Privatising electricity generation

The purpose of this article is to examine how the privatisation of electricity in the United Kingdom might best be carried out, to discover whether denationalisation is compatible with the continued construction of nuclear power-stations, and to look at the possible consequences of privatising the electricity industry but not the coal-mines which supply it. However, the paper begins by trying 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. (author)