The government has approved 10 sites in England and Wales for new nuclear power stations, most of them in locations where there are already plants.

It has rejected only one proposed site – in Dungeness, Kent – as being unsuitable on environmental grounds.

A new planning commission will make decisions on the proposals “within a year” of receiving them, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told MPs.

Nuclear was a “proven and reliable” energy source, he said.

(If you want me to fix the above link and spelling, just let me know where the former was meant to point.)

The government has announced 10 new sites for nuclear plants – and a new regime to speed up the approval of planning decisions.

Most are at the site of existing power stations, so maybe there won’t be much local opposition anyway.

Is it really plausible for the UK to quadruple their reactor fleet size?

He cited Sizewell B, Britain’s largest nuclear power station, as a benchmark.

“This plan would involve a fourfold increase in nuclear power over today’s levels,” he said. “So at Sizewell, for example, you would have four Sizewell Bs and at other nuclear sites you would have another four Sizewell Bs, and so on.”

He added: “Britain could never live on its own renewables. If the aim is to get off fossil fuels, we need nuclear power or solar power generated in other countries’ deserts, or both.”