Sir, I take issue with your front page headline “Britain is ready to go nuclear” (Nov 21). It should read: “Tony Blair is ready to go nuclear”. The rest of us — including a substantial proportion of the Cabinet — would prefer to put the emphasis on renewable resources, rather than spend vast sums on creating more white elephants and leaving our descendants with an even bigger bill for decommissioning and waste disposal.

BILL LINTON
Enfield Green Party
London N13

Sir, Since when did nuclear power provide “one fifth of the country’s energy” (leading article, Nov 21)? According to the Department of Trade and Industry, nuclear power provides 7.8 per cent of the country’s primary energy supply.

ANTONY FROGGATT
London N16

Sir, There is little doubt that nuclear power stations are as much of a blot on the landscape as wind turbines (letters, Nov 21). However, as someone who would have to live in the shadow of both, I am much more willing to accept the presence of the nuclear power station, because it plays a vital part in sustaining the local economy by creating many jobs in the area.

The idea of wind turbines creating a blot on the landscape, while being maintained by just a handful of people, is therefore much less likely to be received with open arms.

IAN KELSALL
Romney Marsh, Kent

Sir, Although I believe nuclear power is a good way forward, I am deeply suspicious of the story so far. British Nuclear was privatised in 1995 at a share price of £1.98, which rose to more than £6 before collapsing to almost nothing in 2005. Now we are told that nuclear power, out of private hands, is the best way forward. How will the next development be financed? And who looks after the interests of the ordinary small shareholder?

ROD DALITZ
Edinburgh

Sir, A significant drawback to renewable energy sources is the risk of “common-mode” failure in unfavourable weather. For almost a week, there has been a freezing anticyclone over England, Wales and most of Scotland. Demand for gas and electricity is close to the winter peak, causing gas prices to reach 80 pence per therm. The output from the 1,000-plus wind turbines in the past week has hardly risen above zero. Solar panels are also producing little or no output in the areas with persistent freezing fog. Wave power generators are still mere concepts, but had they been installed they would also have been incapacitated by the becalmed sea and be producing negligible power.

Will ministers now recognise the stark evidence that these renewable technologies can all fail simultaneously and hence never provide the secure energy we need?

PAUL SPARE
Davenham, Cheshire

Sir, The Prime Minister’s apparent decision to back nuclear power plants before the forthcoming energy review raises a series of important public policy questions. I must differ with your leading article, however: “For those concerned about global warming, nuclear power is the logical step. It is clean, carbon-free, and it is relatively cheap.” Actually, it has none of these characteristics, as is demonstrable from publicly available data.

DR DAVID LOWRY
Co-author, The International Politics of Nuclear Waste, 1991
Stoneleigh, Surrey

Sir, In your leading article you welcomed the report that the Government is likely to take the nuclear option seriously when it publishes its review of energy policy early next year.

It is important that other options should also be taken seriously. These include moving ahead faster with the extraction of carbon from coal (with the prospect of a vast market for this technology in China and India); expanding the small-scale generation of electricity, thus doubling thermal efficiency by making use of the waste heat and avoiding transmission losses; and fixing a much larger objective than 5 per cent for the use of biofuels in petrol.

Diversification in the approach to carbon abatement is essential. The Government have put too much emphasis on wind power.

LORD EZRA
Chairman of NCB, 1971-82
House of Lords

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