ALAS! Further to your lead letter by Marc Reddy on Tuesday, June 23, regarding cruise ships in the bay, it seems yet another correspondent has been sucked in by the unprecedented golden bullet electric power seems to offer!

Should ships anchored some seven miles offshore in the harbour generating their own standby electricity cause local pollution? I don’t think so. Unlike cars on the school run – right up to the gateway, where there’s no doubt pollutants are being dumped right in harm’s way.

As far as saving the planet from CO2 emissions, there’s a huge point here as vast swaths of the high profile anti-pollutant activists are either unaware of, or equally don’t want you to know, electricity still has to be generated from somewhere.

As “renewables” still only contribute a small fraction of our electricity, the ever-increasing balance will be made up from power stations!

So plugging in ships (via a few 13A power sockets!) on the quayside, along with an boundless increasing number of electric cars simply, defers the CO2 emissions to power station chimneys – many somewhat closer to land and populations than the “offending” offshore ships.

The same pollution or worse just comes out of the top of the power station chimneys instead!

DAVE PORTER

Furze Hill Drive, Poole