From Andrew Tylecote, University of Sheffield
Your correspondents on 4 June (p 28) are all probably right: the need to cut greenhouse emissions is so grave that nuclear power may well have a role to play; certainly micro-hydro will; and “strong and determined government action” will be required to get a wide range of energy-saving and renewables measures widely adopted.
What neither they nor you in your editorial of 14 May (p 3) mention is the simplest, most effective means to these ends: carbon taxes. High taxes on CO2 emissions, rising steeply, will give all energy producers and users a powerful incentive to use and improve the whole range of relevant technologies. Carbon trading is a poor substitute, ethically and practically: your right to heat up the planet in future is based bizarrely on how much you are doing to heat it up now; and it doesn’t give clear incentives based on predictable prices. But, if governments are brave enough to impose these taxes, and so raise market prices for electricity, they get a compromise option on nuclear power: work out fair charges to impose for radioactive waste disposal and insurance against accident and attack, and then leave the decision to the private sector. The price mechanism is a wonderful thing.
Sheffield, UK
