Sir William Stones, the man who turned the Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station into a reality, died on December 3 in England. He was 85. As managing director of CLP, he kept a piece of radioactive uranium in his office to convince political groups and environmentalists that nuclear power and the contentious plant would be safe.
Born on March 3, 1923, in Durham, England, Sir William was educated at Rutherford College in Newcastle upon Tyne. Trained as a chemist, he attended the prestigious Administrative Staff College and emerged to become deputy director general of the Central Electricity Generating Board, which was responsible for all power plants in north England.
In 1975, Sir William was seconded to the China Light and Power Company as a chief engineer. After six months, he accepted an offer from the then chairman, Lord Kadoorie, to become a permanent staff member, and in October 1976 became a member of CLP's board of directors.
In Power - The Story of China Light, author Nigel Cameron said his appointment 'was occasioned by the need in a company undertaking vast electrical generating and transmission development for top engineering managerial skills'.
Sir William was CLP's managing director from January 1984 to his retirement in December 1992. He helped make electricity more affordable, saying before he retired that 'compared to 1983, our [electricity] prices have dropped by 45 per cent'. But Sir William's most lasting legacy is perhaps the successful commissioning of the Guangdong Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station, 70km from Hong Kong, which sends about 70 per cent of its output to the city.
Between 1983 and 1993, he was engaged in arduous discussions with the mainland authorities. As Sir William recollected: 'For well over a year, I just kept going up to Daya Bay every Friday night, spending all day with the Chinese participants, having supper, starting all over again on Sunday and getting back to Hong Kong in time to work on Monday.'