The history of nuclear power is marked by good intentions abandoned in the face of reality. Twenty-five years ago the environmentally conscious citizens of Sweden voted to phase out their nuclear industry. One reactor was indeed closed down but the lack of an inexpensive alternative led to the deadline being postponed, and now Sweden is Europe's third-largest consumer of nuclear-generated electricity.
Tony Blair might consider the Swedish experience when he ponders how the UK is going to keep the lights on over the next decades. Britain's only listed nuclear power company, British Energy, is expected to decide in the next five months whether to extend the life of its Dungeness reactor by another five years. But it will be a stop-gap measure. Either way, Britain is about to become a large net importer of energy.
Without new plants, the share of nuclear generated electricity will fall from 23pc to 7pc by 2020. Nine of Britain's 12 plants are scheduled to be closed in the next 10 years and since it takes at least a decade to plan and build a reactor, decision time for Labour is drawing close.
The Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, frames the issue in terms of whether renewable energy - mainly wind farms - can replace nuclear. "If it can't, then I would imagine that one further generation of nuclear power stations would be all that would be required," he said last week.
The nuclear industry sees a national debate looming and the anti-nuclear movement is gearing up for the fight. Labour has left the door open to new plants but is waiting for the results of a review into emissions, which should be complete by the year end.
Few experts believe the Government's target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 20pc by 2010 will be met. Figures from the Office for National Statistics this week showed that greenhouse gas emissions started rising in 2003 (the latest in-depth figures available), reversing the downward trend.
Greenpeace has long been among the most prominent opponents of nuclear power and remains implacably opposed to the notion that it could be good for the environment. The group's senior nuclear campaigner in the UK, Jean McSorley, grew up around nuclear plants - her relatives helped build Sellafield in Cumbria.
"The primary reason we oppose nuclear power is the nature of reactors, which pose risks from major accidents and produce nuclear materials and waste we don't have anything to do with," she said. "Although nuclear is a lot less CO2 polluting than coal, it is not as CO2 efficient as the industry likes to give the impression of being."
Greenpeace's worries are worth addressing, given they reflect common fears about nuclear power and that the pressure group has won the propaganda war for public opinion. Safety is acknowledged to be the biggest concern. The problem is that even though the likelihood of a major accident is extremely low, we really don't know how severe the consequences could be.
The 1986 blast at Chernobyl - from a combination of poor design, sloppy construction and negligent maintenance - was the probably the worst accident imaginable at a nuclear plant. About 45 people died as a result of the explosion but the 1988 Piper Alpha fire claimed 167 lives on the North Sea oil rig, and not one person was lost in America's Three Mile Island reactor leak.
Greenpeace says it would expect 30,000 deaths over a 30-50 year period from Chernobyl, including many who contracted thyroid cancer as children. Yet, an independent report estimates that the increased chance of cancer in the affected area is 0.1pc over 40 years. If the latter figure is correct, the number of people who have been killed by nuclear power is tiny compared with deaths in other parts of the power industry.
In British coal mines fatality rates still run at 11 a year per 100,000 employees and show no sign of falling. In Russia, which exports coal to the UK, the death rate is more than twice Britain's. All heavy industries kill people and it is not clear that modern reactors are particularly lethal.
Nuclear waste has been stored without incident in Britain since the 1950s. Not one person is known to have died from exposure to it and, while the emissions will last thousands of years, most is less radioactive than Cornish rocks.
Greenpeace's argument on carbon dioxide emissions may be true, but is misleading. Emissions are created when plants are built, like any power project (including wind turbines).
Once up and running, nuclear plants produce no waste gases, barring those from ships transporting the uranium from Australia or the cars used by employees to get to work.
The present pollution savings from nuclear are equivalent to removing three-quarters of the UK's cars from the roads.
Indeed, it is the environmentally friendly argument that nuclear advocates are rallying around. The Government has set itself ambitious targets for cutting back emissions by imposing a carbon tax, and nuclear becomes more financially attractive when a monetary cost is assigned to exhaust gases.
The Royal Association of Engineers estimates that nuclear-derived electricity is less than half the cost of coal and wind power if emissions are included.
With Britain's electricity supply about to enter a long decline, nuclear, it would seem, is the optimum solution, being safe, efficient and relatively clean. Yet even if the political problems can be overcome, financial hurdles remain. Analysts warn that the plants' lives are so long - 50 years - that the risks of building are too great for individual companies.
A recent study by investment bank UBS calculated that nuclear electricity is cheaper than gas as long as oil is above $28 a barrel. (Natural gas prices are closely correlated to the price of oil.) With Brent crude trading close to $50, this makes nuclear highly attractive but nobody knows what the price of oil will be in a year's time, let alone 30 years.
Given the near-bankruptcy of British Energy, lenders would be reluctant to provide £1.7billion for a reactor that could be unprofitable in a few years time. The financial problems are compounded by huge planning problems. It took six years to approve the Sizewell B reactor in Suffolk.
The UBS analysts believe a state subsidy or guarantee will be required and suggest that European governments could tighten pollution rules so much that nuclear is the only viable option. One of the questions that needs to be resolved is whether Britain extends the life of existing plants or builds new ones. It may be more risky to extend, given the great technical complexity of British Energy's existing plants.
And if it only results in plants being built later, the generation of nuclear scientists who build plants in 1980s will have retired before the next plants go up. An important source of knowledge will have been lost. Perhaps the greatest force pushing us towards nuclear power is the growing opposition to wind farms, now the scale of the numbers needed is becoming apparent. As Sir Bernard Ingram has pointed out, a wind farm the size of Dartmoor would be required to match the output of a standard power station, and the UK needs 55 of them.
The Nuclear Power debate
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