THE Conservatives could be prepared to drop their commitment to nuclear power to underline their new green credentials under David Cameron, it emerged last night.

On the eve of the launch today of a Tory review of energy policy, Alan Duncan, the shadow trade and industry secretary, said that his party now had "no fixed opinion about nuclear energy''.

His comments came as Friends of the Earth suggested that the Tories under Mr Cameron appeared to have replaced Labour as the party more sceptical about building new nuclear power stations.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Duncan said it was possible for renewable energy - such as wave and solar power - to make "a much more significant contribution than in the past''.

Mr Duncan, traditionally sceptical about nuclear energy, even held out the prospect of "a new lease of life'' for fossil fuels, based on clean-coal and carbon-capture technology.

But he ruled out a return to a major reliance on coal reserves, saying that British deep-mined coal was now largely uneconomic.

A Government energy review is already under way, following anxiety over rising domestic fuel bills and security of supply as Britain becomes a net importer of energy. The Tory review is designed to provide what Mr Duncan billed as a "thorough, evidence- based'' response to the Government's eventual proposals.

The thorny issue of whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations - the last of which, Sizewell B, was given the go- ahead by the Tories - is one of the key questions to be resolved by both parties.

Nuclear power provided almost 20 per cent of the UK's electricity in 2004, but that will drop to seven per cent by 2020 as the existing power stations are decommissioned.

Many observers suspect that despite the notorious waste disposal problems, Tony Blair has already privately decided to build more nuclear plants, as they produce almost no damaging carbon emissions. Some Tories with a keen interest in climate change privately say it would be folly to rule out new nuclear power.

Mr Cameron has said he is open-minded about the issue but appointed Zac Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist magazine and a well- known critic of nuclear power, to be deputy chairman of the party's wider "quality of life'' review into the environment.

Martin Williams, a parliamentary campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said last night that in some respects Labour and the Tories "have swapped position'' on the nuclear issue.

Mr Duncan, 49, made it clear that his inquiry would start without bias for any form of energy production.

"Some people in the party are very pro-nuclear, some are very anti. We are going to look at the facts,'' he said.

He said his inquiry would ask whether there was "a role for government'' in insisting on maintaining strategic energy reserves and demanding guarantees from anyone investing in nuclear power.

The Tories teamed up last month with four other political parties, including the Liberal Democrats but not Labour, to agree a joint strategy on climate change.

Mr Duncan raised hopes yesterday of a similar consensus on energy as "there's no great ideological divide''. "The days when it was the Left wanting renewables and the Right wanting nukes aren't as simple and clear-cut as that.''

He invited the public to take part in his review via the website launched today at: www.energyreview.co.uk.

bcarlin@telegraph.co.uk