Blair warned on 'rush for nuclear'

Peter Hain sounds the alert on hidden costs as Number 10 gears up to combat energy shortage
A senior cabinet minister has warned the Prime Minister that controversial proposals to build new nuclear power stations across Britain have hidden costs and consequences for climate change.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Secretary, said the nuclear industry must prove it was a better bet than wind and wave power, arguing that its process - touted as better for the environment than dirty coal-fired stations - actually produced high amounts of carbon, which is linked to global warming.

His words will be seen not just as a shot across the bows of Downing Street, which wants a new generation of nuclear power stations, but as the outbreak of 'green wars' with the new Tory leader, David Cameron. Both men pride themselves on eco-friendliness.

Hain accused the Conservative leader of doing a U-turn on the issue, revealing that the Tory leader had once criticised a planned wind farm as a 'bird blender' - a reference to local fears of birds flying into the spinning turbines - and yet made great public play last week of switching his home energy bills to a green supplier specialising in power derived from just such wind farms.

The attack comes ahead of a government energy review to be launched this week. This is designed to combat fears that the lights in Britain could go out within two decades, as dwindling domestic reserves force this country to depend on oil and gas primarily from Russia and the Middle East.

Although the review has been viewed merely as a technicality ahead of approving a new generation of nuclear power stations, Hain told The Observer there would be no blank cheque for the nuclear industry.

'The review has got to have the drains up on the costs of nuclear: not just the upfront cost, the decommissioning costs, the waste storage costs - they all in themselves have quite high carbon emission consequences,' he said. 'There has to be an assessment of what you could do with the billions that would be spent on nuclear power, [if you spent it] on renewable energy.'

Hain's family home in south Wales is equipped with photovoltaic cells, which trap solar energy to provide heating and hot water. Not to be outdone, Cameron is considering installing a wind turbine on his roof. Beneath the green stand-off lies a deeper battle, however, for liberal voters. Hain admitted that Labour had 'lost a lot of progressive opinion' which it must recapture with new ideas.

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