Sir, Robert Duffield (letters, November 3) wonders how long it takes a wind turbine to pay back the energy used in its construction. The Vestas website, for instance, provides detailed reports showing that the energy used in construction, installation, operation and decomissioning is returned in six to nine months. This is a little longer than some figures quoted for nuclear, but wind has not benefited from several decades of government-sponsored research and development.

Paul Spare is horrified by contemplation of the Romney Marsh wind project; is he equally outraged by all those ugly nuclear power stations in isolated and beautiful coastal sites — such as Dungeness, not a million miles from Romney Marsh?

RICK JEFFERYS
Berkhamsted, Herts

Sir, The environmental costs of setting up nuclear power stations far exceed those of wind farms. Wind-farm payback, at seven months (letter, November 7), is comparatively immediate. Wind farm creation causes comparatively little physical damage, just visual impact — which some consider attractive. Decommissioning the turbines can be by instant disassembly with no lasting scars on the landscape. As far as decommissioning nuclear is concerned the current estimated cost in the UK is £92 billion. Nuclear contamination cannot be removed effectively by human intervention, and it will be millennia before the hazard of the errant radioactive matter naturally decays away on land and in the sea.

GEOFFREY MINTER
Sandside Estate
Caithness and Sutherland

Sir, The statement by Paul Spare that nuclear power does not produce greenhouse gas is not supported by reasonable analysis. The fossil energy required to build a nuclear power station is large in relation to its lifetime output, resulting in corresponding greenhouse gas emissions.

The generation of electricity from fuel of any sort incurs the production of very large quantities of heat at the power station. As there is no use for heat near to remotely sited power stations, it is dispersed into the environment, often through cooling towers. The energy wasted in this way is greater than our total domestic energy consumption of oil, gas, coal and electricity.

JOHN TURTON
Hailsham, East Sussex

Sir, The gift of the constant power of the sea should be harnessed, and not ignored by Malcolm Wicks, who recently overruled all opposition to the Romney Marsh wind farm.

ANNE PYCRAFT
Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex

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