<% ballot="" ' Check nothing is broken broken = 0 if ballot = "" then broken = 1 end if set vt = Server.Createobject("mps.Vote") openresult = vt.Open("Vote", "sa", "") ' Created object? if IsObject(vt) = TRUE then ' Opened db? if openresult = True AND broken = 0 then ballotresult = vt.SetBallotName(ballot) ' read the vote votetotal=(vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes")+vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no")) if votetotal <> 0 then ' there are votes in the database numberyes = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes") numberno = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no") percentyes = Int((numberyes/votetotal)*100) percentno = 100 - percentyes ' fix graph so funny graph heights dont appear 'if percentyes = 0 then ' percentyes = 1 'end if 'if percentno = 0 then ' percentno = 1 'end if else ' summut went wrong frig it numberyes = 0 numberno = 0 percentyes = 50 percentno = 50 end if end if end if %> Votes so far:

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			Yes: <% =percentyes %>%		No: <% =percentno %>%

Yes, close the place down. It should never have been there in the first place. Goodness knows how many problems have been caused by Dounreay. What about health problems and birth defects? Or are those figures manipulated on a "need to know" basis, like B.S.E?
Fiona Carson, Wales

Nuclear energy was and is a giant white elephant. It never made nor will make money - it's a huge waste of resources. During the cold war there was a need for weapons grade material, that is less of an issue now. Nuclear power should be consigned to the scrap heap of history - where unfortunately it will continue to be dangerous for thousands of years.
Adam, USA

I attended a meeting held in Thurso in the 50's at which Sir Christopher Hinton of AEC told the audience that Dounreay would cause the sun to rise over Caithness - how right he was - but not in the way he meant! Speakers at the meeting asked if it was to be such a safe enterprise how come it was not to be sited in England?
Dr H L Robertson, South Africa

I think that the Government has taken a brave step in the right direction. It has long been known that neuclear power is not the wonderful "new" and "clean" source of electricity that it was purported to be back in the 1950s. Neither has it led (as far as I can tell anyway) to cheaper electricity.
Richard Dyason, Australia (U.K. citizen)

Dounreay was an element in the wider nuclear cycle and, as such, it's a welcome sign of the drift away from non-renewable energy sources.
David Newton, UK

Dounreay has been winding down towards closure since the PFR reactor was taken off-line four years ago. It is only now being used to reprocess the fuel and waste from the reactors on site as the plan to become a commercial reprocessing plant became uneconomic. The closure was already happening for years. This announcment has been made to win public appeal after the recent unfortunate (non-health threatining) accidents came into the public knowledge. What these anti-nuclear protestors do not seem to understand is the basic science behind running a nuclear installation, it will take hundreds of years to make these sites safe and thousands of years to revert to how it was before they were built.
Stuart Blair-Watt, UK

Yes it's right to close it. From the very beginning, the nuclear industry hasn't been about electricity or atomic power - it's been about MONEY. A vital and viable coal industry was first crippled and then disassembled to clear the way for this new and dangerous technology. And from the word go, the problem has not been so much the dangers as who we could trust to protect us from those dangers. It's becoming obvious that between governments, business and vested interests, the general public can trust no-one in this matter. The whole industry is now revealed, at Dounreay and elsewhere, to be based on years of misinformation, cover-ups and downright incompetance. Dounreay isn't the worst of these places - it's just the one we've found out about - how much is there that we're not being told about the rest? A very great deal, I'm convinced. As it is, we're now past the point of no return, and the best the public can hope for is a new openness in approaching the problems of this industry. As a parting shot, let me remind people that if the this country had developed nuclear power in the Middle Ages, we'd STILL be guarding the waste.
John Luby, Scotland

It is time (overdue) for the world to get on with developing alternative energy sources. Nuclear had it's day and failed.
Larry D. Henderson, USA

The decision depends on the details of the safety assessment, not on one-liners like "its leaking like a sieve".
Peter Carter, USA

Whatever we may think of nuclear energy installations and whether we think the government is right or wrong to close Dounreay, surely the most important factors in determining a decision are it's economic viability and risk to the environment.
Steve Moore, England

The 'government' - what ever that means - has been decommissioning Douneray for years.
Edward Price, UK

This decision may or may not be a valid one, based solely on technical merit. The real problem is whether the government is going to close down further nuclear plants, potentially losing the country its most ecologically sound energy-producing power stations. (Note that no carbon dioxide is produced by nuclear power!)
Colin Rose, UK

I think that the government has taken a brave step in the right direction on this issue. It is about time that governments realised that nuclear power is not the "clean and safe" modern alternative to generating electricity. Neither do I think it is any more economical. It unfortunate however, that jobs are going to be lost.
Richard Dyason, Australia (U.K. citizen)

A few weeks ago it was the safest plant in the world, and now it has to be closed. The government were lying to us one of those times. Which time? Now we are living in a world with one fewer reprocessing plant, but we have just as much waste. They will find that they can't lie that away.
Jon Livesey, USA

Sounds like our image conscious government being blown around by the perception of public opinion again. Sort out proper management of the facility for sure, but there is nasty reprocessing work that still needs to be done, and the place is the lifeblood of those living in that remote part of Britain.
Elwin Tennant, UK

The government has taken an unexpected but very welcome step. The potential dnager of Dounreay was intolerable and could not go on. I don't care what the motivation was. I applaud the decision.
Keith Jones, UK

With or without these plants, the public loses out. But if I had to choose, I would say that it is better to have properly managed plants than to have the danger of waste going untreated or having to travel thousands of miles to plants in other countries in order to be treated. That would put more people to more risk.
Simon Carmichael, UK

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