Letter: Nuclear positives

Where is this research that we can power ourselves six times over published? Where are the figures for the varying proportions of power from the range of renewables he quotes? Solar (try the winter) and wind are notoriously intermittent and require back-up equivalent instant-start gas plants. Onshore wind farms now attract so much opposition that they are generating massive disaffection among residents affected locally and curtailment is inevitable. Tidal and wave installations are seductive, but very expensive and low-yield. Offshore wind looks the best, but it costs again and needs to be coastal to minimise extensive cabling with its associated transmission losses - the vaunted North Sea supergrid will suffer greatly from the latter.

There is no room for large hydro schemes, and I would conjecture that all the small schemes plus biomass (imported straw and timber), combined heat and power together add up nowhere near the 800 to 1,600MW from a single nuclear station. It's the need for continuous generation which is the key issue, and nuclear stations with 40-year output lives meet this need.

The 440 power reactors currently operated worldwide mostly run with few reported leaks and accidents and, anyway, it is false to compare modern nuclear with 1971 Fukushima installations. Scotland has many earthquakes but all small in magnitude so is intrinsically safe from natural calamities. Chernobyl is the exception, but this calamity seems to have been entirely down to human stupidity.

Try to keep the lights on with renewables by all means but continuous power generation by nuclear works better (France 70 per cent).

JOE DARBY

St Martins Mill

Cullicudden, Dingwall