nuclear-news

 By Readers of The National   Malcolm Bruce, Edinburgh HOW fitting that you publish a letter on Monday from Tor Justed of Highlands Against Nuclear Transport (HANT) (A reminder why we need nuclear-free campaign, The National, April 27), this week being the anniversary of the explosion and fire at Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukraine in 1986.

Radiation spread over the USSR and western Europe and the death toll is believed to be thousands over the following years from the cancers caused. Some areas near the reactors are now uninhabitable.The three nuclear meltdowns and explosions at Fukushima reactor in Japan after the Tsunami of March 2011 were of an equal severity to Chernobyl. A subsequent inquiry found the scenario was foreseeable but had not been prepared for.l

To propose new reactors in the UK and transporting deadly plutonium to fuel them risks disaster.

As well as the risks, we know from numerous examples that nuclear power is enormously expensive.

Hinkley C in Somerset, currently being built, will, if completed and it actually works, produce the most expensive electricity in the world, ever!

Meanwhile cash-strapped EDF lobbies our governments hard to allow the ageing Torness and Hunterston reactors, pictured, to carry on beyond their design lives despite one Hunterston reactor having extensive cracks in its graphite blocks, vital for safety. Anyone with commonsense can see the precautionary principle applies here and that a shut down reactor in this condition should stay shut down. An accident and release of radiation from Hunterston could cause central Scotland to be evacuated – permanently.

And last but not least we have the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in Western Europe based a few miles from Helensburgh. These missile subs could destroy the lives of millions and are, of course, a target themselves. A government report in the late-1950s concluded that a nuclear war would annihilate the country and that civil defence was pointless. With Trump in the White House don’t assume we won’t end up in a nuclear confrontation that could take us all into the abyss. Year round the warheads are driven up and down our roads with all the risks of terrorism and crashes that entails.

Fifty years ago the UK signed up to a nuclear non-proliferation treaty that committed us to negotiating nuclear disarmament in good faith. Nothing has happened in that direction, a conspiracy of silence by the UK political parties and the media.

So, yes, HANT, you’re right, we need everyone to lobby for a nuclear-free future in Scotland and worldwide, and thank you for your campaigning.