EU Energy Commissioner Backs Nuclear Power

The European Commissioner for Energy promoted the use of nuclear power for electricity generation on the grounds it can provide the biggest reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases.

``We need to keep the choice of the nuclear option open for countries that want to generate electricity,'' the commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said in a speech at a conference in Stavanger, Norway. ``Nuclear energy presents the largest carbon-free energy source in the EU.''

Europe will continue to rely on oil and gas as its main source of energy for ``decades to come,'' Pieblags said, although those fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unlike nuclear power and renewable energy sources.

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