Go nuclear for a third industrial revolution, says EC

We are on the brink of the "third industrial revolution", according to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission - who believes it means nations may have to embrace nuclear power.

Europe's "low-carbon age" is the revolution Barroso spoke of last week at an energy conference in Madrid, Spain. "Member states cannot avoid the question of nuclear energy," he said, following the commission's announcement last month of a new research initiative for nuclear energy. The European Union should contribute to research, Barroso said.

However, not all of Europe shares his view. At a separate nuclear energy conference in Vienna last week, environment ministers from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Norway and Italy declared that global growth in nuclear power would severely increase the risks of nuclear proliferation. "Some European countries are almost religiously opposed to nuclear power," says Hans-Holger Rogner of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

From issue 2625 of New Scientist magazin