The government says nuclear has definite role to play in the UK’s future energy supply The government has identified eight sites as potentially suitable for future nuclear power stations while ruling out a further three.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said Dungeness in Kent and both Braystones and Kirksanton in Cumbria were not suitable for environmental reasons.
While nuclear had a key role to play, he hoped half of all new capacity by 2025 would come from renewables.
But he ruled out plans for a tidal energy scheme on the Severn estuary.
Funding a Severn barrage with public money would be “very costly”, he said, and as finding private investment would be challenging, other options should be pursued.
The last Labour government approved eleven locations as suitable for new nuclear plants by 2025 – most on the site of existing plants – but this has been cut to eight as part of a revised draft policy statement presented to Parliament on Monday.
The possible locations are: Bradwell, Essex; Hartlepool, Borough of Hartlepool; Heysham, Lancashire; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Oldbury, Gloucestershire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk and Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey.
The BBC’s Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin said this did not mean the projects – which would be subject to planning permission – would go ahead as Mr Huhne has insisted there would be no public subsidies available for them.
Nuclear power is a potential flashpoint within the coalition government with many leading Lib Dems sceptical about the merits of a new generation of nuclear plants and the Conservatives more enthusiastic. Roger Harrabin said the definition of what constituted a subsidy was likely to be fought over in the coming months.
Critics say the UK is at risk of an energy crisis by the middle of the next decade when many of the existing nuclear plants will reach the end of their lives.
Mr Huhne said the country needed a diverse energy mix with contributions from all sectors but with more emphasis on renewables such as wind power.
“I’m fed up with the stand-off between advocates of renewables and of nuclear which means we have neither,” he said.
“We urgently need investment in new and diverse energy sources to power the UK. We’ll need renewables, new nuclear, fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage and the cables to hook them all up to the National Grid as a large slice of our current generating capacity shuts down.
“I am making clear that new nuclear will be free to contribute as much as possible with the onus on developers to pay for the clean-up,” he added.
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