Nuclear decision 'bad news' for climate change

A government decision to give the go-ahead for the building of a new generation of nuclear power stations has been criticised by an environmental campaigning group.

Earlier today business secretary John Hutton announced a series of new nuclear reactors would be built on or near the site of the UK's existing plants with the first one due for completion before 2020.

However, the decision was criticised by Greenpeace, who claimed that the new plans would not help the UK's efforts to reduce its carbon emissions from energy production soon enough.

John Sauven, the organisation's executive director, said: "This is bad news for Britain's energy security and bad news for our efforts to beat climate change."

"Nuclear power can only deliver a four per cent cut in emissions some time after 2025, and that's too little too late at too high a price," he added. "We need energy efficiency, cleaner use of fossil fuels, renewables and state of the art decentralised power stations like those in Scandinavia."

Following the government's announcement, French company EDF Energy outlined plans to build four new nuclear power stations in the UK by 2017, the BBC reported.