It was nuclear power’s lowest moment. The year was 1988 and an industry that had once promised electricity too cheap to meter was reeling from disaster.

An attempted privatisation by the Conservatives had forced British Nuclear Fuels to publish its first set of accounts, detailing spiralling costs and managerial ineptitude that had sent the City running for cover.

Meanwhile, the world was recovering from the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl power station in Ukraine, where an explosion had released a cloud of radioactivity across much of Europe.

In the Commons, Labour’s young energy spokesman attacked government claims that nuclear power offered a solution to global warming.

“What is unbelievably depressing about the Conservative government is that they see in the evidence about greenhouse gases not an opportunity to promote environmental concern, but a chance to make the case for nuclear power,” he said as Labour MPs cheered.

The life of Britain’s nuclear industry appeared to be coming to an end.

All the more surprising, then, that the same man — one Tony Blair — should have last week effectively announced a new British nuclear building programme.

Far from being a spent and polluting force, said the prime minister, nuclear power was likely to play an essential role in Britain’s energy supply for many decades to come. He cited the government’s own energy review, as yet unpublished, as proof.

“Yesterday I received the first cut of the energy review,” he told the CBI, the employers’ organisation. “The facts are stark. By 2025, if current policy is unchanged, there will be a dramatic gap on our targets to reduce CO2 emissions; we will become heavily dependent on gas; and at the same time move from being 80%-90% self-reliant in gas to 80%-90% dependent on imports, mostly from the Middle East and Africa and Russia.

“These facts put the replacement of nuclear power stations, a big push on renewables and a step-change on energy efficiency, engaging both business and consumers, back on the agenda with a vengeance.”

Blair’s words were carefully chosen. Labour’s formal proposals on nuclear power await publication of the energy review in July, but most experts interpreted last week’s comments as giving the green light to a third generation of reactors.

This would mean up to 15 new power stations being built next to existing sites around the UK by 2020, collectively producing up to 35% of Britain’s electricity.

Only a few years ago no senior politician would have dared to be so positive about nuclear power but the mood has changed.

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