We will pay a high price for nuclear power we do not need

The National

16 hours ago

Nuclear power is expensive and almost always delivered late and over budget. Hinkley Point C has recently had its start-up delayed from 2027 to 2030 and its cost increased from £34bn to £46bn. As Sizewell C uses the same design, its costs will be similar. Notably, the Government has no partner who will commit to these costs. The taxpayer will pick up most of the bill.
The electricity produced is likely to cost at least £220/MWh – around three times the cost per MWh of wind and solar. If these electricity costs are charged across the whole of GB, Scotland will be lumbered with additional bills when it produces far cheaper energy and will never need nuclear power again.
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The introduction of zonal pricing of electricity would ensure Scotland pays for electricity at what it costs here and exclude the cost of nuclear plants in the south of England which will produce electricity never used in Scotland.
I leave the environmental arguments to others to make.
Gordon Morgan
via email
KEIR Starmer, the British establishment's latest useful idiot, announced that the UK Government would 'invest' another £14.2bn of public money into the Sizewell C nuclear power plant white elephant whose price tag is £40bn and counting.
Proponents will tell you that nuclear is required for 'baseload' supply because renewable energy can't be stored. Wrong. It can be stored using several technologies, some of which have been around since the 19th century.
And some renewable energy sources, such as tidal, don't need to be stored because they are constantly available. Apart from being far more expensive to develop and operate than renewable energy, nuclear power's Achilles' heel is that no-one knows what to do with the waste.
Scotland's land and water are already contaminated with toxic radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, submarines and munitions dumps.
So why do Westminster and Unionist politicians love this flawed and dangerous technology? First, the nuclear industry funds them to promote it. Rachel Reeves has just raided £2.5bn from the £8.3bn GB Energy budget to develop small modular reactors that are not commercially viable anywhere in the world.
Second, the technology used to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants is the same technology for enriching uranium for nuclear weapons. Nuclear power is a national virility symbol to show that the flaccid and failing UK is still a 'great power'. And Scotland is a convenient dumping ground for the poisonous waste.
The 1976 Flowers Report concluded the pursuit of nuclear power was morally wrong. By failing to accept its findings, the failing UK exposes its moral bankruptcy.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
READING last Saturday's letters pages, with Councillor Gordon Murray's call for united action for independence and Peter Macari's denunciation of Starmer's war cries, was a morale booster.
If John Swinney is not listening to his own activists, then he is not going to be listening to the wider Yes movement, which is apparently polling at 54%. So what can we do to develop action for our next crack at indy in 2026?
(Image: Jeff J Mitchell)
Councillor Murray's call for unity and a citizens' convention makes good sense and has been reiterated across the Yes movement including Alba.
Gordon refers to the SNP 2023 promise but clearly it has fallen on deaf ears within the SNP leadership. Perhaps what is required is a pincer movement around the block to independence.
How to bring this about? Should we bring together the councillors, MSPs, MPs (current and former) who support a citizens' convention on independence and bring in trade unions, civic, voluntary organisations and religious representatives as happened under Canon Kenyon Wright? As the evidence of Scotland's colonial status has been collected for the United Nations Decolonisation Committee, It has been shown that we need evidence of representative democratic organisations calling for independence.
Peter Macari's timely letter about Starmer's militarisation of the UK economy highlights an issue of singular importance. It would be an economic and political disaster for Scotland already teetering on the brink of the disappearance of civic shipbuilding.
Starmer's values do not align with Scottish aspirations and cultural values of equality and community as Peter so wisely sets out. The very existence of BAE on the Clyde and the 2014 Westminster promises of warships and submarines to sustain shipbuilding expose the reality of a coloniser getting the colonised to build its war machine.
If the current leadership of the SNP refuses to call a citizens' convention, we must surely do so with those of some democratic standing who are prepared to move forward.
Maggie Chetty
Glasgow