After nearly two decades, Europe’s anti-nuclear tide is showing signs of turning. For the first time in 15 years, a European country has begun construction of a nuclear reactor, and six more are likely to be built in the next decade. Other countries are revising plans to phase out their nuclear programmes. And this week’s brief but brutal drop in Europe’s supplies of crucial Russian gas has only served to fuel the trend.

“People are saying ‘let’s take a second look’ at nuclear power,” says William Ramsay, deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency. “Rising oil prices mean nuclear is becoming more economically attractive, and gas prices are a second kick in the pants.” Nuclear plants remain unpopular with a majority of Europeans, who are worried about what happens to the radioactive waste. Industry officials, however, are playing on the public’s competing worries about the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming. Nuclear plants, they point out, emit practically no CO2.

With the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and rising environmental concerns clouding the nuclear horizon, EU stopped building nuclear plants for 15 years. But last year Finland ended that streak by starting construction of a third-generation pressurised water reactor. The French state-owned power generating company, Électricité de France, has won government approval to build a similar plant in France and chosen the site. In addition, President Jacques Chirac announced Thursday France will complete a pilot plant by 2020 that will produce less waste and burn more efficiently.

The Bulgarian government is expected to award a contract this month for the construction of two units, Romania has restarted building a power station that was mothballed 15 years ago, and the Czech Republic’s energy plan foresees the construction of two more nuclear plants by the end of the decade. The Swiss parliament last year ended Switzerland’s moratorium on building nuclear power plants and extended the operating lifetime of the country’s five existing units, and the British government has promised an energy review this year.

In Italy, which closed its four power stations after a 1987 referendum, Industry Minister Claudio Scajola said this week that “the development of nuclear technologies remains an important element for Italy’s energy policy.” Sweden has dropped plans to close all its nuclear plants by 2010, and Belgium’s intention to start phasing out nuclear power in 2015 has run up against a finding by the Federal Planning Bureau that nuclear power is the best way for the country to meet its Kyoto commitments.

Anti-nuclear activists insist that nuclear power is as potentially dangerous as ever, that nobody has yet found a safe way to dispose of highly radioactive waste, and that uranium deposits are too small to ensure long-term fuel supplies to nuclear plants. EU governments would be much better advised to invest more heavily in wind and solar power, they argue. — The Christian Science Monitor