Atoms for Power

On a barren stretch of coast at Humboldt Bay, 225 miles north of San Fran cisco, surveying teams this week went to work on the foundations of a radically new type of nuclear power plant for California's giant Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The reactor will be underground, thus eliminating the need for the expensive protective dome; it will incorporate new advances in design to produce more steam, thus increasing capacity. By 1964, when the second fuel core has been phased in, the reactor's generating capacity will reach about 60,000 kw. When it does, the plant is expected to break the cost barrier, become the world's first nuclear power station to produce electricity as cheaply as conventional plants in the same region. Says P.G. & E.'s President Norman Sutherland, 62: "I think the breakthrough into the era of the economical use of atomic power is here--or if it isn't, it is so close that we practically have to count on it." Quickening the Pace. The Humboldt Bay project is only one of P.G. & E.'s new undertakings. Although it is already the West Coast's biggest public utility company, P.G. & E. has to run to keep up with California's burgeoning population, which has been increasing at the rate of 3.6% a year (v. a 1.7% annual increase for the rest of the U.S.). Since 1946, P.G. & E. has invested $2.5 billion in expansion, building 23 new power plants and increasing its power capacity by 240%. It also built as a partner with General Electric Co. the world's first privately financed reactor at Vallecitos, Calif, where P.G. & E. scientists developed the new methods for building reactors which they are trying out in the Humboldt Bay plant. But the pace must become even faster. Chief architect of the current expansion program is Norman Sutherland, who took over as president in 1955 when James B. Black, who had guided the company's growth since 1935, moved up to board chairman. Sutherland's goal: to double P.G. & E.'s power capacity by 1970.

As a start, P.G. & E. is spending $510 million during the next 15 months, one-fifth as much as it spent in the last 14 years. In addition to the Humboldt Bay plant, P.G. & E. is laying a 1,404-mi. pipeline from the vast gas fields in western Canada to California. The new line, called the "Big Yard," since it uses 36-in. pipe, will be the biggest pipeline between the West Coast and Canada, easing the demand on the heavily burdened pipelines from Texas. The pipe is coated on the inside with a high gloss plastic which speeds up transmission of the gas by as much as 10%. To store gas, P.G. & E. is converting a depleted gas field east of San Francisco into an immense underground storage area. It will ultimately hold 84 billion cu. ft. of natural gas, enough to heat 16,800,000 homes for one winter month. Other projects: to expand the capacity of one conventional power plant by 330,000 kw. and to start enlarging three others.

Searching for More Power. P.G. & E. is always looking for new ways to find power. Last month in a valley 90 miles north of San Francisco, to which huge geysers gave the name the "Gates of Hell," P.G. & E. opened a geothermal power plant, the first in the U.S. The plant takes the steam from the geysers, uses it to generate electricity. Though small (capacity: 12,500 kw.) and experimental, the plant points the way toward utilizing a vast untapped--and apparently inexhaustible--source of power.

As a big source of future power, P.G. & E. is banking primarily on atomic energy. Even before the Humboldt Bay plant is completed, P.G. & E. expects to start building at Bodega, Calif, one of the world's largest nuclear power plants. According to present plans, it will generate between 400,000 and 500,000 kw., again at costs that Sutherland estimates will be comparable to conventional power plants.

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