U.K. Government Looking to Build 10 More Nuclear Power Stations

With many of the country's current nuclear power stations coming to the end of their working lives, the U.K. government has revealed the details of ten locations where it is hoping to build a new generation of nuclear plants over the next two decades.

The U.K. government is aiming to have the first of the new plants operational by 2018, or 2017 according to RTE News, and by 2025 it is anticipated that 40 percent of the country's new energy provision will be as a result of nuclear power. There was until last year a moratorium in the U.K. on the construction of new nuclear power stations, the government having lifted it and now confirming that in future planning decisions on new energy projects should only take one year. Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Secretary and younger brother of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, also announced that the transition to clean-coal technology was a priority of the government, which is working towards ensuring that, by 2020, 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity will come from renewable sources. However, as RTE News notes, environmental groups do not share the government's belief that clean-coal technology and nuclear power are the way forward, although as stated renewables do feature strongly in the government's plans, instead seeing such as wind power as fundamental to the U.K.'s energy policy. Simon Hughes, energy and climate change spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, shares many of the environmental groups' concerns, with the Press Association quoting him as saying:

A new generation of nuclear power stations will be a colossal mistake regardless of where they are built. New plants in the UK have never been built without massive cost to the taxpayer and a lethal legacy of toxic waste. Plans to sweep aside the remnants of local accountability in the planning system expose a Government ready to override all objections as to where new sites will be built

In the addition to the ten locations listed below, four others were considered as sites for construction but eventually discounted. Dungeness in Kent, a county in the Southeast of England, was one of the sites discounted. It is at present home to two nuclear power stations, one no longer operating, but concerns over coastal erosion meant the site was excluded from the list of sites where it is hoped to build the new stations. Some of the other ten locations have existing nuclear facilities. The full list of new sites is: Cumbria, Northwest England - Braystones, Sellafield, Kirksanton Lancashire, Northwest England - Heysham Co. Durham, Northeast England - Hartlepool Suffolk, East Anglia, England - Sizewell Essex, Southeast, England - Bradwell Gloucestershire, West of England - Oldbury Somerset, Southwest England - Hinkley Point Isle of Anglesey, North Wales - Wylfa Setting out the future for power generation in the U.K. , as envisioned by the current government, Mr Miliband said:

The threat of climate change means we need to make a transition from a system that relies heavily on high-carbon fossil fuels to a radically different system that includes nuclear, renewable and clean-coal power. Change is also needed for energy security. In a world where our North Sea reserves are declining, a more diverse, low-carbon energy mix is a more secure energy mix, less vulnerable to fluctuations in the availability of any one fuel

In contrast to the U.K., where at this time a fifth of the country's electricity is produced using nuclear power, across the English Channel in France some 90 percent of the nation's electricity is generated via nuclear power.