Nuclear industry welcomes climate report backing

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - The world nuclear power industry welcomed on Friday the tacit backing given to their technology by some of the world's top scientists and economists in the latest analysis of the climate change crisis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Bangkok said tackling global warming was both technologically and financially feasible as long as action was taken promptly, and that nuclear power could be in the arsenal.

"It is common sense. What else is there for most of electricity generation that is carbon free," Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association said.

"If you have a major technology that is capable of being deployed on a larger scale than now that emits no carbon, you don't need a Phd (doctorate) to work out that it has got an awful lot of potential," he told Reuters in London.

The civil nuclear industry, which saw its future evaporating after the reactor explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 sent a pall of radioactive dust across Europe, has seen its prospects improve dramatically in the hunt for a solution to global warming.

Scientists say temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 3.0 degrees Celsius this century from carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, causing climate havoc.

CARBON FREE

Nuclear proponents say their technology is carbon free, although opponents challenge that saying mining, refining and transport all generate carbon emissions.