The energy debate rumbles on but will the proponents for nuclear energy consider costs and dangers of building more nuclear reactors as a solution to our energy problems.

Peter Hyde (Western Telegraph 20th April 2011) believes opposition on the grounds that nuclear reactors are dangerous is farcical and likens the use of gas as an equivalent danger. Should the LNG tanks go off with a bang it would devastate Milford Haven and a sizeable part of the county but it is doubtful whether the people whose lives have been destroyed by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima will readily agree the analogy.

When a nuclear plant is damaged irradiated particles travel globally with terrible effect as Chernobyl where the 25th anniversary of the incident was recently remembered. Children born since 1986 still suffer ill effects of radiation from a tragic accident and fallout did reach Wales!

Lisa Billett (Western Telegraph 4th May 2011) is rightly anxious about the money trail so perhaps she will consider a few facts on practical and financial matters regarding nuclear energy. Will it matter that Areva and partners, as preferred bidders to decommission waste stores and old reactors at Sellafield, reap a 5 years contract worth £6.5 billion with a possible extension until 2025 making the deal worth £22 billion? It is likely that EDF, the French owned power company, could be running our nuclear sites and proof that accidents do happen witness their Trcasta plant when 100 workers were contaminated by waste particles during routine maintenance work.

Decommissioning at Sellafield will take over 50 years to dismantle the former nuclear facility costing £800 million. Fuel extracted from Chapelcross nuclear plant will be transported by road to Sellafield with 269 loads leaving Scotland during 2011. Added to waste from all nuclear energy production is 50 years of waste amassed from nuclear weapons.

In 1999 the Nuclear Waste Management Programme was put out for consultation yet 12 years on government has no solution to deal with this dangerous material i.e. bury deep underground or store on surface where it can be monitored. Finding the right terrain for underground disposal in U.K. is difficult and, remote as maybe, with an ever changing climate we may not be impervious to earthquakes or tsunamis in future. High level nuclear waste is lethal and copious tonnes are buried remaining dangerous for thousands of years. Future generations will bear this burden environmentally and financially unless a solution is found.

May I suggest that readers look at the Wales Cancer Registry data on malignancies in children who are our future - who knows whether outflow from Sellafield into the Irish Sea contributes?

Sheila La Croix Dinas Cross