Issuing its report before next week's G8 summit in Scotland, the New Economics Foundation said nuclear power was an uneconomical and inefficient way to deal with climate change and would increase the risks from terrorists.

Andrew Simms, author of the report, "Mirage and Oasis," told AFP that nuclear power would be too costly and too slow to develop in time to deal with the urgency of reducing the carbon emissions that cause global warming.

Simms, the foundation's policy director, said the supply of uranium needed to fuel nuclear plants was too limited and would be exhausted in 85 years based on current industry estimates of availability and the existing rate of use.

"If you suddenly dramatically scaled up in a very short period of time, you'd also, a little bit like oil, you'd very quickly run into natural resource limits," he said.

In addition, increased use of nuclear power would present greater risks to the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation and greater exposure to possible attacks by terrorists, the report warned.

"The more plants you have the greater the vulnerability (to attack) you have. There's no doubt about that," he said.

Instead, the report said, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power could, in theory, each individually meet all of the world's energy needs, without warming the world's climate.

It leaves no toxic legacy and is abundant and cheap to harvest both in Britain and around the world.

Practically, however, it would require a broader combination of renewable energy sources than is currently used, linked to a range of micro, small, medium and large scale technologies and applied flexibly.

Better still, it said, small scale renewable power technologies could provide energy supplies for millions of people who currently lack basics such as lighting or the ability to cook without inhaling indoor smoke.

The foundation said early drafts of communiques intended for the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6-8 suggest a new international push to expand nuclear power, the report said.

Simms said his foundation obtained the latest draft last week, without saying exactly how it was obtained.

In a statement on the foundation website, Simms said: "Without sustainable, reliable supplies of energy, the world faces a future in which climate change and fuel shortages will combine with catastrophic results.

"The poorest and most vulnerable will suffer the worst. But a resurgence of interest in nuclear power, justified by voodoo economics, stands to hinder and potentially derail renewable energy.

"As people gather for a G8 summit that holds the financial keys to our future energy choices, it has become clear that you cannot make poverty history, without stopping runaway climate change. And that making energy sustainable is the surest way to do both."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who is listing efforts to fight climate change as a priority for the summit, refused on Monday to rule out the possibility of a new generation of nuclear power plants in Britain.

A spokesman in Blair's office neither confirmed nor denied that nuclear power was being considered as a solution to global warming at the G8. "We can't say for sure until the final communique is out," he told AFP.

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