Letter: Torness fears

In your article on the recent shutdown of Torness nuclear power station (your report, 1 July) you include a statement from Mary Church, a campaigner for Friends of The Earth Scotland.

It is quite outrageous of her to attempt to make a link between the safe and prudent temporary shutdown of the reactors and the events at Fukushima.

If she has any understanding of matters technical or scientific, then her contribution is mischievous; if she has none, as appears to be the case, then she has no right to be a spokesperson for this organisation.

Ill-informed scaremongering of this nature does nothing to further a reasoned case for a progressive move away, in the long term, from nuclear power.

In the short term, it is stations such as Torness which will provide the necessary megawatts of CO-free energy when wind farms are immobile and the demand is present.

If Greenpeace seeks credibility as an organisation then it should make certain that its public statements are founded on fact and not emotion or scaremongering.

Gemmell Millar

Morningside Road

Edinburgh