Nuclear industry sees fertile ground in green Europe

It is redoubling efforts to promote its product as a climate-friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

from the March 2, 2007 edition

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"Communication is bad," said Mr. Clerici, a leader of the World Energy Council, at a Brussels conference on nuclear energy in Europe. "Final users of electricity are not using their brains but their emotions."

The EU, meanwhile, is forging ahead with other ideas to change the way it produces and uses energy.

Two years after it adopted an ambitious program to cut greenhouse gases associated with global warming, it is set to consider a new round of proposals this month that would further commit its members to wean themselves from energy dependence on oil and gas.

The European Commission has proposed that by 2020 at least 20 percent of Europe's power should come from renewable energy sources, such as wind towers for electricity and biofuels for transportation.

The goal would be to shrink energy consumption, lower carbon dioxide emissions, and reduce Europe's dependence on foreign oil and gas suppliers. The commission steered clear of making any recommendations regarding nuclear power, saying each country would be left to make its own decisions about whether to add, cut, or maintain nuclear reactors.

The absence of any recommendations involving nuclear power, which now generates 30 percent of the electricity in the EU as a whole, has pleased longtime opponents.

"Of all different energy options, nuclear was the loser," says Mark Johnston, a lobbyist for the international environmental group Greenpeace.

"It's not popular, for one. And there are still widespread doubts across Europe, partly for economic and cost reasons and because of the waste issue," he says.

While EU surveys have found some shift in public attitudes toward nuclear power, opinion remains generally negative. A survey of 1,000 people in each of the 27 EU member countries recently found only 37 percent of those interviewed favored nuclear power, while 55 percent said its risks outweighed the advantages.

While those questioned were less concerned than in the past about the safety of reactors, but were still worried about what to do with stockpiles of nuclear waste, says Ms. Blohm-Hieber.

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