THE letters in the Times (July 21) raised important questions in relation to wind energy, its economics, the perceived propaganda behind its promotion and the indoctrination of young minds.

I write as a product of the post-war baby boom, a time when new clean energy derived from nuclear would provide generations to come with electricity that would be so cheap it would be 'barely worth metering'. The first UK nuclear power station was completed in 1956 at Calder Hall, Cumbria, conceived by the most brilliant minds of their generation.

Regrettably, within a year a fire broke out in the adjoining Windscale reactor, radiation leaked and fears of contamination led to the disposal of milk from Cumbrian farms. Such actions we have witnessed again this year in Japan, following the fire at Fukushima. Over many decades the true extent and risk posed by the Calder Hall accident have only slowly been revealed and how close Cumbria came to the reality of a nuclear explosion.

Conveniently, the risk seems somewhat muted following the passage of time. However, the real deception of Calder Hall was 'tritium', a vital component of the hydrogen bomb. The demand of the post-war Macmillan government to develop the bomb is now considered a contributory factor in the accident, but somehow this part of the story was not told. The government of the day was lucky the economy was growing in the post-war period and taxes generated by hard working families were spent on the worthwhile cause, 'cheap electricity', a universal benefit for all, and of course the hydrogen bomb was just a happy coincidence.

And so to the present, as the energy companies, shareholders and investors fall over themselves to provide us with clean 'carbon' free nuclear energy, and why wouldn't they? The UK tax payer, with a little help from its government has carefully selected and paid for lots of sites and limitless amounts of infrastructure, Hinkley Point to name but one.

Oh, yes, that radioactive waste stuff; the philanthropic investors don't need to worry about that, the UK tax payer has an answer for that too and they will pay for it into the next millennia and beyond.

I do wonder what the cost would be if one of those wretched turbines fell over, do you think the milk from cows grazing peacefully by the turbine would need to be disposed of?

Now what was it that those letter writers were saying about the true economics of energy production, the deceit and propaganda of governments and the indoctrination of a generation?

David Rickwood

Okehampton

Reference: Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster – BBC2, October 8, 2007 – Compulsive viewing available on Youtube.