Taking the bull by the horns
Thank you for including the news feature (September 18) about France’s reprocessing of nuclear waste for reuse in nuclear power stations, a technology in which this country is avant-garde.
More than 80 per cent of France’s electricity is generated by zero carbon emissions nuclear power.
Finland is in a similar electricity generation capacity as it recently commissioned a huge state-of-the-art French-designed nuclear power station which is also claimed to be bombproof.
The Penly nuclear power plant off the coast of Dieppe, western France. Photo: Lou BENOIST/AFPThe UK plans building several nuclear power stations over the next few decades to complement its huge development of wind-power.
On the other hand, often because of misinformation and Greens in government coalitions, countries like Germany and Italy plan to shut down (or have already done so) all their nuclear power stations.
These countries have made a massive strategic mistake of relying on coal (the dirtiest fossil fuel) and on gas supplied exclusively by a dictatorship run by a dangerous bully.
Zero carbon by 2050 can never be achieved with fossil fuel (natural gas included) power stations. Green hydrogen power stations are now the buzzword in some European countries. Green hydrogen generation requires huge amounts of green electricity (usually from wind and solar) which, in turn, requires huge battery storage capacity (another problem).
So we’d better believe that most of Europe’s power stations will be running on green hydrogen when it actually happens.
Limitless amounts of zero carbon energy from controlled nuclear fusion power stations (imitating the sun’s energy generation) have been promised for the last 50 years and might take another several decades to materialise.
In the meantime, we have considerable experience with uranium-fuelled nuclear fission power stations whose increasingly sophisticated design has rendered them very safe. The threat to our planet is fossil fuels not nuclear power stations.
The latest developments in nuclear power generation are mini power stations that supply one big town with electricity and are only the size of a two-storey building that can be installed entirely underground.
We became avant-garde in seawater desalination. Do we have the ambition to become a Mediterranean centre of mini nuclear power station know-how? If and when piped green hydrogen arrives we can have two zero-carbon power stations, one hydrogen and one nuclear, and we’d be ready for zero-carbon 2050.
ALBERT CILIA-VINCENTI – Attard
Wrong attribution
A respectful correction to John Consiglio’s letter attributing to Joe Biden the comment about her majesty being the queen. It was, in fact, President Emanuel Macron who made that generous statement.
May her wonderful soul rest in peace.
Trevor Parry – Ireland