Blair warned on 'rush for nuclear'

[jpak]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,1692255,00.html

A senior cabinet minister has warned the Prime Minister that controversial proposals to build new nuclear power stations across Britain have hidden costs and consequences for climate change.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Secretary, said the nuclear industry must prove it was a better bet than wind and wave power, arguing that its process - touted as better for the environment than dirty coal-fired stations - actually produced high amounts of carbon, which is linked to global warming.

His words will be seen not just as a shot across the bows of Downing Street, which wants a new generation of nuclear power stations, but as the outbreak of 'green wars' with the new Tory leader, David Cameron. Both men pride themselves on eco-friendliness.

Hain accused the Conservative leader of doing a U-turn on the issue, revealing that the Tory leader had once criticised a planned wind farm as a 'bird blender' - a reference to local fears of birds flying into the spinning turbines - and yet made great public play last week of switching his home energy bills to a green supplier specialising in power derived from just such wind farms.

<more>