IEA to call for more nuclear power plants - FT

LONDON, Nov 2 (Reuters) The International Energy Agency (IEA) will for the first time in its 32-year history call on governments next week to help accelerate the construction of new nuclear power plants, the Financial Times reported today.

The move is part of a push for cheaper, cleaner and safer energy worldwide, the newspaper said.

''We need a decision almost tomorrow if we are going to act before we reach a point of no return in climate and security of supply,'' IEA chief economist Fatih Birol told the newspaper.

He was speaking ahead of the release of the agency's World Energy Outlook.

Governments had to convince the public that nuclear power was safe and necessary, Birol said in an interview. They also had to create the right conditions for investors.

The FT said the IAE report would argue that nuclear power was an ''essential tool'' for meeting energy security and climate change goals.

Birol said the 17,000 billion dollar the agency calculated the world needed to invest in energy until 2030 had risen because of cost inflation and would be revised upwards.

In its report, the IAE explored whether energy companies were investing in building capacity or merely to cover higher costs, the newspaper said.

Birol said the goal was to ''prepare an alternative path ...

to a cleaner, safer, less costly system''.

REUTERS DKA DS1157