Letters: Why hasn’t Britain pressed ahead with small modular nuclear reactors?

SIR – Your Leading Article (“The cost of neglecting nuclear power”, May 2) is apposite.

By now there should surely be several small modular reactors under construction. Their design avoids many of the problems associated with large nuclear sites.

The delay means we are making ourselves increasingly dependent on overseas fossil fuel supplies, with carbon dioxide-emitting tankers being used for transport. We are also depriving ourselves of taxpaying jobs – plus revenue from British companies – while increasing the risk of power cuts and fuel poverty.

Roger J Arthur
Pulborough, West Sussex

SIR – Britain (and in particular Rolls-Royce) has led the way with small modular reactor technology. These reactors are cheaper per gigawatt to build, can be operational in a fraction of the time of full-sized plants and, with their much smaller footprint, present fewer planning challenges. They can be built on a factory production line, presenting opportunities for further cost reductions, and provide untold export opportunities. They can also be located closer to areas of maximum electricity demand, with reduced requirement for grid cabling.

By providing a number of smaller investment opportunities, they would be more suited to institutional funding. Why are we not jumping on this?

Colin Amies
Docking, Norfolk

SIR – I read with interest your report, “Net zero UK cannot keep lights on, MPs warn” (April 28).

I’m glad it is dawning on our politicians that we have little chance of producing enough clean energy to meet their goals. Until now, it has seemed as though none of them would be willing to compromise on the pace of change, or forgo the opportunity to boast about the targets they are attempting to hit.

John Meachen
Norwich

SIR – We have vast resources of cheap oil and gas beneath our feet, but because we refuse to use them we are suffering high energy costs.

We therefore have to go cap in hand to the people from whom we are buying the energy that we could be producing cheaply ourselves (“Gulf states poised to bail Britain out of energy crisis”, report, May 1). What is the Energy Secretary thinking?

Charles Pugh
London SW10

SIR – Clive Hambler (Letters, May 2) warns that certain forms of renewable energy could pose a greater threat to wildlife than fossil fuels.

Indeed: birds are killed in their thousands by huge wind turbine blades. At sea, meanwhile, there is evidence that mammals such as whales suffer disorientation from turbine vibrations and can become beached. It is time we woke up to the failure of the “green” dream.

Roger Payne
London NW3

Water price increases

SIR – Cornwall has had a 20 per cent increase in houses built with en-suite lavatories over the past 50 years, yet the infrastructure has remained the same in that no increase has occurred in the supply from South West Water (Letters, May 2).

This is on top of the fact that the population more than doubles in the high tourist season, when hot tubs and swimming pools are replenished.

South West Water should not be fined, as no doubt the cost will be passed on to the consumer. Rather, Ofwat should ban it from imposing any price rises on the local population for three years. Customers with hot tubs and swimming pools could have the price adjusted to match their usage.

Should someone slip on a dirty surface because of the hosepipe ban (my patio can become hazardous), then South West Water should be held responsible.

David Barlow
Cury, Cornwall

Let them eat venison

SIR – Again we are being urged to eat venison to help control the numbers of wild deer (report, May 1). I would love to eat more venison, especially as I take cholesterol-lowering medication and am required to follow a low-fat diet. However, the price is prohibitive, so it can only be an occasional treat.

Ann Hooton
Saltash, Cornwall

SIR – Ministers encouraging the public to eat more venison should do three things: first, provide grants for stalkers to buy or upgrade their shot deer storage larders; secondly, expedite the availability of night-time shooting licences; and thirdly, review what the Forestry Commission charges stalkers to shoot over its ground.

Richard O’Hare
Luxborough, Somerset

Bolton roots

SIR – The campaign is under way to return Bolton to Lancashire from Greater Manchester (report, May 2).

My family left Bolton for Sheffield in 1967, when I was five. For 35 years I’ve lived in Cumbria, where, last Christmas, I entertained at a local Women’s Institute. Afterwards a lady rushed up, demanding to know if she had detected a Lancashire accent.

You can take a boy out of Bolton, but he’ll always be a Lancastrian if his heart is true.

Ian France
Penrith, Cumbria

Teachers’ strikes

SIR – I am a teaching assistant at a large high school, and am writing this during my break. Since over half of our 1,700 students are at home during the strikes, there are very few lessons to support and most of us are being paid to do very little.

Given that we are only a couple of weeks away from GCSE and A-level exams, I find it desperately sad that many of our students will be without their regular teachers. These final lessons can be crucial in terms of exam preparation.

On top of the disruption suffered over the last couple of years, the timing of these strikes is appalling. Teachers have a duty of care to their students, as doctors and nurses do to their patients.

Debbie MacDonald
Ipswich, Suffolk

Reining in robots

SIR – The likes of Elon Musk and Dr Geoffrey Hinton (“Godfather of AI quits over killer robot fears”, report, May 2) are coming late to the party. There have been concerns about this for many years, as exemplified by the Terminator movies.

It was in this regard that Isaac Asimov introduced us to his Three Laws of Robotics way back in 1942.

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

The development of AI will only gather pace. Action is urgently needed.

Ian Robinson
Bramhope, West Yorkshire

Seat at the Coronation

SIR – I was interested to read about the Coronation chairs, and that 100 new ones covered in blue velvet will be made (report, May 1).

But there is no mention of stools. I still have the one from Elizabeth II’s coronation coronation that my mother was able to buy. They had been shaped to be comfortable for a long time. Clearly, no one is expected to sit on a stool at her son’s Coronation.

Veronica Bliss
Winchester, Hampshire

SIR – I’d like to hear it for those of us who have experienced three coronations.

Being born four days after May 12 1937, when King George VI was crowned, I was proclaimed Coronation Baby of Wendover, Buckinghamshire.

My father received a bottle of whisky and my mother a woollen layette for me, together with an old-fashioned £5 note.

David Wixon
Yelverton, Devon

Homing hound

SIR – We used to have an intelligent fox terrier. One year we went on holiday for a week and left him with my grandparents, who lived about seven miles away.

The next day he escaped and walked home; neighbours saw him sitting outside our front door (“Tale of rehomed retriever’s 40-mile trek to find original owner is no shaggy dog story”, report, May 1). Having realised that we were away, he then walked back to my grandparents’ house, arriving a few days later hungry and exhausted, with the skin worn off his pads. We never left him behind again.

Gillian Hart
Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire

The next stage in the sleeper train renaissance

SIR – I am delighted that sleeper trains are increasing in number, as you note in your article on weekend breaks (Travel, April 22).

It would be a great benefit if car-carrying trains could be revived. Those from London to Scotland, and in France from the north coast to Brive, would transform our lives and be truly eco-friendly – an important reason to bring them back and expand the network.

Valerie Thompson
West Horsley, Surrey

Cancer care hindered by inept administration

SIR – Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer (Letters, April 28), states that NHS cancer teams are working incredibly hard.

Experiencing this ourselves as my husband entered their care with an aggressive prostate cancer nine months ago, I would agree.

However, they are working with poor tools and under tragic constraints. At the end of December, there were problems with the contractors’ supply of a particular tracer for prostate cancer.

Patients were not told. A less satisfactory tracer was used. In my husband’s case, this meant that the detection of the cancer spread was compromised. Nine months down the line from referral, with the cancer now in his bones, he is still waiting for his chemotherapy regime to be finalised.

We have witnessed the failure of the administrative teams to co-ordinate scans and appointments, thus requiring patients to travel to the hospital sometimes several times a week when these things could have been combined. The doctors and nurses are doing their best within a service disastrously run by management, constrained by badly structured contracts with suppliers, and coping with the inheritance of years of ignorant interference by politicians.

J E Freeman
Sidmouth, Devon

SIR – I agree with Professor Marjan Jahangiri (Letters, May 1) that productivity in the NHS is a disgrace. The causes are easy to see: a lack of beds and restrictive working hours. As with any job, experience comes through the volume of work undertaken.

Shift systems not only give poor care because there is a lack of continuity, but they also fail to give doctors in training the necessary experience to become consultants. Doctors want to earn a good salary, so they need to roll up their sleeves and bring down the waiting lists by putting in the hours.

The Government should be given no peace until it restores bed numbers to a level that is necessary for the system to function efficiently.

Reg Kingston
Chorley, Lancashire

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