A Place to Stand

Letter in the Scotsman today on nuclear power & the improbability of our being able to extend the life of Hunterston much beyond its official retiral date of 2011.

Mine was the 3rd of 3 letters, all of which were of pretty much the same view. It seems likely that among the population at large the need to avoid blackouts has been won, all that has to be done is to persuade those in charge to accept reality.. I have marked editing { }. Since there are 3 letters I cannot complain about a need to edit for space though I would have prefered to keep my sarcasm intact::

"[ Hunterston B nuclear reactor has been closed down. This is what you get when you run an elderly system to the end of its design life. It is an old system & stuff like this happens. Clearly it is merely the control systems rather than anything structural.

It is the official position of] both the SNP & Greens that they are prepared to see Hunterston keep working beyond its design life, i.e. beyond 2011. This is a contradictory position for parties which claim [to believe] that nuclear is dangerous & to give the LibDems their due [they have disavowed any such mealy louthed double standards -] they want Hunterston closed down in 2011 come Hell, high water & blackouts.

[What this shows is that] it is becoming increasingly likely that they don't have the option. We need to have a new reactor in place by or very shortly after 2011 (or some other non-intermittent power source) or we will have blackouts. It takes 4 years to build a nuclear power station though most timescales given by government assume that they will first spend at least 5 years shuffling paper [to decide whether French or American designs which have worked for decades work & whether Hunterston is a suitable site for a nuclear power station]. We do not have time for this nonsense if we want to avoid blackouts & hypothermia deaths