In response to your article The Hunterston dilemma (The Herald, December 12), I would like, first of all, to congratulate you on an excellent summary of the realities of the situation we are in regarding nuclear power in Scotland, but would wish to respond to the so-called disadvantages.
Hunterston would not get an extension if there were any danger or concern regarding safety. Nuclear power in Scotland, as in the UK, operates to the highest safety standards and has a safety record second to none, and no extension would be considered that threatened that safety record.
Without nuclear power, the Scottish economy, manufacturing investment and employment opportunities will be seriously damaged. The fact is we need a core source of supply and, while there is a place for renewable technology within a balanced energy policy, it is not a core source of supply because of its intermittency.
Only coal, gas or nuclear can deliver a constant supply. Unfortunately, coal, because of emissions, is not the solution unless we develop clean-coal technology. At present there is no operational commercial plant available. Gas is now an imported source and a decision to close nuclear plants and replace them with gas will increase substantially our CO2 emissions.
Nuclear waste exists at present and, of course, requires a solution. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management reached the conclusion that deep geological disposal which was retrievable was the best solution.
It is with regret that I believe we seem to be postponing real and immediate action to identify a site or sites for the disposal of nuclear waste and it is manna to the opposition who are irresponsibly ignoring the need for nuclear power.
However, in my view and in the view of those responsible for the safe storage of nuclear waste, using scare stories regarding nuclear waste as a reason for not supporting new nuclear build is doing not only Scotland a disservice, but is adding to the threat of climate change and the disastrous effect it is having globally.
In your list of disadvantages, you state that "nuclear power plants as well as nuclear waste could be preferred targets for terrorist attacks". With respect, I suggest there is absolutely no evidence for such a statement and, in fact, any attack on a nuclear power station would be highly unlikely to happen as terrorists know it is virtually impossible to do any substantial damage to such a plant.
It is time for a real conversation with the people in Scotland. A debate based on fact about nuclear energy, not on fiction, would see the Scottish people supporting the new nuclear build on the existing site. I challenge those who oppose nuclear power to put their view to the test.
John Robertson, Labour MP for Glasgow North West, House of Commons.
It was disappointing to see so many inaccuracies in your pro-nuclear editorial and feature. Nuclear power does not emit little pollution.
Uranium mining and enrichment, decommissioning and waste storage all produce high levels of greenhouse gases - add them into the equation and nuclear can produce as much climate-change pollution as the most efficient gas generators.
Worldwide supplies of high-grade uranium are forecast to run out during the lifetime of current reactors. As supplies diminish, so prices will rise and lower grades will have to be used, with consequent extra enrichment costs. Decommissioning Hunterston will take 100 years, at a cost to future generations we can only guess. The long-term storage methods for radioactive waste are unknown.
Given that one Hunterston reactor was out of action for most of last year and the other for part of it, calling the technology reliable is a joke. The fact that both Torness and Hunterston have had large amounts of downtime in the past three years owing to mechanical failures has shown that we can lose all our nuclear capacity without the lights going off.
Energy efficiency is the best step forward, which is why it is disappointing to see in the small print of the Scottish budget that energy efficiency for the next four years is planned to remain at the level set by the previous government in 2003. It was even more disappointing to hear an SNP minister "welcome" the extension of this decrepit plant.
Chris Ballance, 9 Beechgrove, Moffat.
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