And it would be impossible to completely cease using coal-fired power stations - especially in Germany - because of a lack of alternative capacity.
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But he said for it to be "fully convincing", Mr Cameron should be clear he would rule out all "dirty" coal fired power stations - including plans for a new plant at Kingsnorth, Kent.
Other fossil fuels produce more carbon dioxide, so replacing Britain's coal-fired power stations with gas-fired ones would decrease the country's carbon emissions.
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To get 42 kWh per day per person from nuclear power would require 525 one-gigawatt nuclear power stations, a roughly five-fold increase over today's levels.
The investments will, among other things, hook up new wind farms and nuclear power stations to the electricity grid to replace traditional coal-fired power stations, and enable more liquefied natural gas imported from Qatar and elsewhere to be added to the gas network as North Sea gas supplies dwindle.
Coal-burning power stations have cut output significantly, while gas-burning has surged ahead, faster than renewables.
Germany's decision to scrap all nuclear power and build more coal-fired power stations can only boost production further.
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His soldiers guard 150 facilities in the city -- including power stations, water treatment plants, schools and banks -- and have found more than 500 ammunition caches in schools and residential areas, he said.
TXU, Texas's main power-generator, led the company to abandon eight out of 11 planned coal-fired power stations because the private equity firm concerned, Texas Pacific, wanted to square the environmental movement.
Due to large overcapacity in power generation, the central hydroelectric, nuclear and fossil-fired power stations are now competing in a free market.
Shortly after Labour came to power, for instance, it announced a moratorium on new gas-fired power stations in order to help the coal industry.
With old coal power stations being closed down Britain needs new energy plants - and wind farms, gas and nuclear power stations are seen as the answers.
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The money will go towards new roads, railways, power stations and other large-scale projects.
Ministers are beginning to specify how many new nuclear-power stations and wind turbines they want built.
But nuclear-power stations and wind turbines are expensive, so, whoever wins, higher bills for domestic consumers seem inevitable.
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But experts say there is unlikely to be agreement on converting all nuclear power stations to use low-enriched fuel.
Masayoshi Son, a wireless tycoon, plans to build huge solar-power stations and a new grid to connect Japanese prefectures.
Ministers have become more prescriptive in their announcements, specifying the number of nuclear-power stations they want built and where.
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Nuclear-power stations take many years to build, so new ones will not help Britain meet its 2020 targets for curbing emissions.
Politicians may have calculated that a few nuclear-power stations will be easier to sell the public than thousands of wind turbines.
Only last autumn the government had agreed to extend the lives of some nuclear-power stations by an average of 12 years.
The small, local combined-heat-and-power stations and wind turbines do receive subsidies in order to survive in competition with the big power stations.
Already peeved at the government's early attempt to shut down German nuclear-power stations, German utilities have responded with threats of their own.
Aside from the euro, bosses' biggest beef is the government's decision, in May, to close all of Germany's nuclear-power stations by 2022.
It will keep nuclear-power stations open longer, but the two countries may not agree on a lot else over the EU's energy policy.
On top of all this, the new government announced ambitious plans on May 25th to build 40 new fast-breeder nuclear-power stations in Russia over the next 30 years.
But the announcement on January 9th that the government is to encourage the building of nuclear-power stations is more electric: overdue, perhaps, but important and controversial (as well as right).
In the UK, during 2012, electricity generation from coal-fired power stations actually increased to almost 40% of total production, as the price of gas soared, and gas-fired electricity generation was reduced.
To take one example, the average household's energy bill is projected to rise by hundreds of pounds by 2020 to fund the nuclear-power stations, wind turbines and power cables needed to keep the lights on and carbon emissions low.
This is in part because of the risks they face from local opposition and changes in government policy (seeing Germany's nuclear-power stations, which the government had until then seen as safe, shut down after Fukushima sent a chilling message to the industry).
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