UK bets on green energy, efficiency to curb emissions
Date: 25-Feb-03
Country: UK
"We've set this enormously important target of cutting carbon emission by 60 percent by 2050," said Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.
"We'll do it though energy efficiency, through renewables." she told BBC radio.
Hewitt, speaking ahead of the publication of a government white paper on energy policy, said building new nuclear power stations, which do not emit greenhouse gases, would damage the prospects of the country's renewable energy industry.
"What we could have done of course was to say we're going to embark on a whole new programme of nuclear build now, that's what some people were urging us to do," said Hewitt.
"If we had done that we would have destroyed the incentives for energy efficiency and renewables..." she added.
"We are not absolutely ruling out new nuclear build forever, I think that would be quite an irresponsible things to do as well," she added.
Nuclear accounts for about 15 percent of the current energy mix but much of the existing capacity is earmarked for closure by 2020.
Hewitt said coal, which fuels about 35 percent of the country's power stations, would continue to play a role in Britain's energy mix, along with gas.
"Coal is an extremely flexible fuel, it makes very good sense to use it as part of the electricity mix but of course it does have to be clean," she said.
"And that's why we're investing quite substantially in the existing and possible new clean coal technologies."
Hewitt said gas, which accounts for about 35 percent of the energy mix, would continue to play a key role and the government would need to ensure it secures future supplies from foreign markets.
"Of course a great deal of out present and indeed future electricity will also be coming from gas, " she said. "And that's why it's important that a central goal of our foreign policy and our Euorpean policy in future is to ensure that we can get the gas and the oil that we need."