EDITORIAL

Tony Blair is keen to remind us that his job entails taking tough decisions. But one he has consistently funked is what to do about nuclear energy, whether it concerns dealing with waste or commissioning a new generation of reactors.

Yesterday, he announced that the Government would undertake an energy review under Malcolm Wicks, the minister responsible, with the aim of publishing a statement on future policy early next summer. We are still far from a decision on Britain's new energy mix but at least the Prime Minister has at last set the ball rolling. More important, he has indicated that nuclear will have to be part of that mix.

For too long, Labour has been paralysed by an irrational fear of civil nuclear power. In the meantime, the dates for the decommissioning of coal and nuclear plants, which account for about 30 per cent of generating capacity, draw nearer. Britain has become a net importer of natural gas and within a few years is expected to be in the same position with regard to oil. The prices of both those fuels have risen sharply. Accelerating demand from industrialising nations such as China and India means they are unlikely to fall back to old levels.

And renewable sources - wind, tide, solar and biomass - as yet show no sign of reaching the Government's target of supplying 10 per cent of Britain's electricity by 2010, let alone its "aspiration" to see that proportion doubled by 2020.

All these factors indicate the need to commission a new generation of nuclear reactors if Britain is to meet its energy requirements. Apart from the explosion in Chernobyl in 1986, the industry has an excellent safety record. Its opponents raise the spectre of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant, but that possibility should not preclude a hard-headed look at the contribution such a source of power can make to the economy and at the best ways of defending it from extremists.

Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear power offers clean energy whose provision is not over-dependent on volatile foreign suppliers. Compared with renewables, it has a proven record of substantial electricity production. Building new reactors will be expensive, will require a long lead time and, as indicated by the Greenpeace demonstration yesterday, will be fiercely opposed by some environmentalists.

During that period, new sources of energy such as tidal generation, which avoids the environmental blot of windmills, may come to promise more than they do at present. That is why the energy review must be comprehensive. It is the least to be demanded from a prime minister who has spent more than two terms in Downing Street before facing up to Britain's long-term energy needs.