An influential voice in Greek shipping praised the virtues of nuclear energy on Tuesday, arguing that the industry will find it hard to decarbonise without it.

“Nuclear energy? Why not?” said John Kokarakis, a senior technical official with Bureau Veritas, at Capital Link’s Cyprus Shipping Forum in Limassol.

“Electrification and decarbonisation go hand in hand,” the classification society’s technical director for south-east Europe, the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea said, adding that nuclear is one way to find cheap electricity.