MR Woodland?s letter (December 1) in praise of windfarms shows once again just how far out of touch with the current scientific, technical and economic facts he and his ?green? friends are. Simply to replace generating plant that will be retiring in the next ten to 15 years we should already be starting to build at least 10,000 megawatts of new plant ? the political ineptitude of this government and its willingness to be deluded by the flawed attractions of ?renewables? means that we will almost certainly suffer chronic blackouts in the foreseeable future. No conceivable programme of wind or wave options could provide such replacement, because the inherent inability of such sources to maintain a controllable supply would destabilise the grid network and impose unmeetable demands on remaining conventionals (fossil and nuclear) resources. Technical advances in nuclear engineering, now rapidly being adopted by many developed and developing countries, mean that their power requirements are being met at a cost of less than that now suffered by those, like us, dependent on imported fossil fuels from politically volatile sources In fact, the latest studies show that nuclear generation including decommissioning costs is cheaper not only than fossil, but also any other currently practicable renewable source when the costs of necessary backup plant are included. Please note that nuclear is a carbon-free, reliable, safe renewable. Doomsday warnings of death and disaster, mostly derived from fictional scenarios of 30 or 40 years ago, have been grossly exaggerated and certainly in respect of nuclear generation, are wholly misconceived; a challenge still exists regarding redundant military material, but work is well underway with its long-term disposal. The visual pollution resulting from 3,000 wind turbines needed to replace one power station and failing to produce planned output for large parts of the time is simply not an acceptable strategy. A full discussion of the matter is available on http://www.sone.org.uk">www.sone.org.uk Geoffrey M Stowell Bere Alston