British Energy Secretary John Hutton told lawmakers in London Thursday that nuclear energy "should have a role to play in this country's future energy mix alongside other low-carbon sources."

Nuclear power, the secretary added, was "tried and tested, safe and secure," arguing that it was also a relatively cheap way to meet Britain's climate protection targets.

The decision comes as somewhat of a surprise, given Labor's previous statements.

The British government as recently as 2003 said it was opposed to the expansion of nuclear energy, yet now seems to pay tribute to the worldwide renaissance nuclear energy has experienced in connection with the struggle to stop global warming -- London until 2050 wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent.

The plan to revive nuclear may also be a domestic necessity, as Britain's North Sea fossil fuels are depleting.

Hutton said there was no limit on the construction of new plants, adding that the industry should pay for them.

"I invite energy companies to bring forward plans to build and operate new nuclear power stations," he said.

The industry is thrilled by the prospect of blooming in Britain, with French giant Areva already underlining that it would focus on the British market for the future, and domestic British Energy, which already runs eight reactors in the country, said it is able to bring new plants online by 2017.

Currently, nuclear energy provides nearly 20 percent of Britain's electricity needs, but most of the 19 reactors are so old that they will have to be shut down by 2035. The Chernobyl disaster had initially stopped the expansion of nuclear energy, but the prospects of relatively cheap and CO2-free domestic power generation seem to outplay the warnings of environment organizations such as Greenpeace, who point to the problem of nuclear waste storage and security in case of terrorist attacks.

The renaissance of nuclear is of course also one dominated by the books, as the recent price hike of crude oil to $100 a barrel makes atomic power more competitive.

Already, Finland and nuclear energy powerhouse France have new nuclear plants in the pipeline, and in the United States, companies are also gearing up to build new plants. Countries that have previously agreed to phase out nuclear energy -- like Sweden and Belgium -- have prolonged the running times of their plants or are even rethinking the phase-out.

The international industry is set to woo the British market; the likely candidates are domestic Centrica and British Energy, Areva and EDF from France, and RWE and Eon from Germany.

The two German companies might be interested because nuclear is spurned at home. Eon and RWE will likely hope that the support nuclear gets in Britain will influence the debate in Germany, where a plan struck by the previous government to phase out nuclear energy by 2021 made it into the coalition agreement of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

While Merkel and most of her Conservative Party colleagues would rather have nuclear stay in the mix, the other half of the government, the center-left Social Democratic Party, has staunchly opposed rethinking the phase-out.

The German Atomic Forum, an association of companies, research facilities and institutions involved in the nuclear energy industry, has called for Germany to follow the British trend.

"The fact is that, when it comes to nuclear energy, Germany is becoming ever more isolated," a spokesperson for the Atomic Forum told Friday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

(e-mail: [email protected])

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