Nuclear bandwagon rolls back into town

The Government is planning to issue a new energy White Paper within two to three years - and the nuclear lobby is convinced that the tide is turning in its long-running struggle to build a new generation of reactors in the UK. Environmentalists maintain that the focus on nuclear is a damaging distraction from efforts to drive forward energy efficiency and renewables. There is no doubt that the case for nuclear has edged forward in recent months - but the industry still has a mountain to climb to make the current generation of technologies an attractive proposition in the liberalised electricity market.