UK Government's Energy Review to smooth nuclear path

The U.K. government is set to signal strong support for a new fleet of nuclear reactors when it publishes its energy review Tuesday (11/07/06), potentially creating a GBP20 billion market in construction alone over the next three decades. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed he favors the building of new nuclear plants to tackle growing energy demand, security of supply and global warming.

The Department of Trade and Industry, which is carrying out the review, reckons the U.K. could face a 20 gigawatt capacity gap - or 30% of current electricity demand - as coal and nuclear plants shut down over the next couple of decades. But a decision to build nuclear plants could concentrate bigger generation capacity on fewer sites, slowing or stopping the small efforts made so far toward decentralization.

James Cameron, Vice Chairman of specialist merchant bank Climate Change Capital, describes the combative debates around nuclear, whether nuclear versus decentralization or pro-nuclear versus anti, as a "terrible waste of time. We need to focus on energy systems (and) infrastructure, not argue over different options for generating electricity," Cameron said. He is convinced that, given a policy framework that encourages green electricity capacity, investors would flock to renewable technologies before nuclear.

The review is likely to propose changes to the Renewable Obligation scheme, which obliges power utilities to source an incrementally rising proportion of their power from renewables, with a target of 15.4% by 2015.

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UK Government's Energy Review to smooth nuclear path