TONY Blair is trying to "greenwash" us into thinking that nuclear power is the answer to climate change - have we not learnt from the mistakes of the past?

Look at the horrendous legacy of just one Chernobyl accident.

Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic and unsustainable. After 50 years of toxic waste production, we still don't know what to do with it.

In the UK, we have yet to see an economically viable nuclear plant (if you take full account of disposal and decommissioning costs), in spite of all the subsidies provided at the public's expense.

Nor is nuclear technology the much hailed solution to rising carbon emissions. It is criminal the way its proponents portray this dangerous and polluting power source as carbon neutral, when it is anything but.

To generate electricity from uranium, a complex chain of carbon dioxide-producing industrial processes is followed: to convert uranium ore in the ground into fuel elements for the reactor; to construct the facilities including the nuclear power plant itself; and to handle and store waste safely.

Renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar power, however, are clean, cheap and safe with no waste legacy for future generations.

They do not rely on massive subsidy from the taxpayer, or a scarce and finite supply of high-grade uranium that is a target for terrorists.

The solution to the "energy gap" and climate change is to cut our use of fossil fuel-derived energy, whether by more sustainable transport, insulating our buildings, or new designs that generate the energy we need at a local level from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Coun Andy D'Agorne,

York Green Party,

Broadway West,

York.

Updated: 09:26 Thursday, December 01, 2005