We need to think nuclear

- nuclear power that is.

It has a bad name. The recent problems in Chernobyl have only added to that. 

President Trump was wrong, very wrong, about many things but he did say he thought Germany's dependence on Russian power supplies would cause problems in the event of conflict. He was right. Germany is one of those countries indirectly supplying the money which supports the Russian offensive in Ukraine. 

And of course we now know that there were Russian soldiers on the site of the disaster that was the Chernobyl reactor. I doubt Putin is at all concerned about the level of radiation the workers there are now facing as they try to repair the damage done. He will have no concern about the soldiers he sent in who are reported to have been affected by these levels. 

Yes, Chernobyl is still a disaster. It should not have been. 

But Chernobyl was poorly maintained. More money should have been spent securing it. It was a very old style reactor that had the potential to cause massive damage - and it did.

Modern nuclear reactors are very, very different. They are much safer. The level of waste they produce is minimal. The means of storing it has vastly improved. They are in fact a green option, a means of drastically reducing the harm to the environment. The fuel used can even be recycled and used again so that the amount of waste is even smaller than it is in the first round of use.

It seems though we are still opposed to going nuclear. It is a political issue rather than an environmental one. We really need an honest debate about the potential dangers posed by nuclear v the dangers from coal, gas, and oil. We need a debate about the energy and materials used to build solar panels and wind turbines - and how long these things last - and compare these with nuclear power.

I don't know the answers but I do believe it is a debate worth having.