WEC: World Must Embrace Nuclear Energy

The world must embrace nuclear power if it is to create a low carbon economy this century and beat global warming, electricity generators said on Wednesday.

The World Energy Council (WEC) said nuclear electricity was not a panacea, and had to go hand in hand with other low carbon technologies, but it would be crucial to the energy mix.

The WEC said renewables like wind, waves, solar and hydro had a role to play but would in most cases not be deployed quickly enough to decarbonise electricity production which accounts for 41 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions.

"If we are going to get through this century we had better assure ourselves that nuclear power is available for our coming generations," said Kurt Yeager, lead author of the WEC's "Energy and Climate Change" report to be released on Thursday.

The report says climate policies globally have proved inadequate to meet the challenge of global warming and governments need to be far sighted and bold.

"The problem will not go away magically in 2050. We will be at a low carbon economy at that time but to sustain that we need to build nuclear," Yeager told Reuters.

For more from the World Energy Council, click here. We'll have the full report once it gets posted tomorrow.

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