LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and Italy agreed on Wednesday to work together to develop nuclear energy to ease their reliance on expensive oil and gas.
“I’m pleased to announce our two countries will work together in the area of nuclear energy,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. (more…)
Are we witnessing the beginning of a real-life satire, at once amusing and terrifying? Its theme is the smothering of the nuclear power risk by catastrophic climate change and the oil crisis. At the G8 meeting in Hokkaido last week the US president, George Bush, reiterated his plea for the construction of new nuclear energy plants. At the start of this week, Gordon Brown, announced the fast-tracking of eight new reactors and called for “a renaissance of nuclear power” in a “post-oil economy”. It is as if a world that wishes to save the climate must learn to appreciate the beauty of nuclear energy - or “green energy”, as Germany’s Christian Democratic Union general secretary Ronald Pofalla has rechristened it. Given this new turn in the politics of language, we should remind ourselves of the following. (more…)
Debates about climate change at the G-8 meetings in Japan and this week’s mishap at a French nuclear facility have Germans revisiting the benefits and dangers of nuclear energy. Deep national divisions on the issue are reflected on the editorial pages.
Germans are conflicted about nuclear energy, and amazingly so. In fact, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Forsa polling agency, exactly 46 percent of Germans are for — and 46 percent of Germans are against — extending the operating life of the country’s nuclear reactors past the date 15 years from now when a nuclear phaseout is supposed to be completed. (more…)
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said the Group of Eight industrial nations favour the construction of more nuclear power plants to lessen dependence on fossil fuels blamed for global warming.
G8 leaders yesterday noted that “a growing number of countries” regard nuclear power as an “essential instrument” for cutting greenhouse gas pollution. (more…)
Germany will be the last of the world’s eight leading industrial nations to oppose the use of nuclear power as a clean and durable alternative to coal and gas when G8 leaders meet in Hokkaido, Japan, next Thursday.
With Italy having joined the pro-nuclear camp since the election of Silvio Berlusconi, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will now face seven opponents in her effort to water-down a final communiqué that is set to name nuclear power as a prime weapon in the fight against climate change. (more…)
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown will talk to his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, at the G8 meeting in Hokkaido next month about a potential £1bn a year deal which would boost the UK’s nuclear industry.
Mr Brown and Mr Fukuda will discuss a contract to reprocess fuel at Sellafield in Cumbria to be used in Japan’s nuclear reactors, industry sources said. (more…)
