nuclear-news

Claim about Scottish support for nuclear power doesn’t add up

Ni Holmes, St Andrews, 27 Aug 26

I WAS not surprised to find, when I got to the foot of a letter challenging Paul Kavanagh’s assertion that “Scotland does not need nuclear energy and most in Scotland don’t want it” as being “wrong on both counts” (Aug 26), that it was written by Lincoln Hill, the Nuclear Industry Association’s director of policy and external affairs.

Mr Hill appears not to be too good at maths. He cites a YouGov poll showing that fewer than a third of people in Scotland consider nuclear power as the most important energy source and that a similar number identified it as their preferred source of energy. To my understanding, the remaining two-thirds of Scots who do not support nuclear power are indeed most of the people in Scotland.

Mr Hill goes on to assert that Scotland needs “more than one source of electricity”. This suggests that lack of basic counting skills is the foundation of his weakness in maths. We already have multiple sources of electricity: we have had hydro-electric power for decades, we have wave generators, we have onshore and offshore wind turbines, and new technology is making solar power viable even in our climate. By my count those five already add up to the “more than one” that Mr Hill claims we need. We will still have more than one source after the last nuclear power station in our country is finally decommissioned.

It seems to me that it is Mr Hill that is wrong and Mr Kavanagh was entirely correct on both counts. We neither need nor want nuclear power in Scotland, the Nuclear Industry Association, or for that matter the Westminster Labour Party’s small-scale reactors and Starmer’s “GB Energy”. What we do need is our independence so that we can make our own choices in the interest of Scotland and the all of its people, rather than English energy requirements or the wealthy seek to profit from energy production.

August 31, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, UK