LONDON - Legislators criticised Britain's government on Monday for being hasty in its review of energy policy and voiced concern about signs that Prime Minister Tony Blair had already decided to back new nuclear power stations.
The Observer newspaper reported that the government, in the review expected to be published on Tuesday, would support the construction of a new generation of nuclear power stations while proposing measures to boost the use of renewable energy.
The government is striving to meet its international obligations to tackle global warming while responding to the country's growing future dependence on imported energy.
Blair has made no secret of his own view, saying in May that the replacement of Britain's ageing nuclear power plants with new models was "back on the agenda with a vengeance".
"We are concerned about the manner in which this energy review has been conducted," Parliament's Trade and Industry Committee said in a report.
"Throughout the process, the government has hinted strongly that it has already made its mind up on nuclear power," said the committee, which draws members from all political parties but is chaired by an opposition Conservative.
The committee questioned the "haste" of the government's review, noting it had taken six months compared with three years for the previous review.
The committee did not take a stance for or against a new generation of nuclear power stations, but it said that, for the power industry to be willing to invest, there would have to be a clear government commitment to the future role of nuclear power, based on a broad cross-party political consensus.
It criticised the government for failing to include the main political parties in the energy review. The main opposition Conservatives say new nuclear power stations are a last resort while the Liberal Democrats oppose them.
The committee said the future "energy gap" might not be as severe as the government assumed because the life of some of Britain's existing nuclear power stations may be extended.
PRIVATE SECTOR
The committee said the government should make it clear that all the costs of building, operating and decommissioning new nuclear power stations would fall to private sector investors.
The government's role should be to ensure that all sources of generation were treated "fairly" within the market, it said.
The report said a policy to foster the construction of new nuclear power stations would also require:
-- long-term incentives for investment in all low carbon technologies, designed to minimise the emissions believed to cause global warming
-- a long-term storage solution for Britain's existing radioactive waste
-- a review of the planning and licensing system to reduce the time needed to build nuclear power stations.
New nuclear reactors could be built next to existing nuclear power stations, although rising sea levels and coastal erosion due to climate change could mean some of these coastal sites were not available, it said.
The committee noted that, of the two main viable reactor designs, neither had yet been built anywhere in the world.
There should be sufficient uranium supplies to meet any future British demand, it said.
The structure of the British electricity market, dominated by a small number of large firms able to raise sufficient finance, could foster the building of new nuclear power stations if the government created the right framework, it said.
Story by Adrian Croft
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
