Wind versus Nuclear

(Letter to the South Wales Evening Post)

In response to Selina Pouillet (‘Wind farms not wanted’, Have Your Say, 21 September), I am a “permanent resident” of the Uplands Ward, and I fully support Councillor John Bayliss’ views on the proposed Atlantic Array wind farm.

Whilst I also support Ms Pouillet’s suggestion that all new builds should incorporate solar panels, it is going to take a lot more than this to deal with global warming.

All forms of power generation are to some extent inefficient, but we are going to need large-scale carbon free solutions to our energy needs in the future and wind power will be an essential part of this.

Perhaps Oili Hedman (ibid) would now like to take some time “to read every word, analyse every calculation and calculate the impact” of the proposed new nuclear power station at Wylfa on Anglesey – not forgetting to include mining, processing and transportation of the fuel, construction of the plant, decommissioning of the plant and long-term storage of the fuel – and then tell us how green that is.

The nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd was closed in 1991. Some 21 years later it is still in the process of being “decommissioned” by the taxpayer funded Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.  This work is likely to continue for many years to come, all at taxpayers’ expense.

The subsidies paid to renewable generators pale into insignificance when compared to the billions of public money that is necessary to prop up the nuclear industry.  It is these costs, together with the rising cost of oil and gas imports that are driving up our electricity bills, not the comparatively piddling amounts that are being invested in renewables.

Yours,

Keith M Ross

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