Sizewell needs facts not scare stories

ONCE again last weekend we had the predictable demonstrations against nuclear power in front of the Sizewell power stations to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

Of course it is right that people should protest if they oppose nuclear power, but I have increasing difficulty in understanding the logic of many of the objections.

If their argument was solely based on the fact that no one has yet come up with a safe way of disposing of nuclear waste then I would have some sympathy.

It is not a large enough objection to persuade me that nuclear power is dangerous - but it is an argument that needs to be addressed by the industry.

However, the other objections just don't make sense.

To link Sizewell B (and a future C and D) to the power plant at Chernobyl is ridiculous - the Ukraine plant was a totally different and inherently unstable design.

It's a design that has never been used anywhere outside the old Soviet bloc - and even so it only blew its top after some daft engineers carried out a stupid experiment.

To say we shouldn't build Sizewell C because of what happened to Chernobyl is a bit like saying: “I won't travel in a Rolls Royce because a Model T Ford crashed once!”

Another ridiculous link is between nuclear power stations and nuclear weapons.

There is no reason at all to make this link - apart from trying to scare non-believers into supporting the anti-Sizewell message.

Yes, material made in nuclear plants can be turned into nuclear weapons - but only after a great deal of further reprocessing and it is daft to oppose a complete technology just because of a tenuous link with weaponry.

In earlier centuries did people oppose the development of the wheel because it could have been attached to chariots? Did anyone oppose the building of steamships because warships used the same technology?

We need a debate about nuclear power - but a debate based on facts and not on spurious arguments put forward by scaremongerers.