Nuclear v wind

In response to David Morris’s plea (Letters, 7 December) I would imagine that even nuclear enthusiasts are

unhappy with the choice of reactor design and the £22 billion capital cost of Hinkley C .

However, this equates to £7m per megawatt installed capacity compared with offshore wind (eg, the Neart Na Gaoithe wind farm, also Edf-owned) at £9m. Taking into consideration load factors and plant lifetime (say 90 per cent and 60 years for nuclear, 40 per cent and 30 years for wind) then

the initial capital costs per projected megawatt-hour of output energy are about £14.50 for nuclear, £42.00 for wind.

The operational costs will be much higher for nuclear, but it will occupy only about ten sq km whereas its equivalent on the Neart Na Goithe scale of 6MW per machine (but this may have now changed to 7MW) will require 1,200 turbines occupying some 2,000

sq km of sea, much more connectivity infrastructure and will have an added cost factor to cover intermittency.

We should also note that both of these would each provide only about 7 per cent of UK current electricity demand or about 2 per cent of projected future requirement. That should be our greatest cause for concern.

What we really need for the whole of the UK’S now shaky system is a re-design of the eclectic mix of all types of generation to simultaneously provide, most importantly, security of supply and then that combined with lowest cost and best environmental outcomes.

The computational design and oversight of implementation of this needs to be publicly funded, but otherwise free of political influence – we can but dream!

(DR) A MCCORMICK

Kirkland Road, Dumfries