In what is a key event for the UK energy policy space, the British Energy Minister Charles Hendry has announced and sent several key new energy policy proposals to the Parliament:
The UK has committed that “at least one-quarter of the UK’s electricity generating capacity needs to be replaced by 2020″ and Hendry notes, “it will be important we create the right environment for business to invest in the energy market.”
This plan also lists eight sites as suitable for new nuclear reactor development in the UK for the next decade.
Hendry comments that:
“I’m fed up with the stand-off between advocates of renewables and of nuclear which means we have neither. We urgently need investment in new and diverse energy sources to power the UK. We’ll need renewables, new nuclear, fossil fuels with CCS, and the cables to hook them all up to the grid as a large slice of our current generating capacity shuts down. The market needs certainty to make this investment happen, and we are determined to clear every obstacle in the way of this program.”
And in the new proposal states that “new nuclear power stations…will play a vitally important role in providing reliable electricity supplies and a secure and diverse energy mix as the UK makes the transition to a low carbon economy.”
We at AREVA North America hope that the United States can find it’s way to a similar strong energy policy, and would see the crucial role that nuclear energy and other clean energy solutions play as we migrate to a 21st Century approach to energy.
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