The Group of Eight industrial nations got together with India, China and South Korea at the weekend in Aomori, a hub of Japan's nuclear energy industry on the northern tip of the country's main island of Honshu.

The 11 nations, which together consume two-third of the worlds energy have said in their joint statement that ‘a growing number of countries have expressed interest in nuclear power programmes’.

"We are on the verge of a new nuclear age," John Hutton, Britain's energy secretary, told reporters.

He argued it was a ‘positive thing for the world’, arguing that atomic power emitted little of the carbon dioxide that causes global warming and ensured energy supply.

The United States, Canada and Italy have all relaunched construction of nuclear power plants as oil prices soared five-fold since 2003. France and Japan are longstanding champions of nuclear energy.

Nuclear power has faced major criticism throughout the industrial world, with some environmentalists arguing that it poses too much of a safety risk.

A 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine contaminated large parts of Europe, killing thousands of people.