Just go for nuclear power

YOUR article “Twisting in the wind” last week attempted to describe the fiasco that is the government’s approach to solving the energy needs of Britain.

Without a reasonably priced, reliable supply of electricity, government priorities such as the National Health Service, schools, employment and addressing the problems of climate change will all run into serious difficulties. All developed countries depend on a reliable electricity supply and Britain is no exception.

The UK government is set on a strategy that seems to be the result of little more than a panic decision. Who, after all, would even contemplate covering Britain’s wild and beautiful places with wind turbines and the associated pylons and cables, to end up with a system that will require even more generating capacity to provide electricity when the wind isn’t blowing? Is it any wonder that planning applications for wind turbines have run into opposition from the people whose lives are going to be blighted by these huge structures?

Offshore wind farms seem equally insane, given the difficulty in construction and the problems of access during bad weather. To install generating equipment in our stormy seas flies in the face of common sense.

As your article points out, the cost of electricity derived from wind power is very high. Who wants expensive, unreliable electricity?

The only technology that is currently capable of supplying our electrical needs is nuclear. France generates at least 80% of its electricity from nuclear power stations and provides both domestic and industrial customers with reasonably priced and secure supplies. Why on earth can’t our government simply get on with providing Britain with a similar system?

John Ryden
Wigton, Cumbria

Don’t blame the Bank for inflation

IN his article “Bank failed to heed the alarm bells on inflation” last week, Tim Congdon cited the growth of broad money as a factor in Britain’s recent surge in inflation.

If we were seeing a general rise in prices, I would agree with him. If prices were rising across the board rather than being concentrated in food and energy, his analysis would be more plausible.

However, it seems to me that the oil price has been driven up by demand from emerging countries and possibly by speculators in the West. The price of food has been driven up by poor harvests and the diversion of farm land into producing biofuels. We can hardly blame the Bank of England for this.

Paul Negrotti
Greenford, Middlesex

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