A CONVERSATION I had recently with a concerned Swindonian raised a host of issues that called for answers from the Green Party. I feel our response might be of interest to your readers. Firstly, I would like to assure you that the Green Party has never suggested that wind power could provide the energy the UK currently produces from coal, oil, gas and nuclear stations. We also accept that more research is needed regarding domestic turbines.

However, the National Grid is on the record as saying that the back up requirement for on-shore wind power would be very small due to the distribution of the turbines around the country and the variable weather conditions that go with that. For off-shore turbines, there is no doubt that sufficient continuous supply could be maintained given a maximum capacity four times greater than the maximum demand. But of course there could be other renewable supplies making that level unnecessary.

Hydro, wave tidal, solar, geothermal and biomass all have the potential to make a very substantial contribution as low carbon sources of energy that will replace the finite fossil fuels that we all acknowledge will become exhausted. The nuclear power sometimes advocated also requires uranium as a fuel. This is refined from uraninite, a mineral mined mainly in Australia and North America, supplies of which are projected to be exhausted this century.

To tackle climate change we must also prioritise a reduction in energy demand. A change to higher domestic insulation standards and commercial technological advances will go some way to addressing this.

Pro-nuclear lobbyers often accuse Greens of bias in advocating subsidies for renewable energy generators, but not for nuclear. Yet this ignores many hidden subsidies of nuclear, plus the monstrously huge £90bn subsidy of taxpayers’ cash to decommission our nuclear dinosaurs. That is assuming we can find somewhere to put the nuclear waste. It is also the case that, unlike “renewables”, no one will insure nuclear: a liability that the taxpayer must again bear.

JENNI MILES

Chair, Swindon Green Party

Thurlestone Road

Swindon