The US Energy Department yesterday proposed a broad-based nuclear power plan designed to meet surging domestic and world energy needs by encouraging the construction of nuclear power plants in the US for the first time in a generation, and setting up an international programme for the exchange of nuclear fuel.

The initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), would seek a partnership with other established nuclear countries such as the UK, France, Russia, China and Japan to export nuclear fuel waste to developing countries and encourage them to use so-called fast reactors that burn plutonium and other by-products from conventional reactors.