UK dash for new nuclear power rejected

A British parliamentary committee yesterday rejected any dash for nuclear power to stop the lights going out as ageing power stations are closed down by 2016, because new nuclear plants would not be ready in time.

In a blow to Prime Minister Tony Blair who is believed to back nuclear power, the all-party Environment Audit Committee said the answer lay in many more gas-powered electricity plants and in boosting sources of renewable energy like wind and waves.

"Over the next ten years, nuclear power cannot contribute either to the need for more generating capacity or to carbon reductions as it simply could not be built in time," said the report entitled Keeping the Lights On. "Nuclear power raises a variety of issues which would need to be satisfactorily resolved before any decision to go ahead is taken," it added, citing questions of long-term waste disposal, public acceptability, and the availability of uranium.

Published just 10 days before the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the report also raised questions of safety, terrorism and the risk of nuclear proliferation.

The report is the second time a government body has come out against a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The government, which has acknowledged it is likely to miss its own goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2010, is half way through a six-month review of the country's future energy needs and how to meet them.