Letters: Solar power

Sir: It is not quite right to say "Sicily to build world's first solar power plant" (28 March). Power plants of this type - using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to create heat then using the heat to raise steam and drive turbines and generators like a conventional power station - have been operating in California since 1985, and 500,000 Californians get their electricity from this source. A new plant of this type went on stream only last week in Spain.

CSP works best in hot deserts and, of course, there are not many of these in Europe. But it is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity over very long distances using highly efficient "HVDC" transmission lines. With transmission losses at about 3 per cent per 1,000km, solar electricity may, for example, be transmitted from North Africa to London with only about 10 per cent loss of power. A large-scale HVDC transmission grid has also been proposed by the wind energy company Airtricity as a means of optimising the use of wind power throughout Europe.

The potential is massive. It has been calculated that an area of hot desert measuring about 110km x 110km, if covered with CSP plants, would produce as much electricity as the EU consumes. A recent report from the American Solar Energy Society says that CSP plants in the south-western states of the US "could provide nearly 7,000GW of capacity, or about seven times the current total US electric capacity.

In the recent "TRANS-CSP" report commissioned by the German government, it is estimated that CSP electricity, imported from North Africa and the Middle East, could become one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Europe, including the cost of transmission. That report shows in great detail how Europe can meet all its needs for electricity, make deep cuts in CO2 emissions, and phase out nuclear power at the same time.

DR GERRY WOLFF

MENAI BRIDGE, ANGLESEY

Leaders should lead in climate change

Sir: I run a small car, live in a modest house that is insulated as much as practically possible, and do not use power or water unnecessarily.

My TV is coming up to 20 years old. Now I am told that because non-digital transmissions are discontinuing my TV will have to be replaced, possibly by a plasma screen TV. It will not be on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like the computer screens in my old place of work.

I recycle household waste where possible and try to avoid creating household waste in the first place. I normally manage one "foreign" holiday each year, though I do motor down to England once a year to visit my son. Being Scottish, I don't know if this counts as foreign.

Am I going to change my lifestyle because of climate change? Unlikely. When I see our gallant leaders and our over-paid rich and famous setting an example I may change. And that entails a bit more than gimmicks such as Cameron cycling to the Commons with his official car following him with his suit and notebook.

When power companies stop discounting prices to high users, when large office blocks and commercial establishments stop floodlighting their premises, inside and outside, all the hours of darkness seven days a week, I might see that switching from a 60-watt incandescent light to a energy-saving lamp might be worth the effort.

In the EST survey ("Britain unwilling to change despite climate threat", 2 April), how many of the people surveyed were like me, already relatively low users and understandably, unwilling to move to the lower mud-hut-and-camel way of life?

LINDSAY JOHNSTON

GAULDRY, FIFE

Blair isolated over censure of Iran

Sir: Your leading article "Iraq and the erosion of Britain's moral authority" is apt and thought-provoking. The capture and release of the British personnel illustrates very clearly how isolated Tony Blair is since his Iraq adventure.

He goes to the European Union and gets stiffed; goes to the Security Council and simply gets a statement that refuses even to "deplore" this act of piracy. He is forced to settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern".

His credibility is in tatters. Nobody on the international scene except despised Americans believe him that his sailors and marines were captured in Iraqi waters.

On the other hand, the Iranian hard-liners, by humiliating the sailors and extracting staged "confessions", then appearing magnanimous by giving the captives their freedom, have scored a huge propaganda victory. But the relief over the end of the crisis is likely to be short-lived. Looming are thorny decisions about how to deal with an Iranian regime that appears determined to aid and abet the Shia militia in Iraq and continue to pursue its nuclear programme and from time to time keep flexing its considerable geopolitical muscle in other unpleasant ways.

The Blair regime remains bound hand and foot to an American administration that has developed plans for the bombing or invasion of Iran and frequently reiterates its intention to resort to aggressive war as a means of solving the nuclear issue.

The lesson from this crisis is for Blair to get off his high horse and acknowledge that foreign policy subservient to Americans is not in the best interest of the British people.

DR KAILASH CHAND

ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE, LANCASHIRE

Sir: No doubt the families and loved ones of those service personnel recently detained are delighted to have them home healthy and, on the surface at least, unaffected by their ordeal.

How long those feelings of relief will last seems more in doubt, given the shameful parade of armchair generals and Captain Mainwarings who have formed a long, neat and orderly queue to condemn each and every one of them for caving in to the pressures exerted by the wily Iranians.

What all of these ridiculous pundits have failed to grasp is that these young people have been thrust into situations where, thanks to the gross ineptitude of their own political leaders, they neither have the equipment nor the wherewithal to deal with scenarios with no set rules and where, apart from the simplistic war of words from Bush and Blair, there is no war.

It beggars belief to think that these 15 young people would be viewed by these commentators as performing their duties to Queen and country in a better fashion if they had perished in hail of bullets in the Persian Gulf, or had been tortured to within an inch of their lives by their captors. It also begs the question as to how these courageous, armchair-bound blimps would perform in similar circumstances.

PETER COGHLAN

BROADSTONE, DORSET

Campaign to save porbeagle shark

Sir: Few sharks are more imperilled than the porbeagle ("Shark attack", 5 April), but governments have a chance to turn the tide and save this key ocean predator, if they act now.

First, France should immediately end its targeted porbeagle fishery, the only one left in Europe, which is due to start within weeks. This critically endangered shark population already needs many decades to recover; intense, intentional hunting is simply no longer consistent with the species' survival.

Second, all member states should actively promote the European Union's proposal to establish trade restrictions on the porbeagle shark's prized meat and fins under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) up to and throughout the June conference of the Cites parties at The Hague. The proposal lacks support from France as well as Spain, and faces stiff opposition from countries in Asia, the core of shark-fin demand.

Without EU leadership, the prospects are poor, not just for porbeagles, but for the ocean ecosystems they sustain.

SONJA FORDHAM

POLICY DIRECTOR, THE SHARK ALLIANCE, BRUSSELS

Oh dear. We're all doomed again

Sir: In the 1960s, we lived in fear of a nuclear holocaust, inevitable we were told, if we did not disarm unilaterally. In the 1970s, we were entering a new ice age (according to the BBC). In the 1980s, we were all going to die from Aids in Europe. In the 1990s, we were going to die from eating eggs or hamburgers.

At the turn of the century, the City of London would collapse if we did not join the common currency and all planes would crash through computer failure. There would be a catastrophic hole in the ozone layer and only 60,000 east Europeans would come to the UK when we opened our borders.

Now we are to become extinct through global warming. Me? I'm going up the pub.

GODFREY BLOOM

UKIP MEP FOR YORKSHIRE AND NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE, SELBY

Schooling till 18 not compulsory

Sir: I was concerned to read your letters page of 30 March, in which there were some misconceptions about the Government's consultation on ensuring all young people gain the benefits of education and training until 18.

We are not raising the school leaving age to 18. We are proposing to raise the age at which our young people can participate in education and training programmes such as apprenticeships. This is not about forcing them to sit behind a desk twiddling their thumbs until their 18th birthday, or about stopping people going out to get a job at 16, if that's what they want to.do.

Young people will be able to choose to stay on, full or part time, in schools, colleges, work-based learning, apprenticeships or in accredited training with an employer. For those who take up a job at 16, their employers will have to ensure they participate in training. We must not allow some young people to be left behind, stuck in a cycle of deprivation and poverty, but enable them to gain skills and qualifications for their own benefit and for the good of the economy.

Neither are we taking money away from adult education to fund this. We remain committed to ensuring a wide range of learning opportunities for adults. We have invested record amounts in further education for adult learners : this will have increased by 7 per cent between 2005-06 and 2007-08, with record numbers of adults gaining literacy and numeracy qualifications and skills needed for employability.

PHIL HOPE

SKILLS MINISTER, DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND SKILLS, LONDON SW1

Othello returned to his religion

Sir: Othello is best understood in the context of the renegade drama, in which converts to Islam were shown coming to a sticky end (letter, 2 April).

Shakespeare subverts the genre by portraying a Muslim who has nominally converted to Christianity, but underneath remains rather more ambivalent; after all, the notorious handkerchief was given to Othello's mother by an Egyptian sorceress.

This lends tremendous dramatic tension to scenes such as the one where Desdemona aims to reassure Othello of her virtue by remarking, "as I am a Christian". Othello stabs himself as a "turban'd Turk", acknowledging implicitly the identity he has sought to evade.

His parting words about tears dropping like medicinable gum from Arabian trees are peculiar in English but make perfect sense in Arabic; the acacia (gum tree) is used as a rebus for Salam, wholeness, peace and a greeting, often of farewell

ATHAR YAWAR

SURBITON, SURREY

Battered herring

Sir: Eccentric Easter ceremonies are not unique to Britain ("This Britain", 6 April). On Easter Saturday, the locals of Dundalk, tired of their Lenten fish diet, used to place a herring on a stick and beat it. The procession would be led by the town's butchers, who had suffered economically during the 40 days' fast.

JOHN O'BYRNE

HAROLD'S CROSS, DUBLIN

Prince Charles MP

Sir: If Prince Charles is upset about being ridiculed for some of his "campaigns" and utterances, and wants his opinions to be taken more seriously (report, 3 April) perhaps he should renounce his claim to the throne and stand for Parliament. If his green credentials are genuine, and not just hot air, like the emissions from his many air flights, he could stand for the Green Party.

ROBERT STEADMAN

MATLOCK, DERBYSHIRE

It's all dross

Sir: According to The Independent ("Weird or what?" 6 April), at the World Coal Carrying Championship in Yorkshire "Contestants run for one mile carrying a 50kg bag of coal. The record times are one minute and six seconds for men and five minutes and five seconds for women". It makes you wonder how fast they'd be without the coal. Our Olympic selectors should sign them up.

FRANCES WILSON

BOSTON, LINCOLNSHIRE

Wrong designer

Sir: In "Freeze Frame" (Extra, 5 April), Michelangelo was chiefly responsible for the crossing of St Peter's. He would have had to be about 125 years old to design the facade which is the work of Carlo Maderno.

ROBERT SENECAL

LONDON WC1

Northern delights

Sir: I never thought we English would become health tourists and economic migrants but more of us are moving to Scotland for a better standard of living or a chance of survival. But, resourceful as ever, we English have pioneered a new and revolutionary way of doing it. We throw the money and jobs in first, then follow. Good eh?

FRED BISHOP

LOWER MOOR, WORCESTERSHIRE

Shaping up

Sir: In your opening feature on wine (31 March), Anthony Rose tells us to "Serve wines in a tulip-shaped glass", but look at the shapes of "The ten best wine glasses" (Extra, 2 April). The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

CHRISTOPHER MCDOUALL

CAMBRIDGE

Signs of the times

Sir: On the A658 near Knaresborough in North Yorkshire, I noticed a sign which read "For Wetherby follow existing signs". Is it possible to get to Wetherby following non-existent signs?

GORDON WHITEHEAD

COPT HEWICK, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Sir: I to offer a double whammy. "Disabled toilets" at my workplace have outward-opening doors displaying the sign, "Beware passing pedestrians".

JOHN BONE

LONDON SW6