Minister urges bigger nuclear programme

The Government has signalled that it wants to see nuclear power playing a bigger role in the UK's energy mix which would involve further proposals for sites for new nuclear reactors.

That prospect was highlighted by business secretary John Hutton in a speech to a trade union conference on nuclear power.

Hutton spoke of the Government's ambition for a revival of nuclear power in the UK which could make the country "the number one place in the world for companies to do business in new nuclear".

Hutton added; "I have said that I don't want to see just a like-for-like replacement of nuclear capacity in the UK. Obviously it is up to the market to decide. But energy security and climate change should provide the push for a significant expansion of nuclear in the UK in the coming decades."

The secretary of state stressed that "creating an efficient, predictable and fair planning regime" would be crucial and revealed that the Government had already begun work drafting its Nuclear National Policy Statement which will be a pre-requisite for schemes being handled by the proposed independent infrastructure planning commission.

Hutton's comments came as British Energy stepped up its meetings with local communities around existing nuclear sites to spell out its plans for additional nuclear stations at Essex, Kent, Somerset and Suffolk.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has also made areas close to existing nuclear sites available for consideration as potential locations for new plants.

Meanwhile the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency have reported that four designs for new nuclear reactors have passed an assessment which means they can go forward to the next stage of the prioritisation process which leaves three of the four proposals eligible for construction in the UK. This exercise will take until 2011.

Roger Milne

27 March 2008