Innovation and institutional change: the transition to a sustainable ...

86 Chapter 4
4.5 The development of nuclear generation technology
High economic growth rates and related steep increases in electricity use led
to the search for other options of electricity generation. In the fifties and
sixties growing demand was met by the building of conventional steam
turbines. In that period the common view was that in the long-term nuclear
energy would become the dominant source for electricity generation. In a
white paper on nuclear energy of 1957 it was foreseen that from 1975 on all
new electricity generation would be met by nuclear power (Lagaaij and
Verbong, 1999). It was expected to be a cheap and secure way of electricity
generation. Nuclear power did also fit well in the general way of thinking of
the electricity sector. It could produce power on a large scale with units up to
500, 1000 or more MWe, it could produce power continuously and reliably
for a long period, and thus could easily be incorporated in a system of central
production and planning. Although it was costly in terms of construction
costs, it was expected to be relatively cheap in terms of fuel costs and costs
of operation, and uranium, the fuel source, was abundantly available in
various countries. At least until the eighties it was therefore considered as an
important future route of electricity generation in the Netherlands by the
electricity production sector, although the discovery of large gas reserves in
the North of the Netherlands did reduce its necessity.
In 1955 the government established a special national research institute for
nuclear energy, Reactor Center Netherlands (RCN 7 ). Although all parties
involved were supposed to support the institute financially, the electricity
generation companies managed to use their contribution for their own
nuclear research. They were also able to supplement their nuclear research
with funds from the government and Euratom (the European Atomic Energy
Community). The technological principles under research by the KEMA 8
differed from the principles under research by RCN. At that time there were
therefore two research programs focussing on different nuclear technological
principles. Both groups of researchers received funds from the national
government and Euratom. The generators paid also their own share, but in
fact there were the consumers who were actually funding their research by
passing on research cost down to the last level in the value chain. The
electricity industry started to gain the necessary knowledge by means of the
joint research institute of generators, the KEMA and researched the
7
Later this institute was renamed in Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN) and
its mission became much broader.
8
KEMA was initially founded in 1927 as the test institute for the electricity sector (testing
electro-technical equipment such as cables, transformers) and later on became the research
institute for the sector. KEMA was involved in the development of a Suspension Reactor
(SR) from 1951 on.