We don't want nuclear power, we don't need it and we're not having it

Let me make it clear that there is no confusion over the new Scottish government's energy policy (your report, 22 May).

Ministers have specifically and consistently stated that nuclear power is neither needed nor wanted in Scotland. It would be difficult to be any clearer than that. We were elected on that pledge and we will stick to it.

Meanwhile, it is clear that Scotland has vast potential to generate electricity from renewable sources.

Another important point regularly lost in this debate is that governments do not build nuclear power stations. It is the industry itself that would come forward with any proposals and there is none on the table at the moment.

In the coming weeks and months, we will expand further our vision for Scotland as a world leader in green energy production.

JIM MATHER

Minister for enterprise, energy and tourism

It would be better if the debate over nuclear power took place against a background of facts, not fiction. For example, George Kerevan (Opinion, 21 May) claimed "nuclear is the expensive option". But Peter Jones (Between the Lines, 18 May) quoted the correct costs, showing nuclear power is one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity.

Your editorial (22 May) claims there is no convincing solution to the problem of nuclear waste, yet the UK government's Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has advised that intermediate-level radioactive waste should be managed by means of geological disposal (deep underground).

This has been the obvious solution for decades and would have been in operation by now if the then Conservative government had not stopped Nirex exploring for a repository near Sellafield in 1997.

STEUART CAMPBELL

Dovecot Loan

Edinburgh

Yet again, politicians are saying Scotland should say no to new nuclear power stations and rely instead on our vast reserves of renewables from wind, wave and tide. Currently, there are no viable, proven or economic large-scale wave or tidal power generators available for deployment in or around our shores, and to suggest that this is part of Scotland's energy salvation is a gross and dangerous distortion of fact.

JOHN KENNEDY

Windlebrook

Dunfermline

Let's have a challenge to find Scottish entrepreneurs in wave power, wind power and clean coal technology to avoid signing up for new nuclear power. And bring back the Scottish entrepreneur who took his wave power expertise to Portugal as Scotland was too slow to take up the challenge.

SHEILA CLARK

Dean Park Crescent

Edinburgh