Letter: Nuclear curse?

Nuclear safety (Ron Greer, Letters, 26th March) may not be that industry's Achilles' Heel - although currently the Japanese possibly have a different take on that. The real problem remains its other expenses.

The Fukushima disaster will cost utility bill payers, insurance premium payers or taxpayers a huge sum; yet, however large, the figure is dwarfed by the cost of managing nuclear waste for its 150,000 life time.

Discounting the cash flows of the costs of waste from producing just one unit of nuclear electricity reveals that the final figure (in sterling) exceeds the number of particles in the universe.

Multiply that up by the trillions of units already produced and consumed and the sheer impossibility of the waste situation becomes clear. Future generations (of humans) are going to curse past generations (of nuclear power).

TIM FLINN

Beech Cottage,

Garvald, East Lothian