Inquiry--and the lessons that we should have learned from the world's most serious civil reactor accident so far, that at Three Mile Island. We also look at the lessons that France can teach us--the French implemented a vigorous nuclear programme in the wake of the oil crisis of the l970s. We offer, finally, a different view from a leading environmentalist. [] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <2A case not proven>2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <2The economic case for building a PWR at Sizewell may well be the key component in the public>2 <2inquiry. The CEGB's justification for building the new power stationis not convincing>2 <2Gordon Mackerron>2 Despite the reservations expressed by the Nuclear Installations In- spectorate (NII) about some aspects of the CEGB's safety case for the Sizewell-B PWR, the inspectorate's reaffirma- tion of the reactor's potential licensability means that the overall safety case will probably not be hard to establish. The CEGB's case is likely to stand or fall on the economics of the project. Yet a year ago, the Mono- polies Commission, following a somewhat sceptical report by the House of Com- mons Select Committee on Energy, found that despite operating efficiency in gen- eral, the board's investment appraisals were seriously defective, liable to mis- lead, and operated against the public in- terest. Now the CEGB is faced with defending its desire to construct a PWR at what may be the largest and most acrimonious public inquiry yet held in Britain. Its investment methods and specific investment assumptions will be held up to intense public scrutiny. So it is no wonder that the CEGB has respon- ded by publishing an unprecedentedly large volume of material in support of its case for building a PWR at Sizewell. How good does this "Statement of Case" look? The board uses three main arguments: the requirement for future capacity; the need to minimise system costs; and the achievement of diversity in fuel supplies. One of the more remarkable features of the British energy scene has been the speed with which forecasts of demand have fallen, and the CEGB's new forecasts are the lowest yet to come from an official source. These fore- casts are based on a complex procedure which derives five alternative economic and energy scenarios for the UK from three alternative scenarios of the world's economy. The most startling result is that, in all but one of the five cases for the UK, energy demand actually falls between 1980 and 2000. Even electricity demand, which has histori- cally grown faster than total energy demand, decreases in two of the five scenarios. In the scenario which the board clearly considers most likely, the "reference case" in the middle of the five, maximum demand on the CEGB system is expected to grow from 44.1 gigawatts in 1979/80 to only 46-9 gigawatts in 2000. This is a fall of over 13 giga- watts (or 12 PWRs of Sizewell proportions) compared to the CEGB's 1979 forecast for the year 2000. Such a de- cline in forecasts of demand inevitably has a devastating impact on the need for new generating capacity. Allowing for stations under construction but yet to be commissioned, the board needs no new plant to be in place until 1997 in this scenario for energy growth. The only scenario in which there would be a case for building a PWR as soon as possible on the grounds of plant shortage involves a sustained increase (4 per cent growth per annum) in manufacturing output from 1979/80. As we have already experienced a <1decline>1 in manufacturing output of 10 per cent since 1979/80, we can safely relegate this scenario to a status of "low probability". Given that the planning margin (spare generating capacity above maximum demand) could be trimmed from its present high value of 28 per cent, there is then no case, as the CEGB itself admits, for immediately building Sizewell on the grounds that the board will be short of capacity with- out it. To convince the inspector, the board will need to rely on its other arguments, to which we now turn. The belief that Sizewell will make electricity cheaper is at the heart of the CEGB's economic case. The argument does not depend at all on demand growth: it rests on the view that to invest in Sizewell to replace old, but not necessarily worn out, plant will actually cheapen the pro- vision of the <1same>1 amount of electricity. Despite high capital costs, this can happen if, by constructing Sizewell, the CEGB can save money by burning less coal and oil and the savings outweigh all the costs associated with building and operating the new power station. This situa- tion is known as one of negative "net-effective cost" (NEC), and the CEGB should undertake any investment promising NEC on the grounds that it will make electri- city prices cheaper than if it were to do nothing. This raises two important points. One is that in an economic evaluation of this kind--which is, incidentally, the only appropriate kind--the assumed price of replaced fuel (mainly coal) is critical, as it contributes directly to the size of savings. Second is that by ordering ahead of conventionally-defined need, the CEGB is comparing the economics of investing in Sizewell with the economics of doing nothing, that is maintaining old plant. However, the risks associated with building a large PWR are consider- able. There is the economic risk that the investment will not make electricity any cheaper, and the less quantifiable but no less real political risk to the CEGB and government of introducing a controversial new technology into the UK. By comparison, the risks of "doing nothing", at least for the next three or four years, are less acute. Consequently, the CEGB needs to convince the inspector not only that the most likely outcome is a negative net-effective cost, but also that the sensitivity of this result to plausible changes in the CEGB's fore- casts is not so great that a positive (undesirable) NEC becomes a likely result. This takes us back to appraisal methods. The Monopolies Commission took the board to task on three main issues: the use of "target" rather than ex- pected values in estimating parameters under the CEGB's influence (for ex- ample, construction cost and duration); the use and presentation of sensitivity analysis around predicted outcomes; and the lack of any firm basis for forecast- ing nuclear fuel-cycle costs. The CEGB's response to these specific criticisms has been mixed. On the use of target, rather than expec- ted, values the board has-- and this is most welcome-- reformed its procedures. On construction costs, plant performance and construc- tion time the focus for estimates is now intended to be on the most likely outcome rather than, as before, on a highly optimistic, "target". On the second issue, sensitivity analysis, the board has met most of the commission's criticisms, including the im- portant issue of the impact of wide variations in coal prices on the overall result. But the board provides only a narrow range of sensitivity on the variables under its own control. This is understandable insofar as the CEGB feels obliged to assert its ability to control nuclear con- struction costs and durations. But the record is that the average real cost overrun on any kind of large fossil-fired project is 23 per cent, and on nuclear the <1smallest>1 over- run has been 36 per cent. These overruns are admittedly based on cost estimates calculated on the old, target basis, which makes them slightly exaggerated in the PWR appraisal context. Nevertheless, given that the PWR is un- familiar technology in the UK, the fact that the most pes- simistic sensitivity displayed is a 10 per cent overrun means that the CEGB has hardly covered the credible range of possible outcomes. In addition, the board omits some critical sensitivities, for example, to changes in exchange rates or interest rates. On the criticism of the Monopolies Commission about the nuclear fuel cycle, the CEGB has, if anything, made the situation slightly worse. As I explain in more detail in a recent report for the Electricity Consumers' Council (<1Nuclear Power and the Economic Interests of Consumers>1) the CEGB's figures for nuclear fuel-cycle costs are ex- tremely limited and contain internal inconsistencies. The Monopolies Commission recommended scepticism about the figures for nuclear fuel-cycle costs until more figures were available from the CEGB's own work and from British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The CEGB's Statement of Case pro- vides no detail on the components of nuclear fuel-cycle costs, apart from uranium prices. All that appears is an aggregate cost figure, applying to each scenario and over the whole fuel cycle, with a limited (10 per cent) sensi- tivity analysis. This is really not satisfactory, particularly as substantial and reasonable doubts surround the costs that the board will incur after the fuel has left the reactor, especially in the commer- cially untried areas of oxide-fuel reprocessing and waste management. On its preferred scenario C, the board's argument is that Sizewell will save it #47 million, #76M, or #102M a year (NECs of -#43, -#69, or -#93/kilowatt/ year, depending on the ex- tent of nuclear capacity assumed in the plant back- ground mix). The size of these savings (and the difference between them) seems large and the crucial assumptions concern oil savings and oil prices. Tak- ing, for convenience only, the no-new-nuclear back- ground case, Sizewell would save identical quantities of fossil fuel (96 million tonnes) in all four scenarios analysed. In the low scen- ario, E, no oil would be saved and the NEC is rela- tively poor ( -#23/kW/ year). In scenario C, how- ever (with coal prices al- most identical in low and middle scenarios) oil savings constitute 16M out of the 96M tonnes. This alone improves NEC by around #70/kW/ year and the final NEC works out at the much more favourable -#93/kW/year. The message is simple : if Sizewell saves around 1/2M tonnes of oil a year it is definitely worth having; if not, it becomes marginal. But will it save so much oil, and will oil prices rise the 14 per cent in real terms that the CEGB expects? Despite the expectation that electricity demand grows hardly at all, the CEGB expects to burn more oil in 2000 than it did in 1981. This is surprising, and in turn suggests that the oil <1savings>1 attributed to Sizewell may be high. Given the critical impact of assumption on oil prices and quantities, the CEGB will clearly need to explain why, with oil prices rising so rapidly, it cannot reduce its oil consumption more quickly than it currently expects. Four other specific areas merit attention. The board assumes that after Sizewell B has settled down it will have a load factor of 64 per cent. Although it bases this on American experience, my colleague at SPRU, Steve Thomas, has recently shown that Westinghouse's PWRs above 1000 MWe (the relevant group for comparison) have not, on average, achieved annual load factors of 60 per cent even after 7 or 8 years of operation. At 57 per cent, load factor corresponds to the average mature per- formance and might, on these grounds, therefore be a more appropriate central value. It would increase NEC by #12/kW/year on the CEGB's own reckoning. Second, there are potential problems in estimating capital costs for a PWR. The PWR is the world-wide "standard" reactor. While this brings advantages on know- how, it also brings the problem that the UK may be in- fluenced by the effects of foreign experience, particularly safety standards. In recent years these have become notably more stringent, especially in the US and West Ger- many. If regulations become increasingly tight it will be difficult politically for the UK not to conform to the world's most stringent safety practice. This means that the CEGB's hope that, once approved by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the Sizewell design can be frozen, is probably optimis- tic. Indeed the changes that will result from recent NII reports may themselves raise costs. Third on fuel costs, the inquiry is likely to spend a great deal of time looking at coal-price assumptions, because Sizewell would be uneconomic if coal prices do not experience any real increase. The CEGB's cen- tral assumption that coal prices will rise at under 2 per cent per annum does not, however, seem an un- reasonable estimate. Fourth, there is the ques- tion of the cost of delaying Sizewell by a year or more. As lan Jones at the Nat- ional Institute for Economic and Social Research has pointed out, benefits in the first year of operation are lower than the figures for net effective cost imply. This is because benefits (which are entirely fuel savings over the whole system) are less valuable early in the plant's life than they become later, as coal and oil prices are expected to rise continuously in real terms. The CEGB argues that deferring Sizewell by a year will involve a net cost of #60 million. Given that this cal- culation mainly consists of system savings foregone in the first year of Sizewell's operation, less capital charges saved, the #60 million figure seems surprisingly high, given the limited value of system savings in the first year of opera- tion. The whole question of deferring construction is one that will require much fuller examination at the inquiry, especially as a general election may defer the govern- ment's decision, irrespeotive of the inspector's advice. More generally, it remains true that the severity of the Monopolies Commission's findings mean that the board is necessarily placed somewhat on the defensive about its investment appraisals, and will find all its investment assumptions scrutinised with some suspicion. In order to set any lingering doubts about pro-nuclear bias at rest, the CEGB will therefore have to provide justification for some assumptions that are, at present, not transparent. One example of this is that the CEGB's engineering costs for a new coal plant are expected to be 16 per cent higher than for the completion of the coal-fired Drax power station while for a new AGR it expects engineering costs to be 20 per cent lower than for the Heysham II prototype. The reasons for this are not immediately obvious because Drax can essentially be replicated, while the Nuclear Installa- tions Inspectorate will insist on substantial redesign of the AGR's nuclear island for a future AGR programme. When the various doubts are crudely aggregated, the CEGB may still convince the inspector that the central NEC value for Sizewell will be negative, though its value may well be much closer to zero. Going ahead with Size- well might then be a marginally attractive proposition on economic grounds though given the risks I have already referred to the case would hardly be overwhelming. For this reason, it seems likely that much weight will fall on the final major justi- fication for the project, diversity of fuel supplies. This is potentially the most convincing argument. Diversity in sources of fuel supply is desirable in any situation of uncertainty about future supply and price of major fuel sources; but how much diversity is desirable is a complex matter, requiring judge- ments of a broadly political, as well as economic charac- ter. The aim is to minimise costs in the very long term but the important question is the extent to which this may conflict with the short- run costs of pursuing div- sity. The board has been concerned for some years about the possible impact of excessive dependence on coal--used for 80 per cent of electricity currently gen- erated--if developments in the domestic or inter- nation al coal market push prices up rapidly. The CEGB's argument is that, far from incurring a short-term cost in achieving diversity, the board will enjoy a short-term <1benefit>1 in the form of a negative NEC. As we have seen, this benefit is unlikely to be as large as the CEGB argues, and if Britain's history on nuclear construction repeats itself more closely than the board hopes, there could be short-term costs. If these costs do not materialise, there remain the political risks associated with the controversial nature of the tech- nology. Indeed, now that growth in energy demand cannot be assumed, there is the further issue that each new nuclear station directly reduces coal demand. Politically, the increased militancy of the National Union of Mine- workers will have strengthened the board's case. But in the much longer term it seems doubtful that diversification should be exclusively towards nuclear power, which carries its own commercial, political and possibly safety risks. In the CEGB's implicitly preferred high-nuclear case, nuclear power would account for 72 per cent of capacity in 2030; this would probably make the CEGB more dependent on nuclear power than it now is on coal. Britain's overall commitment to developing the other main potential source of diversity--"renewables" such as wind, tides and geothermal energy--has been weak. The CEGB would perhaps be more fully convincing in its argument on fuel diversity if it could show that it had more real commit- ment to the development and use over a long time scale of renewable-energy technologies. While ostensibly about the Sizewell decision alone, the public inquiry will effectively help to deter- mine the future direction of Britain's electricity supply system. It is therefore par- ticularly important that the issues covered should be sufficiently wide, and long- term. It will also be desirable if the inquiry be broadened from the largely financial analysis (of concern to the CEGB) to the broader social costs and benefits relevant to the country as a whole, for instance the real (alternative) cost of mine labour, the environmental costs of burning coal, and the relative costs of further expansion of energy supply rather than conservation. In the terms presented, how convincing is the CEGB's case? Of the three main planks of argument, the first (capacity need) is, as the CEGB has conceded, weak. The argument that Sizewell will make elec- tricity cheaper than it would otherwise be, is probably a lot weaker than the board claims. And given the commer- cial and political risks, these hardly amount to am over- whelming set of arguments. This throws much weight on fuel diversity, about which the Statement of Case says little. But given the current mood of the Cabinet on public expenditure, only projects with a thumping and tangible economic return seem likely to get through. [] <2Lessons from Three Mile Island>2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <2Nearly four years ago, the world's worst accident in a nuclear power station happened in a PWR>2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Edwards On Wednesday 28 March, 1979, 36 seconds after 040 hours, several water pumps stopped working in Unit 2 of the pressurised- water (PWR) power station on Three Mile Island, 10 miles south east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thus began the accident that has been described as the worst experienced by the nuclear power in- dustry. This may be true for the nuclear industry and for the utility that owns the Three Mile Island (TMI) power station, but in terms of the physical harm done to the public, the TMI accident proved to be virtually a non-event. Nevertheless, the reac- tor's core was seriously damaged, radioactive fission products escaped to the environment, and there was considerable public alarm, leading to a spontaneous evacuation of the area by a large number of people. The owner of TMI 2, General Public Utilities, is now in the middle of a long, hazardous and expensive clean-up of the plant. The total cost of the accident--in lost electricity generation, cancelled power station orders, and extra safety measures imposed on all light-water reactors-- could well run into billions of dollars. Perhaps the one good thing to come out of the accident was the searching nature of the many investigations into what caused it. These studies clearly defined the lessons to be learned from the accident, and in turn these lessons led to many official recommendations that were directly aimed at improving the safety of such plants and minimising the consequences of future accidents. These lessons and recommendations clearly have implications for all nuclear power systems, and for PWRs in particular. It is, of course, a PWR that the Central Electricity Generating Board wants to build at Sizewell in Suffolk. The post mortems on the TMI accident (see Box) re- vealed a number of main ingredients: a temporary abnor- mal condition (a transient); poor control of maintenance procedures (closed emergency-feedwater valves); malfunc- tioning equipment leading to a small "loss-of-coolant" acci- dent ( a pressuriser relief valve that stuck open); ambiguous, inadequate and badly set-out instrumentation displays and alarms; and human error (inadequate training of oper- ators, leading to errors of interpretations and judgment). These were just the internal shortcomings at TMI. They were exaggerated by various external effects including inaccurate and confused communications as well as poor technical support to assist the operators in interpreting the accident, and to help to deal with the emergency. On top of this the media indulged in irresponsible inac- curate reporting, caused partly by the confused and contradictory information supplied by various local, state and federal authorities. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has used the comprehensive investigations of the accident to frame many requirements for improve- ments in plant design and operational safety of LWRs. These changes must form at least one basis for analysis of the proposed British PWR. We must, of course, take account of the differences between the practices of the UK's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and the NRC, and the differences between the countries' electrical supply networks--the UK works with a 50 Hz alternating current, while in the US it is a 60 Hz system. The British PWR will also have two 600 MW turbines while in the US they use a single 1200 MW turbine. Another major difference is that the Sizewell PWR will have four high-head safety in- jection pumps instead of the two pumps used in the US, plus additional safeguards equipment. One important lesson underlined by TMI was the im- portance of relatively small-break loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs)-something that Professor Norman Rasmussen had emphasised in 1975 in his well-known report on LWR safety, <1WASH 1400>1- and the limitations of previous fault analyses. Hitherto these analyses had concentrated on the "double-edge guillotine break" in a main coolant pipe of some 1 metre in diameter. The "hypothetical" accident they considered was a complete break and dis- connection of the huge metre-diameter pipe that carries the main coolant water into a PWR's pressure vessel. Plants were designed and built with emergency core cool- ing (ECC) systems and safety arrangements to cope with this extreme LOCA. Severe degradation and melting of the reactor's core was regarded as something that was vir- tually impossible given that the plant was designed to cope with something as extreme as a guillotine break in a main coolant pipe. The TMI accident effectively destroyed this relative complacency, and throughout the world a great deal of analytical and experimental work has been conducted on small LOCAs. There has also been a flurry of activitv on "degraded-core" phenomena. It is worth pointing out that the British PWR design is largely based on the Bechtel-Westinghouse Standardised Nuclear Unit Power Plant System (SNUPPS). This is not the design that was used at TMI, and the National Nuclear Corporation (NNC) has the benefit of the considerable ex- perience of Bechtel and Westinghouse in the design and analysis work that the latter had to carry out to meet the NRC's "post-TMI" requirements. The British design embraces a number of similar technical aspects. To begin with there must be detailed analyses of small and intermediate-size LOCA's as well as the large double- ended breaks that used to be at the centre of safety analyses and formed the so-called "design basis" accident. These analyses of transients during an accident are used to derive the temperature and pressure loads, how they vary throughout an accident, as well as the quantities of coolant that flow through the system. Thus they provide essential inputs to the design of the system. For this reason it is important to use the best models and computer codes that have been validated by experiments such as those carried out in the loss of fluid test (LOFT) facility in Idaho <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 93 p 521). There must also be detailed assessments of the relia- bility of equipment and the risks of particular accident sequences using "event tree" analysis. An essential part of the analysis of plant behaviour during accidents is the construction of "event trees" and "fault trees", coupled with reliability analysis. TMI did much to reemphasise the importance of these techniques in the assessment work that went on after the accident. An event tree is a model of plant behaviour and is simply a logical way of systematically identifying the various possible end results of a given initiating event. This initiating event may be either a rupture in the reactor's coolant system that results in a LOCA, or any of a number of reactor transients. In the construction of an event tree, key events are ordered in the proper time sequence, and include all the features available to control or mitigate the consequences. The logic of the tree is then constructed by indicating those branch points that will influence either the probability or the consequences of the sequence of events. Although a two-state success/failure branch for components and systems is often used, this may be inadequate when we have to examine partial successes or failures; this treatment for the plant might well pro- duce thousands of sequences, so these are usually grouped into a small set of typical sequence states that will be bounding in terms of the consequences one is looking for. As a simple example, let us take a large pipe break in the primary cooling system. The first step is to determine which system might affect the subsequent course of events; these could be the station's electrical system, the ECCS, the radioactivity scrubbing system, and the containment system. We examine these in an orderly way and assign each system a success or failure branch in respect of its operation. For example, after the initiating event the elec- trical power system might succeed in supplying the essen- tial power needs, or it might fail; if it succeeds then the ECCS might succeed or fail; and if this fails, then the fission-product scrubbing system, which removes radio- active material that has been released into the reactor's containment building, might succeed or fail; finally if this fails then the containment, the ultimate barrier prevent- ing fission products escaping into the environment, might succeed or fail. The event tree shows each system diagrammatically, with an upper branch representing success and the lower branch failure of the system to fulfil its function. It is obvious that there can be many branches that have to be studied, but if we assign probabilities of success or failure, not only can event-trees define possible accident sequences that can release radioactivity into the environment, but they also enable us to calculate the probability for each sequence, and the associated risk. The probabilities for events that could initiate a LOCA --pipe or component failures, transients and so on--is derived in part from data banks that store information on failure rates from reactors around the world, but the large majority of probabilities of system failures are determined from fault-tree techniques. We use fault-tree techniques to derive the failure probabilities used in event trees. Given a particular failure, the method enables us to iden- tify the various combinations and sequences of other fail- ures that could lead to that failure. For example, if we consider the electrical power, we know that the various safety features in the design require both AC and DC power: the DC powers the control systems that order the AC supply to the safeguards equip- ment. In a diagrammatic representation of a fault tree, we would see at the top the main failure that concerns us-- in this case "loss of electrical power to the engineered safeguards features". The first level of branches below this might contain the systems which, if <1any>1 of them failed, could cause the "top" failure. In this case, they are loss of AC power and loss of DC power, and they are connected to the "top" event by an "OR" gate to indicate this feature. The probability of the "top" failure occurring is the sum of the values assigned to the events in the first level, and we can compute this if there are sufficient failure data to determine the latter directly; if not then the analysis must proceed to lower levels of the tree. If one considers only the AC power, we know this can be supplied either from off-site (the grid is the usual source) or from one-site diesel generators. Failures of these two systems are therefore coupled by an "AND" gate to indicate that both must fail to produce the failure above. In developing such trees we have to take into account not only component failures but also human factors, as well as equipment that is out of action for maintenance or tests. Most trees used in the analysis of reactor accidents are much more complex than this simple illustration, and we have to develop computer programs to calculate the prob- ability of the "top" failure. These programs have to accommodate conservatively any uncertainties in data, and then assign an overall value of uncertainty to the proba- bility of the system failure. As with event trees, we have to take care to identify any "common-mode" failures that could occur. Event and fault-trees can not only define the minimum response the system has to make to ensure a successful outcome follows an initiating event, and indi- cate where additional, "redundant" equipment may be required to ensure this, but they are also valuable in show- ing up system sensitivities. The foregoing explains a powerful method of analysis and assessment that the NRC requires to be carried out on a variety of systems within the PWR plant, such as the emergency feedwater system, ECCS injection and recircu- lation, containment cooling, actuation of safety features, the auxiliary systems on which these depend, for example the AC and DC supplies and essential service water and cooling systems, and they must allow for possible inter- actions between different parts of the overall system. You can see that many of these systems were involved in the TMI accident, and although most of them worked, some were not completely satisfactory. For example, at TMI the ECCS was not successful because of human error and because steam and a hydrogen bubble generated by inter- action between hot fuel and steam inhibited the natural circulation of water through the core. The hydrogen bubble and its release and subsequent ignition inside the containment placed other systems at risk. While the TMI accident would not have progressed to the stage it did had it not been for human error, it highlighted the fact that reactor designers and operators had to give more atten- tion to the reliability of the system and its components, and their interaction under accident conditions. It also emphasised the need for more and better instrumentation to assist the operators, to monitor the development of the accident, and to provide quick and reliable information to help in the actions taken in response to the emergency. Finally, although this is not yet a specific NRC rule, the commission is directing considerable attention to overall risk assessment carried out for specific plant and sites. These have to take account of the possibilities of accidents leading to damaged cores and one would expect to see this done for Sizewell. Insofar as operational, organ- isational and administrative matters affecting safety are concerned, the improvements looked for after TMI relate mainly to the selection of operators and the handling of any emergency. Operator selection, qualifications, training, responsibili- ties and manning levels must be clearly defined. The train- ing should enable operating staff to understand the physical processes occurring in the planet and be able to reason their way safely through an accident as it develops. They will have to be able to recognise the various transient and accident conditions and the plant's response to them and appreciate events that are caused, or worsened, by in appropriate action on their part. They will need clear and concise operational procedures to be written. These should be derived from the fault-tree and event-tree and transient analyses that I have described above. The oper- ators should be trained to mitigate an accident in which the core is severely damaged, and to deal with transients in the reactor and plant. Their instructors must be highly qualified and experienced, and the simulators used in training should embrace all types of accident. There must be adequate and timely arrangements for the operating experience on other PWR plants to be collected, analysed and passed back to the operators with any necessary retraining. The planning and arrangements for handling any emer- gency depend upon an accurate and rapid evaluation of any accident and its progression, and hence on sufficient accurate radiation monitoring on and off site, the speedy collection and analysis of data, and good communications, together with arrangements for the assembly and accurate briefing of representatives of the media. The TMI-2 accident now forms an important part of the considerable experience available to us from PWR opera- tions around the world, and this summary shows that the CEGB and NNC must carefully assess and analyse the accident if they are to be certain that all of the relevant lessons from it have been satisfactorily incorporated in the British PWR. [] <2How France went nuclear>2 ------------------------------------ ----------------- <2France now has the world's largest PWR construction programme>2 Remy Carre The 1973 crisis, with the embargo on oil and a quadrupling of its price, was a sharp reminder to France of its dependence and vulnerability: at the time, oil covered two thirds of the country's energy needs, and our over- all dependence on foreign sources of energy, includ- ing gas and coal, exceeded 75 per cent. How could we escape from this vice? France's economically exploitable oil, gas, and coal reserves are small. Hydroelectric power will continue to make a substantial contribution, but any further development will serve primarily to store energy, and not to produce more electricity. Nuclear power, of which France already had con- siderable experience, was therefore the only possible means of reducing our country's dependence on foreign sources of energy. It was back in 1939 that Frederic Joliot and his col- leagues demonstrated the possibility of the fission of uranium atoms in a chain reaction and, along with Franc#ois Perrin, filed the first two French patents on nuclear reactors. From its founding in 1945, the Com- missariat a\ I'Energie Atom- ique was aware that nuclear power could be a means to energy independence for France. The programmes of those early years explored the whole range of possibili- ties offered by civil nuclear power and paved the way for the growth of a domestic industry capable of master- ing the entire fuel cycle from the mine through en- richment to reprocessing. The 1960s witnessed the industrial development of the natural uranium-graphite-gas technique. But France also acquired experience with the pressurised water technique, through the joint construction with Belgium of nuclear power stations first at Chooz (260 MWe), then at Tihange (870 MWe), and mastered, with the Pierrelatte plant, the technique of enriching uranium. Thus, when in 1970 the first signs of the coming increase in oil prices appeared, France was in a position to decide, for economic and industrial reasons, to have 900-MWe pressurised-water reactors built under Westinghouse licence. The 1973 crisis justified this choice and led to an acceleration of the building programme. In 1976, Electricite/ de France (EDF) entered a new stage, launching a generation of 1300-MW reactors. France now has 30 nuclear power plants in opera- tion, including 21 900-MWe PWR units, with a total installed capacity of 22 GWe, and 28 units under construction, including 15 1300-MWe units. In the 17-month period from March 1980 to August 1981 alone, 15 units were connected to the national grid. In 1981, nuclear power pro- duced nearly 100 TWh of electricity, or 40 per cent of the country's total output. France has thus become, in a few years, the world's second largest producer of nuclear power. And the work that France has done to escape from the tyranny of oil has already begun to pay handsomely. It is now virtually certain that France will have a nuclear generating capacity of the order of 55 to 60 GWe by 1990. This will re- duce its dependence on im- ported energy to 54 per cent. The implementation of such a large energy pro- gramme in so little time posed many financial and industrial problems, and also problems of siting and public acceptance. The financial effort the nation has been called on to make is a very large one, especially since the cost of construction per kW of nuclear capacity is about 25 per cent higher than the cost per kW of coal-fired capacity. But this effort does not ex- ceed the country's ability: EDF's share of total investment in France is no higher today than it was in 1960, when the large hydroelectric dams were being built. The nuclear programme has not only not exceeded the country's invest- ment capacity: it has, as we shall see later, helped to sus- tain economic activity in hard times. The true financing problem has been the equitable distribution of the costs among consumers; the state as sole owner of EDF; and lenders. But this is a political and not an economic choice. The nuclear programme has also mobilised the tech- nical, human, and industrial capacities of an important sector of the economy. It could be implemented only by concentrating our efforts: in other words, by standardis- ing the units and organising the industry accordingly. Standardisation is reflected in the choice of a single approach (the PWR), then in the selection of two power levels (900 and 1300 MWe), and finally by the construction of series of practically identical units: after the first six 900-MWe units, designed before 1973, the remaining 46 units that will be in service in 1990 are in only four series, two for the 900-M units and two for the 1300-MW units. This policy has many ad- vantages: It makes it possible to concentrate development and testing work on key points affecting safety, re- liability, protection from radiation, and improved capacity; Thanks to the large or- ders for identical equip ment, the industry can anticipate its work load long in advance, equip itself accordingly, and schedule its fabrication work in the most eco- nomical manner; Construction times are short (now only five years for a 900-MWe unit) be- cause the working draw- ings are identical and a defective item of equip- ment can be replaced promptly; And finally, standardisa- tion makes it easier to train the operating per- sonnel and reduces main- tenance problems. The risk of this policy is that a single product may be standardised premature- ly. But this is overcome by the successive production series, which make it pos- sible to incorporate provements suggested by experience, once they have been fully thought out. The experience acquired in the development and con- struction of the first six 900-MWe units (Fessenheim and Bugey), designed before 1973, was turned to good account in the design of the 18 identical units built at Tricastin, Gravelines, Dampierre, and Le Blayais. These units retain in its broad outlines the architecture of Fessenheim and Bugey, with the engine rooms tangential to the cylindrical reactor buildings. On the other hand, in the next ten units (Saint Laurent, Chinon, and Cruas), the engine rooms are located radially with respect to the reactor buildings. There are differences among the units because of the need to adapt the standard model to the specific conditions of each site, such as its cooling capacities or degree of earthquake risk. The power stations may be cooled by an open circuit, when located on a river or by the sea, or by a closed circuit with a cooling tower, or again, as at Chinon, to meet environmental conditions, by forced draught. Similarly, to deal with the earthquake protection requirements at Cruas, more stringent than at most of the other sites, without having to modify the standard model, the power station was built on neoprene bearing pads capable of taking out a large part of any acceleration that might be imparted by the ground. A first series of eight 1300-MWe units was launched in 1976 (Paluel, Flamanville, Saint-Alban). A second series was designed with a view to lower costs (Cattenom, Belle- ville, Nogent, Penly). A third series is being developed with the same objective. It will benefit from the feedback from experience with the development of the earlier series and with the operation of the 900-MWe units. The size of the programme, together with its standard- isation, led the authorities, beginning in 1975, to reorgan- ise the various sectors of the French nuclear power industry, as the construc- tion in series of large componets ( vessels, steam generators, primary pumps, turbines, and alternators) calls for very large indus- trial investments. This reorganisation guar- antees the technological in- dependence of the French nuclear industry. It consists primarily of: concentrating the construction of turbo- alternators in the new Alsthom-Atlantique group, with a production capacity of about 10000 MW per year; concentrating all in- dustrial resources for the fabrication of the boilers in Framatome, with a produc- tion capacity of eight units a year; the CEA has also bought out Westinghouse's share in Framatome's equity so as to have complete con- trol of the further develop ment of the technology, the licence for which expired in 1982. Moreover, the signing of new agreements between the French and American constructors in 1981 is an acknowledgement of French technology. A relationship of licensee to licenser has now been replaced by technical cooperation between partners: Westinghouse; and the CEA, EDF. and Framatome. Financial and technical problems are always easier to solve than human problems. The nuclear programme, because of its sudden appearance and because of the passions it arouses, has encountered its greatest obstacle in people. An ecological minority made its appearance in France around 1970, when the first 900-MWe PWR power stations were being built at Fessenheim. Protests reached their peak in 1977 with the decision to build the 1200 MWe fast breeder reactor at Creys-Malville. A violent demonstration at the time drew 20000 participants to the site. But since then, public opinion has become aware of other dangers, through such events as the Iranian revolu- tion and the threat to oil supplies, staggering increases in fuel prices, or, in another connection, the power failure of 19 December 1978, which affected almost all of France. The public has also become aware of the trouble-free operation of the first PWR units commissioned. But there often remains some local resistance, in the vicinity of planned sites in areas marked by regionalism. Recent surveys show a significant improvement in the opinion the French have of nuclear power, but also show that a small minority remains stubbornly opposed to it. EDF has done everything it can to make all of the French understand how much is at stake and enable them to compare the advantages and drawbacks of the various possible sources of energy. A few figures will indicate the scope of this effort. In 1981, EDF distributed, on request, more than a million docu- ments dealing with geother- mal power, biomass, and heat pumps, as well as the French nuclear programme. Every day we receive from 500 to 800 letters asking for information, and more than 20000 people visit our nuclear power stations every year. But promoting an under- standing of the benefits of large-scale development of nuclear power is not enough to assure acceptance of the siting of a nuclear power station at a particular place. Nuclear power is a national option with repercussions that are first felt at the regional and local levels. This means that it is neces- sary to work closely with local authorities, and to do so in selecting a site as well as in the construction of the power station and its subsequent operation. The opening of a score of nuclear sites in some six years by conventional ad- ministrative procedures alone was inconceivable. This is why as early as 1973, we prepared a general plant siting scheme looking for- ward to 1985. About 40 pos- sible sites were inventoried and then proposed to the appropriate regional authorities for an opinion. For the precise location of a site, dialogue with local elected officials began in the preliminary plan- ning stage, when the first field work had to be done. The opening of a nuclear construction site is a major event in the economic and social life of a region. The con- struction of four 900-MWe units at a single site involves ten years' work and up to 6000 people. The operating stage that follows represents a permanent addition of 1000 people, together with their families, and also, most important of all, a substantial financial contribution in the form of the taxes Electricite de France must pay to the parishes. It is in these areas that the cooperation with local elected officials is closest, for they must take part in deciding what facilities are to be built to receive the workers and their families and how to finance them,then take charge of the running of the collective facilities, decide how to allocate the proceeds of the business tax, and so on. We also attempt to weave the plant into the local econ- omic fabric by helping local firms to take part in its con- struction and by training local people so that they can be employed to work on the project. Currently trends are also tending to make each nuclear power station a centre of support and development of the regional economy. After construction comes operation. A question at once comes to mind: how does one find qualified personnel to operate so many nuclear power stations? Between 1975 and 1985, we will have hired nearly 18000 people at all levels. Vast initial and refresher training pro- grammes have been set up. Here again, standardisation is the key to the rational use of such training re- sources as simulators which faithfully reproduce the standard control room and the situations the operators may encounter. Two 900- MWe simulators are in operation at the training centre at Bugey; four more will be in service by 1984, two of them for the 1300- MWe units. Currently, production personnel spend nearly 4 per cent of their working time in training, but the figure can be as high as 25 per cent in the case of new nuclear power stations. We have just taken a quick overall look at the situation, one that I hope will enable the reader to form a clear picture of the scope of the French nuclear programme and the unique way in which we imple- mented it. There are, of course, many other important points that I have not touched on, such as the administrative proce- dures that make it possible to build a power station, the organisation of nuclear safety, and the protection of the environment. It must not be thought that these are neglected in the French nuclear programme. I simply wished to describe the most specific and doubtless least familiar, aspects of what we have done. For the sake of completeness, I should also mention the development of the fuel cycle from the mine to reprocess- ing, which France and Great Britain have mastered. We would also have to discuss the development of fast breeder reactors, a necessity for all countries with limited uranium resources. France has unquestionably built up something of a lead in this area. The Phenix reactor (233 MWe) has been in operation for eight years and has produced more than10000000 kWh. The Superphenix reactor (1200 MWe), built jointly with Italy and West Germany, will come on stream in 1984 and will demonstrate the industrial feasibility of the approach. Today energy problems no longer concern only the specialist, but all citizens. They constitute a field of choice for the development of democracy, because the "energy mutation" that is now occurring can be accomplished only with the consent and help of all.[] <2Triticale, the birth of a new cereal>2 <2The first nutritionally significant foodcrop to be introduced in the past 5000 years is a hybrid of wheat>2 <2and rye. For the Third World especially, it could solve a lot of problems>2 <2Nigel Smith>2 It is a tribute to the skill and wisdom of our ancestors that no outstanding staple crops have been introduced in the past 5000 years, and of those introduced in the past thousand years only a few, like the swede, have a significant nutritional impact. There is one newcomer, however, that is only now finding its market but which could play a great part in feeding the world's people; and that is a man-made cereal, a hybrid, called triticale. From a slow start in the 1950s, and after a great deal of scepticism, as well as a great deal of research, triticale is now growing on more than half a million hectares, in the <1USSR,>1 Europe, the United States and South America. It has yet to catch on in the Third World but when it does it could prove extremely useful. Triticale, pronounced triticaily, is a cross between wheat and rye; its very name is a hybrid between that of the wheat genus, Triticum, and that of rye, <1Secale.>1 A hybrid that truly combined the qualities of those pro- digious parents would be desirable indeed. Wheat out- produces rye on good soils, and has a high market value for bread, pastry and pasta. But rye grows well in cool regions with acid and sandy soil, is less susceptible to disease and reasonably tolerant of drought. Wheat and rye were first crossed in 1875 by a Scottish botanist, Stephen Wilson, but the results were disappoint- ing. As is usual with hybrids, the plants were sterile. The basic reason for such sterility is that the two parents contain different numbers of chromosomes. Each parent passes on a set of chromosomes to the hybrid offspring: but the two sets do not match, and so cannot undergo the "reduction division" necessary to produce another genera- tion of gametes. Hence, sterility. The route around this problem was found in 1937 by a Frenchman, Pierre Givaudon. He discovered that colchicine, a yellow alkaloid derived from the bulbs of autumn crocus (<1Colchicum>1), will sometimes cause the chromosome number of plants to double. Thus, hybrids that formerly were infertile with cells containing ill- matched set of chromosomes, could become fertile; by doubling, the choromosomes produced two matching sets. Givaudon achieved his feat simply by soaking the growing shoots of plants in colchicine. The arithmetic of chromosome doubling becomes some- what complicated in the case of wheat because durum wheats (the kinds used in pasta) normally contain four sets of chromosomes (that is, are tetraploid) and the common bread wheats contain six sets (that is, are hexaploid). Rye itself is merely diploid ( two sets of chromosomes). Nonetheless, in the mid-1950s, Dr J. G. O'Mara of lowa State University successfully applied Givaudon's colchicine technique to a hybrid of rye and durum, and hence produced hexaploid triticales; one set of chromosomes from rye, plus two sets from the tetra- ploid durum makes three--and double it, to make six. Such hexaploid triticale then became the subject of large- scale seed production. Many problems still lay ahead. The seed set was still poor (that is, most florets failed to produce seeds) and the grains were generally small and shrivelled, so yields were disappointing. Furthermore, the first triticale was far too tall and weak so that it "lodged" (is flattened) in a storm, and kernels in contact with the earth soon rotted. In humid climates, triticale seed had the annoying propensity of sprouting prematurely; often, while still on the parent. Even worse, triticale in the tropics took far too long to ripen. The new cereal was developed in tem- perate regions where summer days are long, and the parents of triticale evolved in climates where spring frosts can be devastating. Hence triticale was developed as a "long-day" plant; it set seed only when long days indicated that the danger of extreme cold had passed. In lower latitudes, the shorter day length postponed maturation. Fewer crop cycles could be cultivated each year and in mountain valleys frost sometimes damaged the cereal. Triticale was still "waiting" for the environmental cue of long days. A small band of researchers, based mainly at the Universities of Manitoba and Guelph, in Canada, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, worked hard at eliminating the undesirable traits of triticale. The architecture of triticale was altered so that it would grow shorter; in this way more photosynthetic effort would go into seed production rather than stems. Triticale breeders were keen to make the plant insensitive to day length so that it could be grown successfully at the Equator as well as in temperate regions. A breakthrough occurred accidentally in 1967, when a sad-looking triticale plant at one of CIMMYT's nurseries was fertilised by pollen blowing from some nearby wheat breeding plots. The progeny from that chance cross yielded a triticale that was not only short but was much less sensitive to day length. Triticale looks more like wheat than its other parent, rye. As in some wheats, triticale has long tufts (awns) sticking up from the seed spikes. Most triticales have a characteristic cover of soft, velvety hairs around the stem, just below the seed head. Thanks to the efforts of the breeders, the stem of triticale is short so that the plant is more rigid in the wind; grain size and quality are also vastly improved. By 1973, yields had reached 8000 kg/ha on the best plots and, in 1974, a triticale field in California produced 9890 kg/ha, comparable with the best wheats. Triticale enjoys several crucial advantages over wheat in developing countries as well as in the industrial nations. The new crop is more resistant than wheat to diseases, especially to leaf blotch, powdery mildew, and other fungal infections such as the smuts. Surprisingly, it is the minor parasites of wheat that cause the biggest headaches for triticale growers. Such parasites are minor in wheat precisely because wheat is resistant to them; but triticale, which is genetically different, may not be. On the whole, though, triticale is hardier than wheat and can be culti- vated more easily in harsh environments. It consistently out-performs wheat in parched and sterile earth and in the savanna region of central Brazil, it frequently yields twice as much as wheat. Preliminary findings from Mexico indicate that triticale may also tolerate high concentra- tions of salt in soil; and salt build-up is a menace on irrigated land the world over. In addition, though wheat and triticale both contain around 13 per cent protein, that of triticale is better quality as it contains a larger share of lysine, an amino-acid that is relatively deficient in most cereal proteins. Thus, triticale is becoming established as a significant staple crop. The world's biggest producer of triticale, the Soviet Union, planted at least 280000 hectares in 1980, mainly around the Black Sea. The United States has 100000 ha, mostly in Texas and the mid-west. China and Argentina have approximately 30 000 each, though Argentina had only 1000 ha as recently as 1978. In Europe, 10000 ha has been planted in Hungary; and Spain, Portugal, Italy and France have just started commercial cultivation with about 1000 ha each. Finally, in Mexico, which is burdened by a rapidly growing population (Mexico City alone has 15 million inhabitants), some 2400 ha are now under triticale. Triticale is not restricted to large farms with expensive tractors and combine harvesters. In Mexico, for example, hillside peasants use bullocks and horses to plough their fields and to carry the harvested triticale. The crop is nurtured by rains, not artificial irrigation, and the harvest is gathered by hand. Triticale is already being converted into a wide variety of foods. For those who prefer very light breads and pastries, wheat flour is added to provide gluten, an elastic protein that inflates the dough, But pure triticale flour can produce satisfactory loaves if they are prepared properly, and the rich brown colour has wide appeal. Triticale bread looks like whole wheat bread and tastes, as its ancestry might suggest, like a combination of rye and wheat. Triticale pancakes mixes and crackers, sold widely in Canada and in many health food stores in the United States, are rapidly gaining converts because of their savoury, nutty flavour. Canada certified hexaploid triticale in 1969 for commercial release. Now, about 80 per cent of the triticale grown in Canada is grown into human food products, while the rest is fed to livestock. Triticale bread has not yet gained wide acceptance in developing countries where supermarkets and bakeries sell mostly white bread made from bleached flour. Brown, fibrous bread is frequently perceived as a primitive food, unfit for human consumption. But in Mexico, peasants pulverise the plump triticale kernels in stone mortars to prepare tortillas; they taste a little different from those made from traditional maize, but are relished nevertheless. At present, admittedly, triticale is mostly used for animal feed. Rye must be soaked in hot water to destroy an anti-growth hormone in the seed coat before it is given to livestock, but triticale kernels can be fed directly to livestock with no harmful side-effects. Finally, a distillery in Manitoba, Canada, is considering making ethanol from triticale to use as fuel. The world's population now stands at a little over four billion. By the close of this century, another two billion people will be born, the great majority in developing countries. Although triticale will never replace wheat, it is a vitally important addition to the armoury needed to defeat famine, precisely because it is so much better adapted to the marginal lands on which so many of the poor and hungry live. [] <2The First Inspector of Ancient Monuments>2 <2Lieutenant General Augustus Pitt-Rivers became the first official guardian of Britain's heritage>2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 100 years ago on 1 January Christopher In 1899 the proprietor of Stone Chippindale henge finally lost patience. For years he and his father before him had endured advice from well-meaning lunatics as to what he should do with the place--concreting the stones, or letting archaeologists burrow under them with their excavations, or digging a defensive moat round it--and Sir Edmund Antrobus, Bart, had had enough. Stonehenge was for sale: The government could have it for #125000; failing that, Sir Edmund was open to offers, from a showman perhaps, or an advertising contractor ("The Pear's Soap Stone"?), or an American who would ship it away to the United States. Astonishingly, no law existed to prevent any of these things happening to what many people considered to be the "Frontispiece to British History". That was not entirely for lack of trying. Exactly 100 years ago on 1 january, 1883, Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers took office as the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments. His job was to en- force the modest provisions of the 1882 Ancient Monu- ments Protection Act, which tried to prevent vandalism or wholesale destruction of ancient British sites, Stonehenge among them. His appointment makes a centenary worth noticing. The 1882 act was the first attempt at an effec- tive conservation law in Britain; it is the father of all the legislation which protects not just ancient monuments and historic buildings but also sites of scientific importance. What is especially surprising is that its motivation was less an emotional regard for his- torical associations than a belief in the value to science of archaeological remains. And Pitt-Rivers was the first civil servant given the diffi- cult job of persuading land- owners that they ought to stop dealing with their pro- perty as they thought fit and hand it over to the control of a state agency. Many of the prehistoric and early historic sites protec- ted by the 1882 act--earthworks, hill-forts, megaliths, and burial mounds--were our of the mainstream of archaeo- logical interest, which was concentrated on more recent and more artistic relics. Right up to the late 19th century, archaeologists were more interested in the progress of civilisation as displayed in the fine arts. The early British sites were neglected as relics of unimagined savagery while attention focused on the scramble for antiquities in the Near East and the securing of the best prizes, like the Rosetta Stone, for the British Museum. At home the pre- vailing taste was for more picturesque remains, ruined abbeys and medieval churches. Through the 19th century, as the pressure of population and improving agriculture grew, the field monuments were abolished. The stone rings and Avenues of Avebury had gone already, broken, burnt and buried early in the 18th century (almost all those that now stand at Avebury were dug out of their pits and re-erected in the 1920s ad 1930s). Hundreds of lesser sites were destroyed. Megaliths were smashed to make gate-posts or road-stone, blown up or pushed aside to clear space for the plough. The dark humus deposits inside burial mounds were used as ferti- liser. The survival of ancient sites depended on the whim of their owners, and often it was their own "weight and worthlessless" that was their best protection. There was even an Irish site destroyed for its own survival rather like the descendant of the prophet who was crushed to death so a shrine could be raised to his memory. The owner of Con O'Neill's Castle at Castlereagh told his agent to build a protective wall around it; the agent, looking for the nearest source of building stone, saw the castle and demolished it to make the wall. Elsewhere in Europe, more care was being taken, especially in Sweden and Denmark, where royal patronage and nationalist feeling encouraged an interest in ancient remains. It was in Denmark, early in the 19th century, that the basic chronology of prehistory was worked out, the three successive eras defined by the use of stone, then of bronze, then of iron. The Danish example was followed in Britain by Sir John Lubbock, banker, naturalist and poly- math, whose Pre-historic Times of 1865 showed the same three-age system applied to British sites. This was the crucial change. Before, ancient British sites were just anti- quarian curios of limited and sentimental interest. Now they became the precious material for the new sciences of ethnology and prehistory; they were priceless documents which, once deciphered, would throw a flood of light on human evolution and progress. And they had especial value because the other evidence for the nature of primitive man, the "manners and customs of modern savages", was fast disappearing too. The last Tasmanian was ageing (and died in 1876), and even North American Indians were becoming hard to find in a "state of unadulterated savagery". Denmark also led the way in its conservation policies, with the archaeologist J. J. A. Worsaae, who had been appointed Inspector for the Conservation of Ancient Monuments in 1847, working on a programme of survey and preservation. The chance for Lubbock to act came with his election as a Liberal MP in 1871. Encouraged by the immediate success of his first bill instituting national "bank" holidays, he introduced in 1873 a "Bill to provide for the Preservation of National Monuments". It would set up a National Monuments Commission to care for ancient sites, institute small penalties for vandals who damaged them, and--most important--give the commission a right of purchase if the owner of a scheduled monument wanted to destroy it. The landed interests, who still dominated the House of Commons as well as the House of Lords, were outraged: "a more distinct and determined invasion of the rights of property could not have been devised". In fact, railway bills were being passed every session which made a grosser interference, but that was not the point. Railway bills were utilitarian but this was a different matter the thin end of a wedge that placed aesthetic and sentimental con- siderations above the rights of property. (The intolerable thick end of the wedge, it was wildly imagined, might prevent the owner of Thomas Gainsborough's <1Blue Boy>1 sending it abroad, or mean the owner of a line of fine trees being stopped from felling them. Both these nightmares were correct forecasts of legislation that now exists.) <2A hostile reception>2 Lubbock tried to insist that owners would lose "nothing but the childish pleasure of destruction", but his bill failed, that year and every year until he lost his seat in the 1880 general election. He was a leading figure in social evolu- tion--his second book, on the origin of civilisation as shown by the mental and social condition of savages, was published in 1870, the year before <1The Descent of Man>1 by his dear friend Charles Darwin--but he knew better than to talk of evolution in Parliament. His scientific ideas had harmed his political chances before, so he stuck to generalities about preserving memorials of the distant past. As well as the automatic reflex of the landed gentry, there was another kind of hostility to archaeologists, a well-deserved dislike for their abrupt methods of studying ancient burial- mounds by hacking rough holes in search of grave goods or skulls to anthro- pologise. This was an espe- cial worry in Ireland, where the peasantry left the mounds alone as the tombs of former kings and queens; if enthusiastic arch- aeologists took control, in no time they would be sacrilegiously interfering and flourishing the thigh- bone of some ancient Irish king. When Lubbock was returned to Parliament in 1881, he persuaded Gladstone's Liberal government to take up the cause. The 1882 act was the result. It was Lubbock's scheme, slimmed down and minus compulsion. A land- owner <1could>1 have his monument protected if he wished- but he might prefer to maltreat it or destroy it completely. Like most laws that are well-intentioned but toothless, it was useless in a real crisis. The Danes Camp hill-fort in Northamptonshire, for instance, was threatened by quarry- ing for ironstone. The owner declined protection--because it might interfere with the quarrying--and that was the end of it. The natural choice as first Inspector of Ancient Monu- ments was General Pitt-Rivers, the dominant figure of late Victorian archaeology. The general had campaigned with Lubbock for ancient monuments protection from the beginning, and like him was inspired by Darwin and Herbert Spencer to a fervour for evolutionary principles. Typology and evolutionary sequences gave a rationale to his obsessive collecting of weapons, locks and keys, antiquities, primitive art and ethnographic objects, which filled two museums. A landed proprietor himself--he inherited 27000 acres on Cranborne Chase, in Dorset--he was in a position to talk to the gentry as an equal, and he certainly had ample force of personality. (When appointed, he explained the prestige of his position required him to deal only with the minister, not with lesser civil servants.) Beginning in the spring of 1883, he toured around the 50 sites in the UK that were scheduled by the act, with two assistants to help with drawing and surveying, noting any damage, and deciding what measures were required for their protection. Usually, all that seemed necessary was a notice announcing the site was protected, and occasionally some repair or the setting-up of a plain iron "unclimbable" fence. Since the inspector's budget was never more than #200 a year, he was unable to take on any site that required extensive work. At first, not a single owner would place his monument in guardianship. Even Lubbock refused, who had bought part of Avebury to prevent cottages being built on it. But by the end of 1884, 14 sites in England had been placed under the act, including the Arbor Low and Rollright stone circles and Silbury Hill, plus two in Scotland, and more followed in later years. Firm refusals remained in the majority, even after personal visits to owners by Pitt- Rivers; of the dukes who owned monuments, for instance, Devonshire and Rutland consented but Marlborough, Richmond and Sutherland declined. In the wilder parts of Scotland, even the tracing of ownership could be difficult; the owner of the Burgh of Clickamin, a Pictish broch in Shetland, was found to be an aged lady in Cheltenham who must, Pitt-Rivers insisted, be encouraged to sign over guardianship straight away, before she forgot all about it. Stonehenge was the subject of unpleasant exchanges. For years souvenir-hunters had swarmed over it on summer Sundays (and now also on Lubbock's bank holidays), their hammers at the ready, and the owner, Antrobus, had Supplied an attendant to keep some order. Antrobus con- sidered archaeologists to be another kind of meddling vandal, and he had refused to let in a group from the British Association for the Advancement of Science that had included Lubbock and Pitt-Rivers, and who had wanted to excavate round the stones. (Given the vigour of Victorian excavation techniques and the complexity of the Stonehenge stratigraphy, it is a good thing he refused!) From the beginning, Pitt-Rivers saw the two flaws in the 1882 Ancient Monuments Protection Act. It was solely permissive--but it was precisely those owners who cared little for their sites who were likely to refuse protection. And it concentrated on the famous sites, the ones that amused the excursionists--while ignoring the thousands of lesser earthworks that were of value to the scientific archaeologist. Pitt-Rivers retired in 1890, though keeping the honorary title and acting as a consultant, but with his death in 1900 the post lapsed, and the act as a whole became a dead letter. Still, it was the basis of a reformed act in 1913, giving a revived inspectorate compulsory powers, which has been the basis for more effective protection ever since. The general may have made a false start, but his was a worthwhile beginning. []