The International Energy Agency (IEA) urged governments today to build more nuclear plants to slow climate change and increase energy security.
In its annual World Energy Outlook, a 596-page response to a G8 call for a sustainable energy blueprint, the agency said unless leaders took action world demand for fossil fuels would rise by more than 50 per cent, along with carbon emissions.
Energy conservation and investment in nuclear power could cut consumption by 10 per cent by 2030, the IEA said, equivalent to China's energy use today. Carbon emissions would drop by 16 per cent - what the United States and Canada emit between them.
"We are on course for an energy system that will evolve from crisis to crisis," Claude Mandil, executive director of the adviser to 26 industrialised nations, told a news conference.
"That may mean skyrocketing prices, or more frequent blackouts." By 2030, oil could soar to $130.30 a barrel if energy investment and government policies fall short, the IEA warned.
A jump to a record near $80 in July left consumer governments worried about their economies. "The economics have moved in nuclear power's favour," the report said.
"Nuclear power offers considerable advantages in terms of avoiding greenhouse-gas emissions and of energy security." It is the first time the IEA, set up after the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, has backed nuclear power in such strong terms.