Energy options

SIR – In reply to Margaret Robinson (Letters, January 23), there is so much Britain can do to improve its supply of electricity.

The Calder Hall nuclear power station started generation in 1956, followed by Dounreay in 1958. These were world firsts for the technology. Sadly we have fallen behind on this front. It is time for a significant increase in nuclear power generation.

In addition, the Severn Estuary has tides of approximately 10 metres twice a day, offering huge potential. Smaller generators could also be installed in numerous rivers across the country.

Finally, there is the possibility of hydrogen production using electricity (relatively free) and water (unlimited), creating no pollution – a win-win situation.

Britain’s first-class engineers are quite capable of designing and building such facilities. All that is required is the political will to proceed.

Clive F Gardiner

Minehead, Somerset

SIR – Wind turbines constitute a danger beyond destroying birds and bats (Letters, January 23).

Solar radiation apart, there is no such thing as free energy. What the layman perceives as wind is, in fact, the movement of enormous threedimensional air masses around the globe, the building blocks of climate.

Every wind turbine extracts a tiny amount of energy from the air mass, insignificant in isolation, but there must come a point when a proliferation of these devices will extract sufficient energy to alter the nature of that air mass, a potential climate-changing event.

Meteorologists, pilots, seafarers and farmers understand air masses well enough but, in my experience, frighteningly few scientists and engineers do.

Huw Baumgartner

Bridell, Pembrokeshire