Unless the UK has new nuclear it is going to lose a vital source of reliable, secure low-carbon electricity, chairman of the London-based Nuclear Industry Association Lord Hutton has said.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Lord Hutton, a former secretary of state for business, said: “While we’ve seen a welcome expansion in renewables, these are intermittent and cannot fill the gap alone.” He said when he instigated the nuclear white paper in 2008, which opened the doors for companies to invest in building new nuclear power stations, little did he think that almost a decade later he’d be defending the start of the UK’s nuclear programme. “But the arguments I made then, to reduce the use of fossil fuels to address climate change as well as secure the UK’s energy supplies, remain compelling. Those arguments are now compounded by the urgent need to replace the UK’s ageing energy infrastructure.”