Blair hints at go-ahead for new nuclear power plants

Tony Blair has given his strongest indication yet that he will press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations despite a highly critical report from MPs yesterday claiming that Britain's coming energy gap can best be filled by new carbon efficient gas stations.

Mr Blair, speaking ahead of the government's energy review in June, said Britain will need both new nuclear and renewable energy to fill the energy gap. Asked in a video interview, before the parliamentary recess, if Britain should rely on nuclear or on renewables, Mr Blair replied: "I have a feeling it is possible we may need both."

A He added: "We are investing a lot in renewable energy, it is very, very important, but we are going to lose 20% of our power from nuclear, which is what we get at the moment. Looking forward, for reasons of energy security as much as for reasons of climate change, I think there is going to be a huge need to develop all of this."

Britain is set to lose 20GW of electricity generating capacity by the end of 2015, largely due to the decommissioning of old nuclear stations. The environmental audit select committee, which issued its report yesterday, claims new nuclear stations could not come on line until 2019 at the earliest.

But ministers hope to overcome this by problem by speeding up the planning process, and have formally requested that the health and safety executive consider whether it could give licence consents to prospective designs for reactors before assessing specific projects, thereby foreshortening the construction process.

The HSE has acknowledged that "potential private licensees may wish to reduce project and commercial risk, by seeking preliminary, or pre-licensing regulatory assessments of prospective reactor designs, before large-scale financial commitments are made". Since the reactors are likely to be of foreign design, the HSE may also rely more than in the past on the safety assessment of foreign regulators.