RE: The climate change debate and last week’s letter from Eric Alexander, criticising sceptics who ‘believe we can go on burning fossil fuels without damaging the planet’.

OBVIOUSLY, someone bought Eric Alexander a copy of Zero Carbon Britain for Xmas and that with the pseudo scientific TV programme Is our Weather Getting Worse has, once again caused Eric’s mind to become confused as evidenced by his wrong understanding of the Biosphere.

Eric should be aware that Roderick Taylor like myself is a Chartered Engineer. The highest professional Engineering qualification in the UK.

To become a Chartered Engineer you have to satisfy the Engineering Council that you have achieved the highest level of academic achievement, have wide practical experience and held a senior position in UK industry.

So Eric’s accusation that Roderick has “limited horizons” shows, once again, a total lack of understanding by Eric.

The only way the UK can ever achieve zero carbon power generation at a price that keeps the UK competitive in world markets and safeguards UK employment is nuclear power generation.

The power generation situation on the morning of 17th January clearly identifies the failings of wind generation.

The air temperature was minus 3C. Over the past 24 hours wind had contributed just 1.8% of the total national grid demand. If we increase the number of wind turbines by a factor of five this would still be delivering less than 10% of demand.

The only bodies that benefit from wind turbines are the land owners who receive large rents, the builders and installers and the power companies who receive huge subsidies even when the turbines are not generating all paid for us in the large increases we have seen in our electricity bills over the past few years.

Germany is cited by Anthony Mealing as leading the way in green energy production.

Under this facade of ‘saving the planet’, Germany’s real agenda is saving money by replacing its old outdated power stations with new high technology coal and gas power stations.

Germany is smart enough to realise that it can only maintain its position as a world leading manufacturing nation, if it has a reliable, low-cost supply of electrical power available 24/7 for 52 weeks per year.

Green energy does not meet that criteria.

The first of the new German “ultra- sup critical” coal-fired power plants built at Karlsruhe will come on line in 2014.

This will be the first of another 12 coal-fired plants to be followed by another 12 gas fired power plants. The technology is exciting, but unfortunately, coming from France not the UK.

Steam at 4,000 lbs per square inch and a temperature 620C will drive steam turbines to generate 912Mw of electricity and provide a further 220Mw of heating to flats and offices via a district heating system.

The system will have an overall thermal efficiency of up to 58% (existing coal-fired power plants are 35%), CO2 emissions will be 40% less than the current norm for a coal fired station.

The UK will be very foolish if it does not follow the same route.

Anthony Weeden, Bockmer End, Nr Marlow