DR Ward’s letter of December 11 deserves a detailed response.

He speaks of the volume of dangerous waste produced by solar panels, but most of their volume is made up of silicon, metal and glass, all easily recycled.

Most nuclear waste is radioactive. Some dangerous components must be kept from the environment, and terrorists, for hundreds of thousands of years.

He says "nuclear power is highly regulated and waste is managed through well understood and engineered processes". In fact, there is no agreed way or place to store nuclear waste long-term in the UK. But throughout Europe there is good regulation of the semiconductor and solar industries. Recycling of solar cells is already under way partly because of the tiny amounts of expensive materials they contain.

It is also quite possible a healthy market in second-hand panels will develop as new higher efficiency, multi-functional systems come on the market, supported by increasing evidence that most panels work longer than 25 years. And I would much rather live near worn-out solar panels than a worn-out nuclear reactor.

I agree we should spend more money on supporting the NHS and disadvantaged people, however the subsidies for nuclear power have always been considerable, and assume no Fukushimas – when costs become astronomical!

The UK government’s ‘contracts for difference’ commit taxpayers to wholesale nuclear electricity price above 9 pence per kWh.

In 2013 the growing amount of PV and wind power on the German grid had reduced their wholesale electricity price below 4 pence per kWh.

We do want to minimise large arrays of solar panels, one way would be to place them on roofs, all the energy consumed in buildings can now be generated from panels on their roofs – yet we are still putting up thousands of houses here in Worcestershire without roof-panels, and – due to industry resistance – without the best insulation either.

Rev David Haslam

Evesham