WE will shortly have the anti nuclear brigade rubbish nuclear power plants and wanting them all shut down. But are their alternatives any better?

Consider solar arrays or solar panels. Every house lost in Japan would be an electrical supply lost with no back-up available.

Consider offshore wind farms. Entire wind farms along a five hundred mile stretch of coast knocked flat and lost to tsunamis with no back ups available.

It’s called caught between a rock and a hard place but at least with dirty coal there is a constant and reliable source of energy that we have in abundance that wont stop when the wind stops or the sun goes in behind storm clouds.

DOUGLAS MILLS, Fraser Road, Poole Life was saved by wearing helmet ON Thursday March 10 at approximately 11.15-11.30am, I was cycling southwards down Blandford Road and, although wearing a “high visibility” jacket, I was knocked off my bike by a van coming out of Symes Road.

Sadly the driver felt a need to flee, but a number of the public were quickly drawn to the scene and within what appeared to be no time, an ambulance arrived. Despite wearing a crash helmet (broken in the fall), I did suffer concussion, so that probably explains why I felt the response was so quick!

I am profoundly grateful to those who assisted me and would have liked to have thanked them personally. My excuse for failing to do so at the time was a malfunctioning of the brain. I would also like to record my thanks to the two delightful paramedics and pay tribute to the staff in Poole A&E department.

Perhaps the most important lesson that I learnt was the importance of wearing a cycle helmet. On visiting my daughter in Australia I was told, in no uncertain terms, it was and still is illegal to ride a bike without a helmet and I strongly recommend this ought to be the case here. The consequences of not doing so in my case, with the resultant head injuries, would have been very serious and a considerable cost to the tax-payer. As one wag did suggest, in this instance, there would have been very little to “repair” inside.

PAUL HARRISON, Organ Ford, Poole