Sir – Your correspondent, Nuala Young, is astonishingly out of date with the situation regarding nuclear waste.

She says that it is vulnerable to leakage and overheating as well as sabotage.

The UK’s legacy waste, i.e. waste that is as much as 60 years old, has never caused a storage problem and is exceptionally well contained, stored and guarded.

Most of the scare stories that emanate from places like Harwell and Sellafield turn out to be chemical or electrical issues, not nuclear.

Regarding the issue of location, the coastal sites are currently being decommissioned and either have been or are in the process of being prepared for sale to the private utilities who propose to build the next generation of replacement reactors.

Inland sites like Didcot or Harwell have been categorically ruled out, but for reasons of cost and logistics, not safety.

Renewables are all very well when they are available and government is investing heavily in them. But as a base load source, they are hopelessly unreliable and uncompetitive. Ms Young really should take note of the many green writers, gurus and green movement founders who have come to accept that nuclear power is the only realistic option if we are to produce sufficient energy for the nation without any carbon hangover.

Cllr Terry Joslin Didcot