The Government has insisted the country needs nuclear power as it prepares to unveil plans to fast-track a new generation of nuclear power stations.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband acknowledged anxieties about nuclear power but said it had a "relatively good" safety record in this country.
"The basic message here is, we can't say no to all of the nuclear or all of the low carbon fuels that are out there," he told GMTV.
"We need nuclear, we need renewables, we need clean coal, we need all of those things if we are going to make that transition to cleaner energy."
Mr Miliband was speaking as he was due to announce a series of national policy statements which would include a list of sites deemed suitable for new nuclear developments.
Under changes to the planning laws, the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) will be able to speed through the proposals for new schemes if it decided they fitted in with the policy statements.
But shadow energy secretary Greg Clark said that a simple ministerial statement on the issue was inadequate and called for a Commons vote to give the process "democratic legitimacy".
"It is a national emergency and it's been left far too late - we've known for the last 10 years that most of our nuclear power fleet would come to the end of its planned life," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"So whatever happens with these statements we've got a black hole, but actually we do need a different planning system, we need a fast track for major items of infrastructure.
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"The trouble with the way the Government's doing it is, it has no democratic component. The statements will just be read out to MPs without a vote and the decisions will be taken by an unelected, unaccountable official."
