Reading Amanda Levete’s arguments in support of nuclear power (8 February, pages 30 -31) reminded me of a conference I attended four years ago.

It was hosted by a French engineering group specialising in nuclear power plant design and construction.

During the Q&A session at the end of the conference I asked the nine speakers whether they would individually accept salary or pension reductions proportionate to any cost overruns that exceeded the predicted costs for building and operating the plants at the time their company was awarded the contracts. After a whispered discussion among the nine speakers, the conference chairman announced that none of them would accept that kind of personal risk. I strongly suspect that company is far from being the only one of its kind content to allow its nuclear power customers and taxpayers to bear risk of a kind that its senior engineers – experts in the field of nuclear engineering and power generation – are not.

I suggest Amanda redirects her efforts to drum up work for Future Systems in areas where there are less likely to be major cost overruns and safety and security problems with repercussions that could stretch more than 100 generations into the future.

John Prewer, John Prewer Associates

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