Europe Warms to Nuclear Energy

Europe Warms to Nuclear Energy

LONDON -- Jun 04 - USA TODAY

Europe is poised to begin a new nuclear age, reversing two decades of policies aimed at abandoning nuclear power as an energy source following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Driving the turnaround: high oil and gas prices; climate change worries; and concerns about the reliability of supplies from Russia, which provides 25% of Europe's natural gas and 12% of its oil.

"There is a strong move," says Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association, a London-based global nuclear industry group. "People are starting to say, 'Let's have another look at this.'"

President Bush, who leaves today on a trip to Europe, said last week that nuclear power was one way for countries to generate "clean energy" and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Britain is the latest to join the trend. Prime Minister Tony Blair's government wants to replace some of the 18 aging nuclear plants that are due to be shut down by 2023.

"If we want to have secure energy supplies and reduce CO

(carbon dioxide) emissions, we have got to put the issue of nuclear power on the agenda," Blair said last week.

Elsewhere:

*Finland is building the first new nuclear generating plant in Western Europe since 1991. It will open in 2010.

*Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands have either abandoned plans to phase out old nuclear plants or opened discussions on construction of new ones. Switzerland has lifted a moratorium on new plants.

Italy, which shuttered its four nuclear plants after Chernobyl, is Europe's biggest energy importer. It has plans to buy power from a plant under construction in France.

*Poland agreed in February to help build a plant in Lithuania. It will provide power to Latvia and Estonia, in addition to Poland and Lithuania.

*Belarus starts construction next year on a plant that would begin generating power in 2014. It plans additional units by 2025.

The accident at Chernobyl was the world's worst nuclear disaster. The plant inside the former Soviet Union spewed radioactive material into the atmosphere, contaminating millions of acres of farmland. The incident has been blamed for thousands of cancer and radiation-induced deaths.

After Chernobyl, safety concerns prompted many European countries to move away from nuclear power. Even in France, which gets 78% of its electricity from nuclear energy, construction of reactors and plants slowed.

Europe's move toward nuclear power comes amid near-record global prices for crude oil and natural gas. There is also intense debate about environmental damage caused by greenhouse gases emitted through use of oil, gas and coal.

Europe's resurgent interest can't match China's ambitions: China plans more new nuclear reactors -- 23 -- than any other country, the World Nuclear Association says.

The nuclear boom has alarmed some environmentalists. "All these developments are very worrying," says Nigel Campbell, a spokesman for Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Nuclear energy "is dangerous. It's an old, 1950s technology. It's a drop in the ocean when you consider how much it really produces. And it's incredibly expensive."