Scotland on Sunday letters: The case against nuclear energy is overwhelming

C Scott (Letters, February 26) is wrong about nuclear power. Leave aside for the moment that Scotland, like Norway, doesn’t need it. We are rich in renewables and, once independent, can sell oil on the international market to generate revenue to finance the green revolution that we will need if we are to survive as a species.

The economic case against nuclear is overwhelming. Nuclear plants are 2-3 times more expensive than solar, gas or wind, and are impossible to build without government subsidies. The nuclear industry is an open-ended liability. Each household in Scotland is being forced to pay £96 per year to subsidise the industry since private investment won’t touch it. Case in point – Hinkley Point C is costing more than £33 billion and counting.

Then there are the accidents – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. And there’s no solution for nuclear waste. Sellafield is officially the “most hazardous industrial building in western Europe”.

And nuclear power won’t solve the climate crisis. Last year, former heads of nuclear regulatory bodies across Europe and the US voiced their opposition to nuclear as a climate solution. The plants, already costing the earth, take years to come on stream. We need energy solutions now, not in 20 years.

A woman places flowers at a memorial to victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion

I look forward to the day when Scotland can sell England the renewable energy it will sorely need.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh

Thorny issue

Euan McColm is incorrect (SoS, 26 February). The flower sported in the buttonholes of SNP parliamentarians on high days and holidays is not Hugh McDiarmid’s “little white rose of Scotland that smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart”, but some variety of a fat Hybrid Tea Rose, grown goodness knows how many miles away. No wonder some people think it represents Yorkshire.

The Burnet Rose, the true White Rose of Scotland, looks nothing like the flowers worn by the SNP. It does indeed smell “sharp and sweet” but only “breaks the heart” if you sit on it!

Jane Ann Liston, St Andrews, Fife

Goalden oldies

I wonder if Allan Thompson's Mike and Bernie Winters anecdote (Letters, 26 February) happened in 1964, the year I got their autograph when they sat behind me, my dad and uncle when Dunfermline played Bilbao in the Fairs Cup and Jock Stein was manager. Two years before they tanked Valencia 6-2 at East End Park. Can you imagine them doing that today?

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeen

Labour pains

I can well understand any Conservative voter not wishing Scotland to become independent as they know they will become disenfranchised as Scotland has not had a Conservative majority for nearly 70 years. I have no problem with that.

However, I cannot understand Labour voters not voting for independence. I am in my late seventies and have been a Labour supporter all my life but long ago realised that the only way to live in a country governed by Labour was to vote SNP in order to facilitate independence. I cannot understand why the Scottish Labour Party cannot see this. England is a right-leaning country and always will be.

The time has come for England to be set free and for Scottish Labour to embrace independence.

WA Ross, Aberdeen

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