Nuclear is most efficient energy

POLLY Higgins (Spectrum, 20 May) is on thin ice in calling for an international tribunal on crimes against the environment. She simultaneously enthuses that in Scotland “there has been a commitment not to advance with nuclear” and that “government has committed to reducing carbon emissions”. Such confusion is unfortunately typical of the increasingly vocal but technically naïve views of mainstream environmental thinkers.

In Scotland, plans for the expansion of onshore wind will result in the continued industrialisation of large tracts of our natural environment. But the growth of onshore wind will barely compensate for the future closure of compact nuclear plants at Hunterston and Torness, which produce copious quantities of clean energy from small costal sites. Per unit of energy produced, diffuse and intermittent wind also requires vastly more steel and concrete than nuclear.

In advocating a nuclear-free future, Polly Higgins is casually discarding the most land and resource-efficient means of displacing carbon from energy production. She may well find herself first in the dock at any future tribunal.

Colin R McInnes, Netherlee, Glasgow