Ambitions of nuclear power industry in UK are 'a fantasy'

[jpak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/22/nuclearindustry

The prospects of a nuclear power renaissance in Britain are zero and the global industry is in steep decline, Green MEPs warned yesterday.

An independent consultants' study, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2007, casts severe doubts over the government's expected proposals this year to build up to 10 nuclear power stations to replace a rapidly ageing capacity.

Mycle Schneider, the report's co-author, said the government's plans were seriously jeopardised by an acute shortage of skilled engineers and manufacturing bottlenecks. "I can't think of any other country where the crisis in engineering is more absolute," he said. "You don't educate engineers in Britain any more, let alone nuclear engineers. The only perspective I can see is that EDF orders its own reactor and brings in people from elsewhere to build it."

His report, co-authored by a London-based consultant, Anthony Froggatt, said that there are 439 nuclear reactors operating in the world - five fewer than five years ago - and 32 units are said to be "under construction" - 20 fewer than in the late 1990s. In the EU's 27 states the number of operating units had declined to 146 from 177 in 1989.

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