Nuclear power in Europe

Britain has been accused of trying to water down a European Union directive designed to give renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar power easier access to national electricity grids.

The UK has been pushing to amend a key passage in the directive, so that instead of saying EU member-states "shall" give priority access to renewables, it would say only that they "may" do so if they wish, The Guardian reported.

Germany will be the last of the world’s eight leading industrial nations to oppose the use of nuclear power as a clean and durable alternative to coal and gas when G8 leaders meet in Hokkaido, Japan, next Thursday.

With Italy having joined the pro-nuclear camp since the election of Silvio Berlusconi, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will now face seven opponents in her effort to water-down a final communiqué that is set to name nuclear power as a prime weapon in the fight against climate change.

BONN, June 12 (Reuters) - Developing nations might get help to build nuclear power plants under proposals at 170-nation climate talks in Bonn for expanding a fast-growing U.N. scheme for curbing greenhouse gases.

Nuclear power is the most contentious option for widening a U.N. mechanism under which rich nations can invest abroad, for instance in an Indian wind farm or a hydropower dam in Peru, and get credit at home for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. "It's one of the issues that needs to be considered," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said on Thursday of suggestions by countries including India and Canada at the June 2-13 talks of aid for atomic energy.

The Netherlands has added its name to the growing list of European countries that might build nuclear power stations to help meet their greenhouse gas targets.

Maria van der Hoeven, Dutch economics minister, said she could not envisage a nuclear-free future if the government was to meet its CO 2 targets.