Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

National Power, Britain’s largest electricity generator, announced this
week that it will close its main research laboratory at Leatherhead in 1993.
Some 330 jobs will be lost and one of the main casualties will be research
into acid rain (see This Week, 13 July).

Around 20 remaining staff will move to National Power’s central research
and technology division in Swindon.

The company argues that stringent limits on emissions of sulphur from
power stations ‘reduces the need for a more refined understanding of some
of the underlying atmospheric science’.

The company anticipates trimming its spending on environmental and technology
research by almost half. ‘We shall nevertheless maintain an inhouse capabililty
in environmental science commensurate with the new situation,’ says the
company.

National Power’s decision to axe much of its research is certain to
prompt more calls for the government to take over some of the abandoned
work.