Letter of the Week

Dear Sir, 

In your Opinion column today, Gregor Poynton attempts to justify the Labour Party’s apparently unquestioning  support for  the Tory Party’s desperately flawed “Great British Nuclear” project

In doing so, he has ignored the 60 year old history of  nuclear power reactors throughout the world- uneconomic, unreliable, plagued with insoluble problems of internal corrosion and waste disposal.

In March this year, the French Nuclear Inspectorate ordered EDF, the nationalised French Energy Company, to “revise its strategy” for repairing nuclear power plants because stress corrosion has caused new cracks at the Penly 1 Reactor near Dieppe. This came after a disastrous year in which corrosion problems have closed down so many of France’s nuclear power stations, including Penly,  that production hit a 30 year low.

On April 15^th, when Germany  closed down its  last nuclear reactors, the German Government, leading one of the most technically advanced nations in the world,  declared “The nuclear phase-out makes Germany safer and avoids additional high-level nuclear waste. The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable. No insurance in the world covers the potentially catastrophic extent of damage from a nuclear accident”.  

The corrosion problems in France and the German Government’s decision are affirmed by the refusal of private companies to participate  in nuclear power without government  guarantees of indemnity and funding- not just for the appalling costs of construction, anticipated ”downtime” and  decommissioning -but the unsolved problem of waste disposal.  Two  of Westminster’s  nuclear projects- at Wylfa and Moorside – have already been cancelled for those reasons.  The  UK  “Nuclear Energy (Financing) Act  Mr Poynton applauded  was driven through Westminster  by the Tories last June,  burdening Scotland with a share of the incalculable costs of their panicked return to the infamous nuclear lobby.

Mr Poynton’s article was another worrying example of the Westminster Labour Party having no forward ideas of its own on any subject. It has already  fallen into line  with Tory Austerity Policies, Immigration Policies and, appallingly, the Tory attack on our right  to protest.  This unquestioning acceptance of the Tories’   ridiculous nuclear project confirms that Labour is too dangerous for Scotland.   

History shows the awful consequences of such blind,  nuclear faith.

Yours sincerely

FRANCES McKIE.

BEAT THE CENSORS

Sadly some websites seek to censor what their readers have access to read. This is particularly true of sites whose existence is primarily to support the views of one particular party and they seek to block articles which do not slavishly support that particular doctrine. My readers have worked out that the best way to defeat that attack on the freedom of speech and thought is to share my articles widely, thus defeating any attempt at censorship. My thanks for this.

SALVO AND LIBERATION

Are playing a crucial role in taking Independence forward. This site limits donations to Yours for Scotland to a maximum of £3. We do not need more as all we seek to do is to cover the costs incurred in running the blog therefore once this is secured each year all further donations are forwarded to Salvo and Liberation. My thanks for all who choose to support us in this way. It is appreciated.

SALVO MERCHANDISE

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/salvoscot?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=qrvyzmjetem&sssrc=3418065&ssuid=qrvyzmjetem&widget_ver=artemis&media=EMAIL

Advertisement