By IRNA
London : Business Secretary John Hutton said Wednesday that the government’s controversial plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations should go beyond replacing the country’s 23 ageing reactors.
“If we are really serious about our climate change
responsibilities, if we want Britain to be as energy-independent as possible, then I think we should be talking about a significant expansion over and above the current contribution that nuclear power makes,” Hutton said.
“It’s now about 20 percent. I think it should be significantly more than that, if we are really going to reap the dividend of switching quickly to a proven low-carbon technology like nuclear power,” he told the BBC.
The minister was speaking before making an address to Unite, Britain’s biggest trade union, when he was expected to further argue for the creation of a Pnds 20 billion nuclear industry with 100,000 new jobs.
It will make the UK “the gateway to a new nuclear renaissance across Europe,” he said.
“I want Britain to be leading the world in the development and application of this new generation of low carbon power technology,” he argued.
During his BBC interview, Hutton refused to say how many new nuclear power stations the government wanted to build but said it should be more than the existing 23 reactors in the country, most of which are being or will require to be decommissioned.
He dismissed environmental concerns, insisting that reactors have been proved safe and warning that delaying using them more widely could be disastrous.
“In terms of waste disposal, I don’t think there is an argument about how it should be done – there is an argument about where it should be done,” the minister said.
The British government has resorted to build a new generation of nuclear plant due to dwindling oil and gas supplies from the North Sea and to minimize the country’s over-reliance on foreign energy supplies, such as gas from Russia.
But the plans face opposition including from the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) in Edinburgh, which as said it would block any plans for new reactors in Scotland.
“The UK government are becoming increasingly obsessed with the illusion that nuclear power is the ‘silver bullet’ to tackle climate change,” SNP energy spokesman Mike Weir said.
“This is completely crazy given that there is no solution to the huge problems associated with nuclear power, particularly the disposal of nuclear waste,” Weir said.