A Place to Stand

A short Scotsman letter in response to somebody who had said that nuclear power would be dangerous for "10 to 20 times" its half life.

Unfortunately most of the figures have been edited out <> which, while allowing me to hit Mr Shelby hard deprives me of the chance to club him to death.

In claiming that radioactive waste is dangerous up to 20 times longer than its half life (letter 14th Oct) Mr Shelby is flying in the face of arithmetic.

Because half life means what it says the level of radioactivity halves 20 times in that period the radiation Mr Shelby fears would be literally undetectable

Tories on Scots tax cuts http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1472362006#new

Darfur http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1484112006

China in space http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1484012006

North Korea http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1488972006

Renewables grants http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/letters.cfm?id=1488452006#new

Grey squirrels http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1497162006

Airport expansion http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1497242006


Korean Bomb http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1498052006#new

The stocks as a substitute to prison http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=116038004347883930

Space http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1510152006

SNP economic policy http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1520662006

House (& bothy) price increases http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1521432006
Tories on PR http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=116064583012307287

Alleged global warming http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1520362006

Nuclear http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters.cfm?id=1521032006

Hunterston nuclear closure http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1535632006#new

Anti-nuclear lies http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters.cfm?id=1545812006 href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1497162006">

I noticed on Sunday that AM interviewed Nigel Farage new boss of UKIP in a blink & you'll miss it interview & then spent about 1o minutes on Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission (& not a word about his carer as a Time Lord) in which, among other things, he made his statement about it no longer being whether we are for or against Europe (he ment the EU).

Typical of the BBC that they give so much more time to this EU apparatchik than to the leader of the party that placed 3rd in the last UK election where the voters knew their votes would count (ie PR one).

Last EU election resultConservative 26.7

Labour 22.6

UK Independence Party 16.1

Liberal Democrat 14.9

Green 6.3

I got an email from UKIP a few days previously boasting that AM had interviewed the leaders of all the big parties & were now treating UKIP as the 4th of the big 3 but the interview was disgracefully short.

I have just found this letter was in the Scotsman on 17th August. I don't know why I missed it. It is a gentle piss take on another form of renewable - tidal this time, which i point out is possible the best of a bad lot.

David G Guild's belief that tidal power will provide "serious opposition" to nuclear (Letters, 12 August) shows a logical weakness.

It may be, as he asserts, that the "anti-nuclear" Scottish Executive is ignoring tidal power because it is secretly pro-nuclear, and thus deliberately doing down alternatives. However, a simpler, if less paranoid, answer would be because even the Executive (or at least its advisers) can tell these are rubbish.

The problem with tidal power is that it only provides power for about ten hours each day, when the tide is actually moving in or out. That means you would have to build the nuclear or other stations and then switch them off for these ten hours to give the tidal station something to do. While this is clearly the most "serious" competition any form of "alternative" can give nuclear it isn't very serious.

The largest tidal station in the world was built in Rances by the French, where it performs exactly as advertised. The French then went on to build nuclear reactors to provide 85 per cent of their power at 1.5p a unit. Our own politicians should show such common sense.