Jun 20 - Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

A 50 percent rise in energy demand in the next 45 years means that Scotland needs to keep its nuclear option open, according to a group of the country's most senior academics.

With a sharp fall in generating capacity looming, the Royal Society of Edinburgh warns that demand for energy will continue to rise, and a mix of solutions is required.

Its estimate of a 50 percent increase by 2050 is based on trend growth in demand and 2 percent average annual economic growth.

Given the spiralling rates of energy consumption, the institute concluded that the option of replacing nuclear power plants should be left open, but with a plea that it should not become a political football.

The society set out plans that would put the nation's scientists at the forefront of research to find clean, safe alternatives.

The independent report comes ahead of the government's decision on Britain's energy future due later this summer, which is expected to include a nuclear element as well as moves to promote renewable power and clean coal.

The society's chairman, Professor Maxwell Irvine, former principal of Aberdeen and Birmingham Universities and a physicist at Manchester, said: "Anybody who tells you that one technology or one or two technologies are going to meet all our needs doesn't understand the problem. I wish we were here 10 years ago, when we should have been addressing these problems. Delays in decision- making reduce the options."

The SNP's energy spokesman, Richard Lochhead, said the team had looked at the debate "through nuclear-tinted glasses", and Friends of the Earth said nuclear is "unwanted, unnecessary and unsafe". Tories backed its nuclear message with a call for on-shore wind farm projects to be frozen.

(c) 2006 Herald, The; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.