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ABSTRACT The privatization of the British electricity supply industry (ESI) in the late 1980s and early 1990s was associated with a transformation in electricity generation technology. In a sudden and unexpected 'dash for gas', previously unused combined cycle gas turbine plant was adopted for all new large power stations. Gas turbine technology, politically and institutionally excluded from the industry before privatization, gained ascendancy due to the coincidence and interaction of FSI liberalization with lower fuel prices and greater availability, improved turbine performance, pollution abatement legislation, and the manifestation of institutional tensions accumulated under nationalization. An earlier paper found that the demise of established generation technology, particularly the British nuclear power programme, exposed the inadequacies of autonomistic and deterministic notions of technological change. The present paper considers the value of a more subtle framework — Hughes' sociotechnical systems model — for analysing the rise of gas turbines in the British ESI. The systems perspective enables the dash for gas to be understood, rather than as a result of technical and economic imperatives, or structural and regulatory reform, as a contingent and largely unplanned outcome of the interplay of previously excluded international forces with latent local interests, mediated by policymaking expediency. Liberalization swiftly led to the replacement of centralized system building with fragmented 'postmodern' change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their obvious limitations as explanatory concepts, 'technological autonomy' and 'determinism' have often been associated with nuclear power. This paper reviews the persistency of notions of 'autonomy' and 'determinism' in the context of the British nuclear power programme. In the corporatist and technocratic setting of the nationalized British Electricity Supply Industry (ESl), the perceived imperatives of nuclear power technology were often allowed priority in policymaking, to the extent that an appearance of the technology's autonomy and determinism was maintained for 30 years. This had its conveniences: technical rationales disguised more contestable institutional and political interests supporting the programme. At the same time, senior politicians and scientists at times displayed a faith in the technology approximating a belief in its autonomy and deterministic power, particularly during geopolitical or industrial crises. ESl privatization was associated with the marginalization of nuclear power in Britain. Once the Government's wider mission to liberalize electricity supply was threatened by unanticipated disclosures regarding the cost of nuclear electricity, it proved willing to abandon its longstanding support for the technology. As institutional and political support for the nuclear programme was removed, the fallacy of its supposed autonomy was exposed. Whilst Langdon Winner accurately identified the preconditions necessary for the introduction of inherently political technologies such as nuclear power, in reality these were ever-present requirements, however hidden by the apparent power of the technology itself. Nevertheless, the persistence of notions of autonomy and determinism reflects a significant aspect of the sociotechnical relations of nuclear power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]