UK Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown after report

Despite the Prime Minister's well-known support for the nuclear industry, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) concluded that a new nuclear programme was not the answer to the twin challenges of climate change and security of supply. In a hard-hitting report, the 15-strong Commission identified five "major disadvantages" to nuclear power:

* The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic nuclear waste

* Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab;

* The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next 50 years;

* The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency;

* The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if other countries with lower safety standards also opt for nuclear.

Nuclear power generates 20 per cent of the UK's electricity but, by 2020, that will have shrunk to 7 per cent and, by 2035, the last of the current generation of stations will have closed, potentially leaving the UK highly dependent on imported gas.

But instead of sanctioning a new nuclear programme, the SDC urged Mr Blair to back a further expansion of renewable power, fresh measures to promote energy efficiency and the development of new technologies such as "carbon capture" to tackle the environmental threat posed by fossil-fuelled stations.

The commission's report comes just three months before the Government publishes the results of its latest energy review, which is widely expected to pave the wave for a new generation of nuclear stations.

Sir Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the commission, said:"Instead of hurtling along to a pre-judged conclusion (which many fear the Government is intent on doing) we must look to the evidence. There's little point in denying that nuclear power has its benefits but, in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages. The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one."

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