A new coal-burning power plant, which would be the first conventional station to come on stream in Scotland since 1980, is being planned for the Firth of Clyde.
Denmark's state-owned energy company, Dong, has identified Hunterston, North Ayrshire, as the preferred site.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Energy's Hunterston B7 nuclear reactor was shutdown manually late on Tuesday but it is still unclear why the reactor in Scotland needed to be stopped, a spokesman for the company said.
"We are still looking into that," he said on Wednesday.
Nuclear power firm British Energy looks poised to fall into foreign hands after it was reported French power giant EDF has agreed a £12.4 billion takeover of the firm.
The deal is worth 774p a share, the Wall Street Journal said, 9p higher than a rebuffed offer made in July.
DETAILS OF a serious fire hazard at the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire have been kept secret because they could aid a terrorist attack.
The government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has refused to release information about a "specific fire scenario" at the reactors because to do so could "threaten national security".
Scotland's energy minister Jim Mather insisted today that "our people don't want new nuclear power and we don't need it", as he revealed new figures on renewable energy.
Speaking at the Scottish Council for Development & Industry energy conference at Murrayfield Stadium, the minister said wind farms, hydro power projects and marine renewables will mean Scotland should "comfortably" surpass its renewable energy targets set for 2011.
GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS protesting against a shipment of nuclear waste on its way to Sellafield are putting themselves at risk of death or injury, the UK nuclear security chief has warned.
Roger Brunt, the director of the government's Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS), has accused the international anti-nuclear group of "recklessness" during attempts to board a boat carrying plutonium-contaminated waste from Sweden.
The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain's atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.
The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account.
British Energy planned to take its Torness reactor in Scotland offline over the weekend and was not forced to do so, chief executive Bill Coley told an investor day presentation at Heysham, Lancashire Tuesday.
British Gas owners Centrica may join a £10billion consortium vying to control the UK's nuclear power plants.
Centrica hopes to lead a continental group bidding for British Energy, which runs all of the UK's nuke sites.
LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - British Energy will inspect three more reactors at its Hunterston B and Hinkley Point nuclear power stations later this year after stopping one unit over the weekend for boiler checks, a spokeswoman for the company said on Monday.
