Britain Mulls New Nuclear Power Stations - Newspaper
Date: 29-Mar-05
Country: UK
The newspaper cited a senior civil servant as saying a small group of senior officials had made the case for constructing up to 10 new nuclear reactors.
The group had carried out a study, known as "Future for Nuclear", on whether it was economically viable to build new plants, the paper said.
Blair's Downing Street office said it did not recognise the story and any decision to build new plants would be subject to public consultation.
Blair's government has said it will not close the door to more nuclear power capacity -- which scientists say is in many respects a relatively clean energy source.
With a growing political commitment in Europe to delivering big cuts in carbon dioxide emissions under the Kyoto protocol on global warming, Europe's pro-nuclear lobby believes the tide may be turning in its favour.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The nuclear issue has also crept up the agenda as Blair has vowed to make progress on climate change during his presidency this year of the G8 group of industrialised nations.
The Independent on Sunday said the pressure for a nuclear building programme was coming from Blair who was worried that without nuclear power, Britain would miss its target of a 20 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2010.
The newspaper quoted its civil servant source as saying that Blair's special adviser on industry and business, Geoffrey Norris, was pressing the case.
"Norris has fought hard to keep nuclear on the agenda," the source was quoted as saying.
But some members of Blair's government have reservations.
British Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewitt noted earlier this month that questions remained over the nuclear option's true costs and the problem of nuclear waste storage.
The financial difficulties the sector can face were highlighted when the country's main nuclear generator British Energy came close to insolvency.
In 2002, a slump in wholesale power prices pushed the nuclear power producer to the brink of insolvency. Shareholders and creditors approved a debt-for-equity swap last year to rescue the company and its shares relisted in January.
A second newspaper, The Business, reported that British Energy was talking to leading institutions about private funding for a nuclear power building programme.
The company said nothing was on the cards.
"British Energy has got no current plans for new nuclear plants," a spokesman said.
"The focus for us is to continue with the restructuring and ensure that the existing plants are operating efficiently and reliably."
