Is Anthony Reeve really determined to prove that he knows nothing about electricity supply (Review letters July 22)?

His last letter offered a string of factual errors: the station at Three Mile Island (he calls it "Five Mile Island") didn't "foul the atmosphere" with "dangerous radiation", this was retained safely in the massive reinforced concrete containment forming part of PWR design; Windscale didn't suffer "a blow-out", it had a graphite fire; and following the disaster at Chernobyl (which had no containment), nuclear radiation from the Ukraine didn't "miss everywhere else and contaminate North Wales", the fall-out was measured over much of Europe and beyond – our government didn't use Chernobyl to cover up "yet another blow-out from Sellafield".

He went on to repeat his belief that one day so much solar electricity could be generated in the UK that we'd have no need for any other form of generation. He seems unaware of the sheer scale of 24 hour demand by industries which do not generate electricity themselves, of the enormous areas of photovoltaic panelling which they would need to erect even if panels with double their present efficiencies were developed, and of the huge cost implications of changing all their three-phase electrical equipment to direct current. He retains a touching faith that not only will such miracle panels be developed, but somehow they will also either work in the dark or will be able to store enough electricity to cover night-time demand.

It's impossible to undermine such faith, maybe built on a youth spent reading science fiction comics instead of paying attention during physics lessons. But surely, even without knowledge of elementary reliability theory, common sense should tell him that, rather than putting all your technological eggs in one basket, connecting the nation's various sources of electricity generation together with a transmission network provides us all with a more reliable supply and enables electricity users unable to generate their own with the energy to run their homes, industries and businesses.

His obsession with individual solar panels I could dismiss as the dreams of an eccentric. But I can't ignore his unworthy suggestion that I, or any of the many professional colleagues I've worked with in the aerospace, automotive and electricity industries, would tailor our technical comments so as to please whichever of our past companies operate our pension funds.

Whether or not the pension fund operators are even remotely aware, or interested, in what retired professional engineers have to say is immaterial. We study and qualify to be as expert and objective as possible in our work, and don't suddenly become PR lackeys on retirement. I would have hoped for the same standards from Mr Reeve.

– David Norman, Longhope.