Who Will Build Blair’s Nuclear Power Plants?

BEFORE his re-election in May and since, there have been broad hints that Tony Blair sees a significant role for nuclear power in meeting Britain’s future energy needs, while cutting our emissions of greenhouse gases.

This time last year, the prime minister told senior MPs: “I have fought long and hard, both within my party and outside, to make sure that the nuclear option is not closed off”. Blair, who revealed he had been lobbied by the Americans to look again at the nuclear option as the best way of cutting carbon emissions, sounded a cautionary note about the chances of meeting the government’s longterm target of a 60-per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 without a substantial nuclear contribution.