Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the contribution of 4 September 2014 by the Minister for Business and Enterprise, on sustainable energy, what the evidential basis is for the statement that nuclear power is zero-carbon energy.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the life cycle emissions associated with the generation of electricity from nuclear power groups are virtually zero-carbon with no direct CO2 emissions and less than 1 per cent of the life-cycle CO2 emissions of natural gas or any other fossil fuel.