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Wild Land News no 66, Spring 2006

Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir,

I was interested in the articles about future energy in the recent issue of your magazine. It was appalling that only one person raised wild land issues at the forum on Highland renewable energy. Why do so few people care about wild land? It is more vital to us than it has ever been in our increasingly frenetic world to have wild places to escape to, and even if no-one goes there, these places should exist in their own right. The ecology demands it, and we destroy them at our peril.

After much thought and reading on the matter, I am more and more convinced that nuclear power is the only viable and clean alternative to future power production. We have the technology, and it should not be beyond the wit of man to deal with the problem of waste and to ensure safety. Wind turbines would need to cover the whole country to produce enough power, and then only intermittently. Wave power is a good option but a huge number of turbines would be needed. The infrastructure for all these turbines, wind and water, would be enormous and the cost of producing it would outweigh the benefits. Also, thousands of migrating birds are killed in off shore wind turbines in America. On balance, I feel nuclear is the only option, and I agree very much with what James Lovelock of Gaia fame has said. However, if global warming is really accelerating at the rate he suggests, it may already be too late. But I do think we have to try.

Yours sincerely,