To Escape Global Warming, UK Turns to Nuclear Power UK Prime Minister Tony Blair threatened an explosive row over possible new nuclear power capacity as he launched the country's first comprehensive energy review for 20 years.

   Blair told Parliament, "The aim of the review will be to set out the objectives of energy policy and to develop a strategy that ensures current policy commitments are consistent with longer term goals. The findings will also inform the government’s response to last year’s report from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution Energy - the changing climate."

   The review is aimed at juggling long term British energy security with the need to continue cutting greenhouse gas emissions against a picture of dwindling domestic oil and gas production.

   The United Kingdom has been a big net petroleum exporter, but is set to become a net importer again within the next decade.

   Blair's Labour government pledged not to build any more nuclear stations in the run-up to its 1997 election victory, but did not repeat the promise before its landslide re-election earlier this month.

   One part of the longer term solution, the government has now signalled, might be to resume a nuclear power generation program stalled since 1987. Nuclear power production raises issues of safe disposal of the spent nuclear fuel and also operations safety issues, but nuclear power does not produce the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

   Nuclear generation currently produces 25 percent of UK electricity. On current trends, this could fall to three percent by 2020, with gas supplying half of energy needs, coal six percent and renewables four percent.

   Britain's environmental movement reacted sharply to the suggestion of a renewed nuclear program yesterday, calling for major support of renewables instead. NGOs warned that Brian Wilson, the energy minister who will lead the review, is "pro-nuclear."

   Leaked documents published in the UK Telegraph newspaper today show that massive increases in radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea are planned from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. Documents leaked to Greenpeace show discharges of many radioactive substances are predicted to double, and some to increase four-fold.

   Across Europe, Finland is the only other country considering building more nuclear plants. Most countries with existing nuclear capacity are seeking to phase out the industry. Germany signed an agreement with its nuclear industry earlier this month that begins the phase out in 2005.