ePolitix.com reports on the main arguments raised in Tuesday's Westminster Hall debate on nuclear energy.
Government policy on renewable energy was derided as "make-believe" by David Heathcoat-Amory (Con, Wells) during a Westminster Hall debate on nuclear energy.
Heathcoat-Amory said that it was "irresponsible" to set targets for C02 reduction without committing to similarly rigid commitments on energy production.
The policy of "drift and neglect is no longer sustainable," he added.
The government has set a legally binding target to reduce C02 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
The former energy minister said that Britain was faced with a "looming energy gap" due to a combination of "short-sightedness and wishful thinking".
"The emerging gap between demand and supply has arisen because we have been decommissioning nuclear power stations without replacing them."
He said a succession of "anti-nuclear" secretaries of states had ignored the problem of replacing nuclear stations, at the same time as signing up to "ever more demanding C02 reduction targets"
"The dash for gas" in order to meet the Kyoto accords on carbon emissions can not continue for ever.
And the use of gas exports as a foreign policy tool, particularly by Russia, made reliance on gas imports unsustainable, he added
Heathcoat-Amory said most forms of renewable energy production were "small scale and expensive" and the reliance on wind power to achieve 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 was unreliable.
"We are industrialising the landscape at the same time we are de-industrialising the rest of the economy," he said.
Whilst he said was not "starry-eyed" about the nuclear industry, he argued the only solution for both energy security and carbon emissions targets was nuclear power.
He argued that not only were nuclear stations nearly operationally carbon free, there was a large supply of uranium left to be mined, as well as in plants such as Sellafield.
"We are not going to run out of nuclear fuel," he said.
Noting that the planned eight new nuclear reactors would now all be built be foreign consortiums such as EDF and Westinghouse, Heathcoat-Amory criticised the government for letting the British nuclear industry decline.
He said proposed sale of the UK Atomic Energy Authority's decommissioning unit was symptomatic of this.
However energy minister Mike O'Brien condemned Heathcoat-Amory for making a "partisan speech".
O'Brien said that Conservative leader David Cameron was guilty of being "blind, complacent and uninformed" about nuclear power.
