News Archive – February 2005

Wind farms are all very well, but nuclear energy is the way forward

This story claims that "Once the election is safely won, noises from Whitehall suggest that Labour will face reality and restart investment in nuclear".

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Neil Collins, The Telegraph, 16th February

Blair set to press nuclear button

Tony Blair is preparing to commit the country to the construction of up to 10 new nuclear stations if he wins the forthcoming general election.  A White Paper backing the nuclear option is widely expected to be published soon after the election.

The document is likely to set out the case for nuclear power but stop short of spelling out how a new generation of reactors would be financed and built. Such a seismic shift in policy would almost certainly also require a Cabinet reshuffle to bring supporters of nuclear power into the key posts of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and Secretary of State for Environment. The present incumbents, Patricia Hewitt and Margaret Beckett, are both anti-nuclear.

Even if the political will is there to usher in a new nuclear era, the practical obstacles remain daunting: Britain needs an agreed waste policy; second it needs an agreed technology approved by UK regulatory authorities, third it needs a planning system which deals with planning issues rather than technical and safety ones; and finally it needs a market structure which supports investment in new plant. It also needs a "competent operator".

Michael Harrison, The Independent, 15th February 2005