At least eight new nuclear power stations are to be approved within the next two years and built swiftly under fast-track planning procedures, The Times has learnt.

Gordon Brown believes that they will be needed to avoid an energy crisis in the next decade, and more will follow as the world tries to reduce its dependence on oil for power.

Some are likely to be built on sites that are already generating nuclear power - for example at Hinkley in Somerset, Sizewell in Suffolk, Bradwell in Essex and Dungeness in Kent - but people in other areas will be faced with a nuclear plant on their doorsteps for the first time.

The Prime Minister’s decision to fix a minimum number for new stations has emerged after last week’s G8 summit in Japan, where the switch from fuel to nuclear power was a key talking point. He is making plain that he is happy for the market to dictate the final total and wants to show the energy industry and its investors that Britain has a long-term commitment to the expansion of nuclear energy.

At a meeting of European Union and Mediterranean nations in Paris yesterday, he called for “a renaissance of nuclear power”. He added: “Britain is now moving quickly to replace its ageing fleet of nuclear power stations. And all around the world I see renewed interest in this technology as countries contemplate the alternative: continued oil dependence and unchecked climate change.”

Since the G8 Mr Brown has told colleagues that everyone at the summit, including leaders from China, India, Brazil and the African nations who joined the regular G8 lineup, were enthusiastically discussing the need for moves to alternative supplies.

He has already called on oil-producing countries to start investing now in new energy technologies to be ready for the day when oil starts to run out.

Britain has ten nuclear stations with a total of 19 reactors in use, generating a total of 10 gigawatts of electricity, about 20 per cent of the country’s energy needs. By 2023 all but one - Sizewell B - will be obsolete. By then about a third of the country’s coal and oil-fired stations will have been ruled out of use by environmental legislation. The new generation of medium-sized nuclear reactors generate 1.2 gigawatts each, which is why Mr Brown says that at least eight are required to make up for the lost stations.

The Government is pushing through a Planning Bill that will streamline and speed up procedures by putting big infrastructure decisions in the hands of a new commission, rather than local councils. The aim is to cut current lengthy delays to less than a year.

Ministers are awaiting applications from the big energy companies and will then confirm the location of the proposed new sites, most of which will be at or near existing locations. Energy company companies say that under the timetable the new sites can begin generating electricity by 2017.

The siting of any new reactors in Scotland is expected to be opposed by Scottish Nationalists, who would use any attempt by Westminster to impose them on the Scots to attack Mr Brown.

Greenpeace said last night that a decision to go for at least eight stations was bad news for the fight against climate change. “Only two weeks ago Mr Brown was telling us we could plug the energy gap and meet the emissions target with renewable energy. Now that historic project could be threatened if money and political will is instead directed at nuclear power,” a spokesman said.

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