Hi Nick and thanks for your latest blog. Nuclear power is such a controversial issue I'm not surprised it's provoked a strong response from your followers.

The thorny issue must be of particular interest to you and your compatriots considering how close you live to Chernobyl (notice the correct spelling in English!) The prospect of such a terrible disaster happening again, even if remote, must be very troubling.

It is possible to see Sellafield, one of Britain's nuclear power stations, from the top of England's tallest mountain. I've always found the contrast of the beautiful and serene mountain landscape with the awsome power of nuclear energy rather strange.

Essay Writing

*Dictionary online*
- You just type new words and see their meaning.

You put forward your argument very clearly and use some nice expressions in the process. I was particularly impressed with:

Our leaders seem to have forgotten the lessons of the past.

I also liked this for the way you present both sides of the debate in a concise fashion here:

The thing is controversial by nature. Yes, nuclear energy is really cheap, but it might be also really expensive in terms of ecology.

Once again there are a few problems with the use of articles (a, an, the). I've decided to set you a challenge! I'd like you, and your followers, to correct the following sentence from your blog.

...if examined closely nuclear power plant seems to even tighten embrace of our "big brother" (that's how is Russia sometimes called in Belarus). Why? Simple: we get workforce to build and support power plant, money to build it and nuclear fuel from Russia...

There are a number of article errors here. To help you find them, here are some links to programmes we at bbclearningenglish.com have made on the subject the definite article and the indefinite article. Good luck!

To end, I'd like to say well done to Corinna who got all my weather idioms correct last time!

Vocabulary

thorny issue: a question which is difficult to deal with.
compatriots: people from the same country as you.
troubling: worrying.
serene: peaceful.
awesome: very large or great.

By Neil Edgeller