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Nuclear is UK’s new North Sea oil – minister
Andrew Sparrow and Patrick Wintour, The Guardian
A government minister will call today for a huge expansion of Britain’s nuclear power in what he predicts could be a £20bn economic bonanza that will create 100,000 new jobs and benefit the economy as much as North Sea oil.
In an ambitious speech that will alarm the anti-nuclear lobby, John Hutton, the business secretary, will argue that the UK’s nuclear programme should go beyond replacing the existing stock of 23 reactors, which provide 20% of the country’s energy. Instead nuclear should contribute “a significantly higher proportion” of the nation’s energy needs in the years ahead, and Britain should aim to become a world leader in the development of nuclear power technology.
He will argue that replacing the existing reactors will be equivalent to investment “three times the size of the project to build Terminal 5 at Heathrow”, but that the economic benefits could be far greater if Britain went further.
(26 March 2008)
Nuclear power debate heats up in Europe
José Antonio Gurriarán, IPS
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are about to agree on a new generation of nuclear power plants in London this week, and plan to export the technology to the rest of the world, according to unconfirmed reports.
Downing Street has refrained from commenting on news of the deal, which was reported last week by The Guardian, a British newspaper. The move would fly in the face of the opinions of Germany and Spain, which wish to gradually phase out all nuclear plants for safety reasons, and generate electricity from renewable sources instead.
The governments of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Chancellor Angela Merkel will be observing closely as Brown and Sarkozy meet at the Arsenal football club’s stadium in London on Thursday. The summit is an additional sign that France is drifting closer to the U.K. and away from Germany, say analysts.
Potential Anglo-French cooperation on nuclear power will reopen the debate within the European Union between those in favour of shutting down nuclear reactors and those who support nuclear power because of its allegedly lower environmental impact, compared with oil, and due to the sky-high prices of crude.
(25 March 2008)
