THE growing row among Britain’s leading environmentalists over the “positive” benefits of nuclear power is set to be inflamed by the publication of a scientific paper by James Lovelock, author of the Gaia theory and one of the country’s most respected green thinkers.

Lovelock, 85, spoke out earlier this year to warn that the world must turn to nuclear power as the only realistic alternative to the fossil fuels that cause global warming.

Now he has written a paper for the journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in which he strengthens his views.

Until recently a fondness for nuclear power was the love that dare not speak its name among green campaigners. In recent months, however, a range of prominent environmentalists have come out in favour of it.

Lovelock will describe global warming as “the greatest test humanity has ever had”. Calling for a nuclear programme “whose scale dwarfs the space and military programmes”, he will say: “I find it extraordinary that the one safe and proven energy source that has minimal global consequences, nuclear power, is so readily rejected.”

The paper will anger environmentalists for whom nuclear power has failed every test on safety and cost.

Guy Thompson, director of the Green Alliance, which submitted a detailed study of the costs and benefits of nuclear power for the government’s recent white paper on energy, said: “There is no way of safely storing the waste and the cost of decommissioning is too high. That is why no company has tried to build reactors.”

Increasingly, however, others disagree. Last week saw Hugh Montefiore, former bishop of Birmingham, quitting the board of Friends of the Earth (FoE) after coming out in favour of nuclear power.

He wrote: “I have been a committed environmentalist for many years . . . I have concluded that the solution is to make more use of nuclear energy.” One FoE campaigner dismissed him as “an old duffer”. He said: “Montefiore comes from an era which embraced high technology and still sees it as the solution.”

However, other nuclear energy supporters include scientists such as Sir John Houghton, the former head of the Met Office, who co-chaired the intergovernmental panel on climate change.

He has revised and republished his influential book Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, aimed at policy-makers, and said nuclear power was “increasingly attractive”.

“The cost of nuclear electricity is similar to the cost of electricity from natural gas when the extra cost of capturing carbon dioxide is added,” he said.

Environmentalists are used to scientists suggesting that more technology can solve such problems but were shocked when Peter Harper and Paul Allen, leading green thinkers from the Centre for Alternative Technology, in Machynlleth, Powys, made similar suggestions.

They told the recent Gaia and Global Change meeting at Dartington Hall, Devon: “The worst possible nuclear disasters are not as bad as the worst possible climate change disasters.”

They suggested using uranium taken from decommissioned weapons to generate power, thus buying time to build renewable energy sources.

Such schisms among environmentalists will delight the nuclear industry which has spent millions on a discreet political lobbying campaign.

However, critics argue that the debate is irrelevant. They point out that nuclear power already accounts for 20% of the electricity produced in Britain, but that electricity overall accounts for just 16% of the energy consumed in the country.

It means that even doubling the number of nuclear reactors would have only a trivial impact on greenhouse gas emissions, of which transport, heating and industry have become the major sources.

Additionally, electricity use is rising at between 1% and 2% a year, so new reactors would simply supply the extra demand rather than replace fossil-fuelled power stations.

American neo-conservatives argue that nuclear power’s real value is security of supply, reducing reliance on unstable Middle East oil regimes. Others argue that more reactors means more risk of terrorists acquiring radioactive materials.

The cost is also high. British Energy, owner of most of Britain’s reactors, had to have a £1 billion-plus bail-out from the government with at least £40 billion more needed to decommission old reactors.

Tony Juniper, director of FoE, said: “Nuclear power is not the answer. The real problem is to stabilise our energy use.”

Meanwhile the Environment Agency is to publish an apocalyptic vision of Britain in 50 years’ time if climate change does its worse.

It will describe how storms could overwhelm London and put north Kent and Norfolk underwater.

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