President Barack Obama is making about $8bn (€5.8bn) in federal loan guarantees available for the first new US nuclear power plant in nearly three decades, underscoring the administration's efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

Congressional investigators set up a bogus company in the US and obtained a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that allowed them to buy enough radioactive material for a small “dirty bomb”.

US officials received a warning in 1995 that Islamic militants were plotting to attack an American nuclear site and targets in Britain - but did not pass on the information to the agency overseeing nuclear facilities or to the plants themselves, it has emerged.