The AGR was intended to be a superior British alternative to American light water reactor designs. It was promoted as a development of the operationally (if not economically) successful Magnox design, and was chosen from a multitude of competing British alternatives - the helium cooled very-high-temperature reactor, the steam-generating heavy water reactor and the fast-breeder reactor - as well as the American light water pressurised and boiling water reactors (PWR and BWR) and Canadian CANDU designs. The CEGB conducted a detailed economic appraisal of the competing designs and concluded that the AGR proposed for Dungeness B would generate the cheapest electricity, cheaper than any of the rival designs and the best coal-fired stations.
The AGR was intended to be a superior British alternative to American light water reactor designs. It was promoted as a development of the operationally (if not economically) successful Magnox design, and was chosen from a multitude of competing British alternatives - the helium cooled very-high-temperature reactor, the steam-generating heavy water reactor and the fast-breeder reactor - as well as the American light water pressurised and boiling water reactors (PWR and BWR) and Canadian CANDU designs The CEGB conducted a detailed economic appraisal of the competing designs and concluded that the AGR proposed for Dungeness B would generate the cheapest electricity cheaper than any of the rival designs and the best coal-fired stations