Powering debate

Concerns about energy supply security and climate change are causing a nuclear power renaissance in Europe. However, despite changing attitudes, the regulatory, political and financial barriers to nuclear new-build remain significant, finds Roderick Bruce

The debate about nuclear power has well and truly re-opened in the European Union (EU). Countries that reduced their use of nuclear power in the face of public concern after the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine are now looking at nuclear in a different light. Nuclear power is being heralded as part of the solution to the pressing concerns of supply security and the need to lower carbon emissions in Europe.

"The nuclear issue really re-emerged (in Europe) in 2006 after the Ukraine gas crisis,"