Letters: | The Star Phoenix

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Our provincial government is loaning $100 million to Enbridge and Six Nations Development to build a wind farm that will produce enough clean electricity to power more than 100,000 homes a year.

So far so good.

But meanwhile, that same government has given the Sask. Research Council $80 million as a first step in bringing an eVinci micro nuclear reactor to the province, which would serve only 3,000 homes. And that $80 million is just for licensing and project costs; the reactor itself will set taxpayers back another $100 million or thereabouts and last eight to 10 years.

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In comparison, the wind farm can last 25 years or so — at which point it will need refurbishing and the blades can be recycled, while the reactor, if it’s anything like the Small Modular Nuclear Reactors that are also being proposed, will be completely useless after its life span, and completely radioactive as well.

Cheaper and lasting clean wind energy for a province with plenty of wind vs. expensive, unproven nuclear technology with radioactive waste as the gift that keeps on giving long after we’re gone.

The choice is clear, and it needs to be a choice; we can’t have it both ways unless we want to gamble with the future of our youth by putting the environment at risk for thousands of years.

Tim Nickel, Saskatoon

Replace Biden with Sanders

If U.S. President Joe Biden is replaced by another Democratic presidential candidate, it should be Senator Bernie Sanders.

Some statistics show, interestingly, that around three quarters of Americans favour a governmental implementation of a number of public programs, notably universal health care and some form of guaranteed income plan (a.k.a. welfare).

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While I find the Republican party, like its federal Conservative Party counterpart here in Canada, to be a moral write-off when it comes to humane social policy, the Democratic National Committee also refuses to allow a genuinely fiscally progressive candidate like Bernie Sanders as its presidential nominee, regardless of what Democratic Party members/voters want.

I recall that every county in West Virginia voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries, yet the DNC declared them as wins for Hillary Clinton. (The neo-liberal New York Times is noticeably hostile toward Sanders’ ideals and desires for disenfranchised, low- or no-income Americans.)

I find it arrogantly presumptuous of the DNC and party to expect economically disenfranchised citizens to vote for an establishment Democrat candidate with thinly veiled ties to corporate interests and who’s not going to improve the poor person’s lot in life — simply to vote out or keep out an undesirable Republican.

Frank Sterle Jr., White Rock, B.C.

UN ineffective in stopping Russia

The UN with 193 members was established after the Second World War to maintain international peace and security.

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However, due to a flawed design, Russia  — as a permanent member of the Security Council — can veto any resolution that UN members might bring forward.

That includes resolutions to intercede in the Ukraine war. North Korea reportedly intends to send military engineers to help Russia rebuild the captured areas of the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

I pray that the NK engineers will not be used in combat because NATO would have to respond in a like manner that possibly could result in a cataclysmic nuclear war.

Peter Middlemore Sr., Windsor, Ont.

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