Nuclear consultation seen flawed

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - The government's public consultation last year on the need for new nuclear power plants to tackle climate change and bridge the looming energy gap was flawed and misleading, a group of academics said on Friday.

The government, which has said repeatedly new nuclear power stations are needed, was forced by a legal ruling last February to undertake the consultation which ended in October.

It is expected early next week to give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power plants to replace the ageing nuclear stations due to close by 2035 which currently supply nearly 20 percent of the country's electricity.

"The government was in error in asking the public for a decision 'in principle', when the core 'what if' issues were not consulted on in any meaningful way, or resolved in practice," the academics concluded in an 80-page report.

"These issues include nuclear fuel supply and manufacture, vulnerability to attack, security and nuclear proliferation, radiation waste, radiation risk and health effects, reactor decommissioning, reactor design and siting," they added.

Environmentalists, who could have given a balancing view, pulled out of the public consultations in September, saying the process was clearly intended to produce a positive outcome.

Greenpeace, which took up the legal case in February, said its lawyers would study the government's decision in detail and it reserved the right to go back to court.

"We believe we have a very strong case but will not be bounced into taking a decision," Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe told Reuters.