The Triple Whammy
Scotland’s energy rip-off continues unabated, and its impact on Scotland is merciless. GB Energy is to put up a plaque on an office in Aberdeen whilst Scottish pensioners can’t afford to put on the heating. Oil continues to boost the UK coffers as a senior British business figure calls Scottish renewables “a golden ticket for UK growth”.
But as Scottish pensioners freeze, Scottish industry’s being devastated, and workers are being made redundant.
Despite worthless pre-election promises from Scottish Labour, and in the face of inaction from the SNP, the lights will soon go out on Grangemouth refinery, devastating central Scotland and leaving this land as the only major oil-producing nation lacking a refining capacity.
Worsening that, a redundancy process has started at Alexander Dennis Ltd in Camelon, makers of electric and hydrogen buses – just what should be springing from the renewable energy bounty, as industry and jobs boom in Scotland. But no. Instead, it’s very existence is threatened, and workers sent to join their Grangemouth neighbours on the dole.
This is the Great Energy Triple Whammy. Our natural resources are exploited, yet industry and jobs are lacking or leaving and the end product is unaffordable to many in the land that is blessed with it.
Grangemouth embodies that for oil, but now Alexander Dennis is filling the same role for renewables. On and off our shores turbines are turning and the opportunities are huge. It should be “a golden ticket” for Scotland. Cheap and clean energy enticing business, creating jobs, all as energy is affordable.
Westminster is exploiting us, but Holyrood is also failing us. When ScotWind was sold off for a song – not the billions obtained in the USA – we were told the jobs and benefit would come from the supply chain. But Methil and Arnish lie idle and the turbines going up are brought in from south of the border or abroad. In East Lothian where they’re visible on the hills and in the Forth there’s neither business springing up nor work coming in, and most other areas are similarly bereft.
Yet the opportunities are huge. With Scotland producing more energy than we have homes to use it, export and use for other purposes is sensible. But there’s neither revenue nor benefit coming. Battery storage ensures a continued supply even when the wind’s not blowing (though it almost always is). Green hydrogen is also coming. According to National Grid ESO, 100% of that product is going to come from Scotland.
At the same time industries are converting to using hydrogen. Ineos at the Grangemouth chemical site is doing so, as indeed is the Scotch whisky sector at numerous sites across the land. That’ll provide cheaper energy for the sites, but also allows access to the surfeit of the product produced for other sectors.
Green hydrogen offers huge opportunities not just for Scotland but the planet. Transport’s now the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas. Addressing that is essential. Electric and hydrogen-fuelled transport offer environmental benefits but also economic opportunities. It’s on our doorstep, it’s cheap to produce and it’s clean. It should afford cheaper transportation for the community, vital in so many parts whether urban or rural. But it should also offer opportunities for Scottish business to benefit and Scottish workers to gain skilled employment.
Yet what we’ve seen in oil and with turbine production is now being seen in the offspring of the renewable bounty. As I said in a parliamentary debate a few months ago, we were promised a Brexit Bonus which was plastered on the side of a bus, but it wasn’t meant to be that the bus would be built in China and the benefit go there while P45s were being issued on our own doorstep. But that’s what’s happening.
Alexander Dennis is one of three major UK manufacturers of electric and hydrogen buses. But it’s also sited where the renewable bounty is springing from. They make a mixture of electric and hydrogen buses offering options and choices not simply in size and chassis but engine technology. Their buses are already visible on our roads and have been for many years. The work they provide is vital and the skills have been nurtured and passed down through generations.
But what’s happening with bus orders? In 2020 the UK Government promised 4,000 “beautiful, British-built buses” which were to be “cleaner, greener, quieter, safer and more frequent”. There’s almost 40,000 buses on our road and only about 3,000 are zero emission so there’s work to be done but where? What’s the reality?
UK government schemes pledged £312 million to fund the purchase of 2,270 buses but shamefully 46% of those 2,270 buses will be manufactured outside the UK, mainly in China.
Scotland was marginally better. But since then, Alexander Dennis has announced 160 redundancies. Yet City Link boasted of buying electric buses from China and Lothian Buses are procuring theirs from Volvo in Sweden (also Chinese owned).
This isn’t just a slap in the face to the workers and manufacturers in this country, it jeopardises their very existence, and in an area where they are already not only skilled but leading in the technology. Any loss would not just be in orders but in the possibility of production.
How absurd to take action to reduce emissions on our roads and yet massively increase them on the high seas. It’s environmental as well as economic nonsense. It’s suggested that the Chinese buses are significantly cheaper. But how’s that achieved and how’s it calculated? Is consideration given to the social and economic costs of factory closures? Or to the loss of skills and technology? I welcome Chinese investment. But I don’t want Scotland flooded with cheap Chinese buses at the expense of our indigenous manufacturing base.
The renewable bounty or golden ticket must also be for Alexander Dennis, its workforce and Scotland. Business should be booming, skilled work increasing, and transport and its cost being transformed. Instead, it’s a triple whammy. Energy rich, yet fuel poor. A resource to be exploited yet our environment and economy trashed. Independence has never been more needed.
It’s a bugger innit.
Stuart Campbell said
“Cheap Chinese buses at the expense of our indigenous manufacturing base.”
It is the first time I have seen you raise the INDIGENOUS wording are you now turning into a blood and soil moonhowling nativist
Unfortunately like all your posts you are entirely correct BUT ALL our MISERY is being caused by WORTHLESS fucking politicians of ALL parties NOT doing their job and protecting SCOTLAND and SCOTS
The ONLY people who will do that are SOVEREIGN SCOTS and the only genuine, honest people with integrity who will fight to the bitter end for the sake of their fellow Scots and Scotland are within SALVO,SSRG,and Liberation.Scot
Are you there yet Stuart, research, join,promote, YOUR experience,passion,knowledge,fighting spirit,investigative journalistic integrity would be a massive boost to the cause of independence
Scotland will continue to go into decline – until we exit this illegal union – and to do that we must remove the gatekeepers to the union – the treacherous House Jock politicians at Holyrood.
Removing the House Jocks is the key.
Well Kenny you’re equally to blame for the demise of Scotland as all the other politicians. Utterly incompetent at all they do whatever the colour of their party. The hot air that has come out since devolution could have had us running every heating source in the country. Everyone of you should hold your heads in shame. Ed Miliband will put the final nail into Scotland very soon and not one of you in the Scottish Parliament will do a thing about it and you know it.
Twathater
The article is written by Kenny MacAskill.
Republicofscotland @ 2:30 pm
“Removing the House Jocks is the key.”
Yes that is part of the remedy RoS; however the decolonization (i.e. independence) of all plundered and dominated peoples requires the removal of the colonizer and his culture. true liberation of ‘a people’ also requires the end of colonial assimilation procedures, i.e. imposing the desire or need for the native to become like the colonizer, even assuming his identity.
Our nationalist leaders have to focus less on the effects endured, as noted in Kenny’s fine article, and instead inform the people about the fundamental cause of their ongoing wretchedness – which is colonialism:
https://salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/THEORETICAL+CASE+FOR+SCOTTISH+INDEPENDENCE.pdf
There’s no arguing with what you say, Kenny, But isn’t having your natural resources plundered by a foreign state normally referred to as colonisation? The people really ought to be told, don’t you think?
Antoine Roquentin @ 3:09 pm
“There’s no arguing with what you say, Kenny, But isn’t having your natural resources plundered by a foreign state normally referred to as colonisation? The people really ought to be told, don’t you think?”
Yes, the nation’s political leaders need to explain the root cause of our nation’s ‘condition’ which is colonialism, the only remedy for which is decolonization (i.e. independence) and hence liberation. What is taking them so long?
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/the-real-economic-price-of-the-uk-union-for-scots/
Cut off Scotland’s oil at source, and suddenly Grangemouth needs rapid expansion to cope with demand, while the rest of the UK mulls over the wisdom of building 5 refineries with no oil of its own to refine.
Cut off Scotland’s electricity supply at source, and Scotland can enjoys a surplus in clean renewable energy to heat our homes cheaply, invest in Hydrogen research, selling our surplus to the highest bidder, while Westminster mulls over the wisdom of ripping Scotland off for decades and extorting billions using the National Grid racket.
Introduce Scottish immigration controls comparable to the points system which regulates immigration to Australia and Canada, where immigrants are required to meet appropriate criteria; age, employment, skills, an income and a job. Simple parity with International precedents and societal / cultural safeguards will suffice.
There’s my triple whammy back to Westminster, on the volley.
Claim of Right is Top Trump baby.
Ask Mr. MacAskill what conversations I had with him about creating hydrogen at cockenzie using the offshore cable making landfall at the newly built substation. Specifically referenced Alex Dennis and their hydrogen designed buses. Free public transport in Scotland. The site is literally on the east coast mainline for tanked exports to fuel buses and trains across Scotland. Convert to ship fuel and offer offshore refuelling for north sea shipping. It’s all there. Its not rocket science but from where I sit, all very depressing and predictable.
@ Twathater
It wasn’t ‘Stuart Campbell’ that said “indigenous”….
Look again.
What jobs do you think renewable energy ergy creates? All the investment is in the capital to put the turbines up – there’s then a minimal amount of maintenance so it’ is an industry with minimal ongoing jobs. When we were in the EU,the manufacturing routinely went yo forgers in Eastern Europe,so even the capital works didn’t benefit Scotland.
I don’t begrudge them that – those were/are the procurement rules. Britain is just a higher wage economy generally so manufacturing is always a challenge
If you want cheap hydrogen, you need nuclear to basically be sat there electrolyse water constantly. I think this would be great, but ScotGov are not willing to deal with practicalities so insist that wind can do it all. It can’t.
To achieve the best for the country is to decide,to stand up to those on your own side who you covet because they support our common constitutional cause. But they don’t. This is their weakness, this is their fault, and they are our undoing
Alex Neil on recent Through a Scottish Prism (A budget in Dire Straits 2 weeks ago) had some good ideas about correcting some of the Scotwind disaster. The real issue for me is WHY on Earth the Scottish government thought a Dutch Auction was a good idea and HOW did none of them look at the contract T&Cs and think WTAF, it could only be worse if they got the Scot Gov to pay the bidders. You don’t need to be an expert negotiator to have realised they were practically giving it away.
I actually think those responsible should be charged, they have allowed Scotland to be robbed.
@ twathater at 2.28
The article is by Kenny MacAskill, not Stuart Campbell.
Breeks
What are you on about? The UK hadn’t built any refineries and has no say over Grangemouth. These are PRIVATE companies- market forces and local attitudes (I.e. ScotGov antagonism to oil) are why it is closing
Not everything is some plot orchestrated in Westminster
Twather 2.28
Spot on correct.
Come on Stu, please bin Alba they are part of the problem these days. Salvo and Liberation need you.
The Salvo website is being redesigned. Salvo has thousands of members, elected committee members, is not a political party. They are the policy arm of a liberation movement.
Please Stewart. Come and work with us for Scotland.
It’s a first class article from Kenny MacAskill. There really is almost nothing in it to be argued with.
And yet.
“Addressing that [climate change] is essential”.
I couldn’t disagree more. Climate change is the con trick the rest of the world is using to beat down the west. Until we are prepared to say fuck climate change, we’ll look after ourselves first, Scotland isn’t going to be able to buck the trend of de-industrialisation and energy impoverishment.
Until the day comes that more Scots die from the heat than the cold, we should be drilling for oil and gas, digging out our coal, and exploiting our peat reserves.
No way should we be exporting our jobs offshore to countries heavily reliant on fossil fuels for their manufacturing industries, such as China and India.
Ah, but, somebody will say – if we were independent we would sort all that out.
Would we though? The pro-Indy politicians seem to be even more captured by the climate change con than the rest. Even Kenny is not immune.
And much as Indy wants to make a fuss about Grangemouth, it’s the pro-Indy regime at HR, SNP and Green, that decided to virtue-signal on the world stage by fast-tracking Scotland to Nett Zero ahead of the rest of the UK.
Alba has been a damp squib so far. Maybe it’s time for Alba to come up with some revolutionary policies. Dump Nett Zero. Exploit the oil and gas. Re-open some pits. Allow Scots who have for centuries heated their homes with peat to continue to do so. I can’t believe I’m the only one who would vote for this.
As for wind power, forget it. It’s only a contender because of all the subsidies that have been thrown at it. It’s the primary cause of people’s eye-watering energy bills now, and will continue to be in the future. The so-called battery-based solution to wind’s unreliability puts us at the mercy of China, which has a stranglehold on the necessary minerals to make the batteries.
Sorry, but I see no possibility of a resurgent Indy support if all that is on offer after Indy are the same policies that are already impoverishing people.
Went for a bike ride there – down strathy park there are anglo s3ttlers killing and eating the ducks and geese from the loch; you can spot them for they have a little mouth inside their big mouth and it comes out and snaps to bite you.
Farage, the anglo queen is claiming their culture is threatened by zodiacs full of Predators, and that we need more human hosts (Scots) for the facehuggers. Because that will bring “growth” and get angland on its feet, to recover from the abject failure of only despoiling a quarter of the globe and only killing 100million or so – this time, we do it right. 100% completion, or nothing, like playing Grand Theft Auto.
The trans anglien community are also lobbying for conversion surgery on the NHS, penises slashed up, sewn up and transplanted into little mouths. Hormones to turn the blood into acid, and glued on skullplates.
And don’t be racist now, both aliens and predators are NEW SCOTS, for we are all Jock McTamsons bairns, but what size is his living room and who ate all the food in the fridge, even my quinoa which was clearly labelled with my name on it …
Will the SNP be asking the members of the electorate who have a car if they approve the price increases at the pumps that will take place to cover the cost of transporting fuel being refined elsewhere and transported and the profits of the owner being invested in Man United
@ Glen 3.35pm Believe it or not Glen I did check the top line and who posted the article before I commented and I can assure you it was headed as Stuart Campbell
Irrespective of the named poster Stuart would have to be in agreement with the sentiments of the article otherwise he wouldn’t allow the article, but I still believe it is fucking politicians who are betraying us daily irrespective of party allegiance
I would also say that Kenny has been a politician for a number of years and the examples he gives are current but this has been going on for centuries and decades and unfortunately Kenny just seems to be noticing and waking up
What happened to all the years Kenny attended WM
@Breeks 3:29
[sigh]
You and whose army, navy and Air Force?
Are you ever going to get real?
At the first sniff of a hint that the legitimate owners of the offshore energy infrastructure are going to be “cut off at source”, they’ll be militarised faster than you can say “ochone”.
The current owners of all that equipment, licenses, etc are the legitimate owners under Scottish and English law, international law, EU law, UN law, and every other law you can think of. Any challenge under the Claim Of Right ancient guff would be met by lawyers with unlimited funds to draw on.
Besides, if there was any mileage whatsoever in the Claim Of Right, some chancer would have long since had a shot at it. Trillions of USD to play for – it makes the Legend of Eldorado look like loose change in comparison!
Get a grip, man.
A potential addition to the litany of catastrophic endeavours undertaken by the Scottish Government is the outrageous handover of Hydrogen generation to Norwegian utilities giant Equinor and the baffling positioning of Angus Robertson as the lead on this bourach.
Robin McAlpine has addressed some of the political and financial aspects of this disastrous contract in his Blog (12th Nov. 2023). Beyond the issues discussed by Robin, a number of specific points concern me.
* How Angus Robertson, Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture came to “own” this project. The seeming “best fit” would be Gillian Martin, Minister for Energy and the Environment. Note: Gillian Martin actually has a pre-politics background in the Energy sector.
* The absence of a specific, dedicated Industry brief in the Government.
* The technical risks associated with this innovative enterprise.
In précis, it appears Equinor will own and operate hydrogen generating facilities on Scottish soil, transport the product and “sell this” to Germany. It seems highly unlikely that the Hydrogen actually reaches Germany, just as English water customers in London can “buy water” from Wales or Northumbria. Certainly, Equinor have access to gas interconnectors and could in theory send the Hydrogen on an irreversible journey Eastward.
In practice, what is likely, actually being sold to Germany is thermal generating capacity expresses in calorific value.
This is a crucial point as we proceed to consider unknown, technical consequences and the risks associated with them.
As Hydrogen generating capacity is variable (dependent on availability of surplus to requirement electricity), the Hydrogen is presumably added to existing Natural gas (CH4) pipelines as a variable “supplement”.
This is what is being proposed by UK utilities for domestic heating, with the maximum rate of “supplement” being 20%. “Supplement” is perhaps misleading as Hydrogen has less than one third of the calorific value (325 Btu / ft3) compared with Natural gas (1011 Btu / ft3). At maximum substitution, this equates to a delivered calorific value of 874 Btu / ft3.
For domestic supply, this seems reasonable. The burner nozzles on gas boilers are fixed and 20% substitution is the maximum possible before serious issues arise. Basically, your central heating and hot water will continue to function, it’ll just take longer.
The last time we undertook a similar project was in the early 1970’s when we transitioned from Town gas (c. 574 Btu / ft3) to North Sea gas. This required the replacement of burner nozzles in domestic appliances.
The issues arise with industrial consumers. Industrial processes are highly sensitive and demand precise calorific values per unit time or unit raw material. To overcome this, industrial burner systems will require in-line measurement of delivered, calorific value with subsequent adjustment of volumes of gas delivered to the burner (to achieve the desired output). Also likely required will be, additional volumetric metering and new burner units, all of which come with a substantial capital cost.
Fine-and-dandy, except some processes such as glass making are not strictly dependent on calorific value. The transfer of heat to glass in a furnace is according to all established industrial understanding a function of the luminosity of the flame. Flame luminescence is a function of the cracking of Carbon bonds. As no Carbon bonds exist with the “supplemental” Hydrogen, the addition of Hydrogen (after increasing the volume of gas delivered to the burner) is likely not positive or even neutral, it’s likely unavoidably detrimental (for reasons it would take a great deal of time to explain).
The uncertainty here is due to the experimental nature of what is being proposed at an industrial scale. While trials may have been conducted at laboratory, bench-top scale, introducing innovative fuel gas mixes on live plant will be avoided at all costs by industry due to potential, catastrophic consequences measured in many millions of Pounds per production facility.
With uncertainty comes risk and risk must be absorbed by one or more parties in terms of potential financial liability.
The solution would be to take the processes that are detrimentally affected and replace them with electrically powered alternatives. Not quite the same issue, but the coke fuelled Blast furnaces at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe are being replaced by electric furnaces with a government subsidy of £500m per site.
In part due to our drinks sector, Scotland’s inventory of glass plants includes the world’s largest container glass furnace at Alloa.
This would provide an excellent base load (24/7) for renewable electricity generation and would therefore reduce the potential to generate “Green” hydrogen in the first place.
Presumably the negotiating team at Equinor were fully aware of the technical complexities of this project. I doubt the same could be said for anyone on the Scottish Government side of the table. Politicians and senior Civil Servants are almost invariably humanities graduates. Even if qualified scientists and engineers are hired in, there’s no reason to assume the “decision makers” have the slightest understanding of what they are agreeing to (as we learned with regard to Boris Johnson and Covid).
One thing we can assume with a degree of confidence is that the details of the contract are drawn to indemnify Equinor, and the burden of risk will lie firmly at the feet of the Scottish Government.
Take a bow Angus Robertson, another planned disaster to add to the list.
Are we bringing all this on ourselves? It seems very like it. They operate in daylight now, in plain sight, raping and pillaging, consuming everything in their path and grasp, like locusts. Yet here we sit, on our hands, too wee, too poor – and getting poorer, and way too stupid to stand up and be counted. The Net Zero nonsense is really the final straw, primary school economics, or is that the closure of our only refinery. When will we all wake-up. As for Kenny, well top bloke, but surely pissing in the wind. Solutions? This seems more like scorched earth and we are standing by, watching them do it. One day there must be an accounting, for all the house jock useful idiots that helped enable this.
@twatbynametwatbynature 2.28pm
It is the first time I have seen you raise the INDIGENOUS wording are you now turning into a blood and soil moonhowling nativist
Unfortunately like all your posts you are entirely correct BUT ALL our MISERY is being caused by WORTHLESS fucking politicians of ALL parties NOT doing their job and protecting SCOTLAND and SCOTS
The ONLY people who will do that are SOVEREIGN SCOTS and the only genuine, honest people with integrity who will fight to the bitter end for the sake of their fellow Scots and Scotland are within SALVO,SSRG,and Liberation.Scot
Are you there yet Stuart, research, join,promote, YOUR experience,passion,knowledge,fighting spirit,investigative journalistic integrity would be a massive boost to the cause of independence.
But wait….Rev Stu is on record for scorning blood and soil nativism and the Brigadoon fantasy of franchise restriction. He’s also roundly condemned those – which includes many of the usual suspects in here, because, …of course – who disparage the use of plebiscitary elections.
So which is it twatbyname? Is Rev Stu entirely correct like all his posts? You can’t have it both ways surely? 🙂
If Scotland was independent, would we suddenly be able to manufacture buses cheaper than Sweden or China? I hope so, but I’m not too sure.
I agree we’re being robbed blind
We need to state our sovereignty now
The English government that sits at WM has no right to steal our resources.
I also agree, Net Zero, man made Climate change is a scam.
You need to listen to independent scientists on this one, Kenny, not those employed by the WEF.
Will Scots ever rise up?
Consoling myself that Labour are making such an a**e of government robbing pensioners blind and Scottish Labour MPs accquescient voters will return to SNP in their droves 2026
@Andy Anderson 3.53pm
How exactly are Salvo et al going to bring independence about?
What is they will do in concrete terms that political parties like Alba or gaining a majority of votes in plebiscitary election won’t?
Or are they just a “ginger group” to encourage folk to vote for parties that WILL deliver independence? Some of the folk in here seem convinced they’re an alternative and are keen to talk Alba & others down? Is that really the purpose?
And we now have the Rev Stu’s own haemorrhoid sucking gollum Andy white flight Ellis demanding that we refrain from questioning HIS messianic majesty Stu’s opinions or beliefs
Andy you should have just copied and pasted Stu’s articles and opinions on to your failed website blog maybe then somebody would pay you some attention, otherwise fuck off GOLLUM
Breeks @3.29pm.
This is exactly why Scotland needs its own military forces – right now we are open to any actions that the English government – in a military sense, wishes to do to, or, in Scotland – dissolving this illegal union will not come via the ballot box – England just cannot afford to let us go – its a simple as that.
The English parliament carries too much sway in Brussels – with the likes of the EU and the UN – we’ll get no real help there – even less now that the West is at war – and its also the backing G–eno-ci-de in G–az–z–a. Add in that the USA would move heaven and earth – to keep Scotland tied to this illegal union – if only for security reasons.
We need to reach out to powerful friends abroad – who if not, have our interests at heart – at least have a desire to weaken their own enemies – we could use this to our advantage to rid us of English tyranny, and the House Jocks that do their bidding in Scotland.
After David Cameron agreed to a indyref and No almost lost – they got such a fright – that they might loose their colony up North and all that goes with it – that another indyref will never ever come about.
The Irish knew – that it would need to take action to throw off its English yoke – and they did – sadly Scots are not the Irish (no ancestry jokes please) and it shows.
Izzi @ 5.30 pm are you back trolling again Izzi would you not be better off going on to PayPal paul’s site where you can be comforted by the other apologists and sycophants who cannot bare to see the corruption and trea son the Scum Nonce Party have presided over
@twatbynametwatbynature 5.56pm
So no actual answer then? Stun us wi’ another, imagine the surprise etc. Seems like I touched a wee nerve there twatbyname? Or is it just that your second brain cell momentarily collided with the first.
You’re the one begging Stu to fluff for your failed Brigadoon fantasy of achieving independence via a cunning plan. It’s hardly outlandish to point out that Stu thinks – from all the public prouncements we’ve seen – that your plans are a bit, well….pants.
Get back to us when you have an answer. We’ll wait.
I think I can hear the sound of gears grinding and smell the smoke….
@ Liz
” I also agree, Net Zero, man made Climate change is a scam.
You need to listen to independent scientists on this one, Kenny, not those employed by the WEF. ”
Absolutely .
As long as people are in thrall to the Great Lie , ie that there’s such a thing as a ” Climate Crisis/Emergency/Imminent Apocalypse ” there’s ( Net ) zero possibility of rationality or balance on the subject of Energy and it’s production & distribution . Our bills will just keep getting higher and our freedoms lower .
There’s an excellent documentary on Youtube called Climate : The Movie that debunks all the junk * Science * , risible Modelling , Funding scams and ludicrous ( and lucrative – for some ) Alarmism that characterises the entire issue .
As some of the highly qualified * dissident * experts – inc one Nobel Laureate – say , there is no such thing as ” settled Science ” on this subject – or any other : the term is oxymoronic .
What’s being forced down our throats there is an utterly bogus ” consensus ” that ( like * Covid * ) is only arrived by the total exclusion , cancelling , silencing of any opinion contradicts this ” consensus ” , however credible ; and this kid-on consensus is being used to bludgeon us all into impoverished compliance .
Kenny has failed to mention the biggest injustice of all when it comes to renewable energy and Scotland. He omits to say that, for as long as he and others aspire for Scotland to be a leading exporter or renewable energy, ordinary people and communities in the Highlands (and indeed other parts of rural Scotland) are going to pay the real price, which is a trashed environment, ruined landscapes, degraded wildlife, destroyed cultural heritage, and a much-diminished quality of life generally.
In our particular area of the Highlands threatened by the monster Spittal-Beauly 400kV overhead line, we are looking at wholesale felling of woodlands important to people and wildlife (in order to create the 80m-wide wayleave corridors the line requires not just at installation but forever); the trashing of important archaeological, historical and cultural sites and landscapes; the removal of flourishing woodland regeneration and disruption to species such as woodcock, cuckoos, ravens, skylarks etc; threats to the future of local tourism businesses; and noise and upheaval on a massive scale. And after the line is in place, there will be tsunami of applications for more wind factories, BESS etc as speculators eye up the chance of further fast bucks. And the current proposed massive overhead line is unlikely to to be the only one, as there are larger still grid upgrade targets to reach by 2050 which will require huge new infrastructure developments.
This is not to mention, an additional loss, for the people living closest to the new infrastructure – the substantial reduction of the value of what is the main (or even only) capital asset which most people have ie their home. In the Highlands, we are already seeing the values of homes near to proposed mega pylons, substations etc fall significantly and research suggests that homes close to major infrastructure might plummet in value by up to 40%. That’s 40% of a family’s assets (probably still mortgaged), lost to current and future generations of families. Paltry ‘community benefits’, or 10-year reductions to electricity bills for people living closest to pylons, will come nowhere near to replacing what these families will lose.
Nor are the people living closest to the infrastructure the only ones to suffer. Many of the areas under threat from these developments are the holiday destinations of Scottish city-dwellers and people from the rest of the UK and further afield who value the opportunity to escape to a clean, comparatively unspoilt environment where they can relax, de-stress and nurture their physical and mental wellbeing. Spittal-Beauly’s 60m high pylons, 120-acre substations emitting what is now known up here as the ‘Beauly buzz’, and massive wind factories with 200m high turbines are not conducive to wellbeing in any way.
Kenny rightly recognises at the end of his piece that our environment is being trashed. But he fails to answer the real question: do we really want to industrialise large tracts of Scotland to make a few quid (and mainly for overseas investors, it appears)?
Or could it really be that we should be looking instead at achieving sustainable, community-owned, renewable energy generation and transmission systems developed to meet local needs for energy, and not to feed the ever-increasing consumption of all kinds which is actually what lies at the foundations of our current problems nationally and internationally. We should be finding truly sustainable ways to live, and preserving and cherishing our precious landscape, wildlife, heritage and way of life, not selling it out.
Trashing the planet to save the planet? Aye right, Kenny. But it’s not too late for you to realise that there is another way. In the Highlands we sincerely hope that this message gets through not just to Kenny but to other politicians.
Because otherwise the effects on our communities, land and way of life will compare in many ways to the effects of the Highland Clearances – wholesale exploitation of the Highlands by outsiders just under a new guise.
Twathater@ 6.05 I am nearly 80and don’t know what you mean by trolling. Would appreciate an explanation. I only wanted to widen the debate and genuinely want to understand why our movement is fractured.
It’s back *sigh*, the return of Franchise fanny.
Divert, distract, confuse, rinse, repeat.
You probably won’t read this post Jock but I’m going to write it anyway because it makes me feel better.
If your question was directed at NO voters I would say yes they brought this all upon themselves.
I take absolutely no responsibility for what’s happening in Scotland. I did not vote for any of it.
I am fully awake and have been since 2011. Do I believe Scotland should be an independent country and not a colony. Yes I do. It seems insane to hand over the running of your country to another country.
You say we should stand up and be counted but my problem with that is I do not know how & where I should stand up and be counted.
First I’m told vote SNP then they need to be ‘consigned to the dustbin of history’, then Alba was the way to now they they need to be binned and we should go with Salvo.
Nobody needs to spend time trying to waken me up. Honest I am fully awake and now that I’ve taken to watching BBC News 24 I’ve going to be awake to everything that is going in the whole wide world.
I know everything that went on at the Labour Conference all thanks to BBC News 24.
I still don’t know what is going on with Oscar Pistorius but I’m now wondering if the picture they flashed up was maybe Ben MacPherson and not Oscar Pistorius.
I doubt it thought because BBC News 24 don’t do Scotland.
Even if I am spending my time watching BBC News 24 I will still be wide awake waiting for news on how and where I can stand up and be counted.
Don’t worry I won’t be joining in the discussion about all the wars. I don’t even know who Hezbollah are or any of the rest of them which I won’t mention by name as I get enough ‘moderation’ thank you very much.
I’d haud on the busses, Kenny.
I doubt we’ll even see those.
I hear the Anglos want a war (When don’t they?) The green eyed monster is already coveting China & the colonisers are miffed they’re just far more advanced than they are.
I can guess what the plan is. GB energy & other such offshoots will be jobs for English s*ttl*rs which will also tie in nicely with all Scottish elections & any future referendum.
Decolonisation is the place to head too. Political parties arguing in Westminster achieves absolutely nothing. You aren’t dealing with honest brokers. Your dealing with thieves & liars who will never let their cash cow, & their meal ticket, just walk out. Never going to happen unless external pressure is sought.
“I agree we’re being robbed blind
We need to state our sovereignty now”
Liz.
Where do you suspect a leader, who will do, WHAT IT TAKES to ditch this illegal union will come from?
Certainly not Holyrood – that’s for sure – there’s only Ash Reagan -who backs indy, and she, and her party doesn’t have what it will take to break free of this wretched predicament – Scots have grown accustom to. The other parties are okay with the status quo – though I suspect that the London Tory branch office in Scotland would love nothing more than to see the dissolving of Holyrood.
Independence won’t come from Holyrood – it will come from the streets of Scotland – if Scots can wake the f*ck-up, and see that the country is treated as a colony and robbed blind – then action can be taken – that’s not to say that some smaller groups can’t mobilise right now.
Twathater
Gollum LMAO!
Myyyyy precious..
Always looking for a ring to kiss.. lol
Izzie @ 6:23 pm
“genuinely want to understand why our movement is fractured”
The rupturing of an independence movement is a common feature in the decolonization process, as explained here, and as demonstrated in the Scottish case:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/05/25/the-three-phases-of-decolonization-lessons-for-scotland/
Apologies, off topic.
Watched the film network debut of the Last Duel yesterday evening.
Quite a film.
One eye raising part was that female claiming to be victims of rape, if deemed by the legal then archaic trial by combat mores of the time, to have given false testimony in the matter then they would be burnt at the stake!
Wonder how the alphabetties feel watching this and all its implications ..
Interesting to see Thatcherism still being believed in – the cheapest is not the best – the cheapest if manufactured in another economy removes purchasing power.
Hi Rev,
Sorry to read that you got bit by the green bug!
So CHEAP & CLEAN ENERGY from wind ‘turbines’ don’t make me laugh, each turbine costs about £2 MILLION & will generate about £2.5 MILLION during it’s lifespan which includes replacing the blades every 5 years (MAX) and the whole unit every 10 yrs, where does the blades go LANDFILL along with the casings & all the artificial rubber gaskets.
then there’s the coolants usually a nasty little chemical called SF6 which is 26,000 times more damaging to the ozone than CO2, IF they don’t use this then they get half the power from twice as many ‘turbines’ so that half a mill goes out the window.
SO WHY ARE THEY STILL BUILDING THEM…SUBSIDIES OFCOURSE ALONG WITH GREEN WASHING!
Molesworth @ 5:17 pm
“If Scotland was independent, would we suddenly be able to manufacture buses cheaper than Sweden or China? I hope so, but I’m not too sure.”
Yes we would. Norway and the relatively few other fortunate oil and energy rich nations each have very low electricity prices, i.e. they are at most a quarter of ours and often much less than that, with several close to zero. Scotland has the highest electricity costs in Europe which makes us uncompetitive to manufacture anything. We also have the lowest GDP in NW Europe, whereas as an independent nation we would have one of the highest GDP.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/04/18/the-realities-of-an-energy-rich-scotland-plundered-under-colonial-rule/
The ‘union’ (i.e. colonialism) is therefore costing Scots at least £150 billion per annum on any reasonable resource-based GDP comparison with near neighbour states, and that is excluding the opportunity cost of what we could be doing with control over our own land and resources:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/the-real-economic-price-of-the-uk-union-for-scots/
Maybe Rev Stu should consider re-publishing some of this important research?
@Republicofscooby says: 22 September, 2024 at 6:00 pm
right now we are open to any actions that the English government – in a military sense, wishes to do to, or, in Scotland
Woo hoo, so they have humour (or maybe irony) in the scooby republic.
The boy fae scooby is never done cheering on the “right” of colonialist, aggressive militarist imperiums to destroy former colonies who dare to want Independence.
But suddenly he’s noticed where that leaves our Scotland (not his “scotland”, but never mind that).
Ah well, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner etc. etc.
You have repented, eh scooby boy? Or will it be back to business as usual tomorrow with another paean in praise of Pres P?
G–eno-ci-de
We don’t hear that one much these days – not since they started vaccinating the kids, and it was publicised that neither side now wants a cease fire.
Alf Baird @ 7.18
Appreciate the link thank you.
@Izzie says: 22 September, 2024 at 6:23 pm
don’t know what you mean by trolling
On here, trolling is the expression of a view or opinion the usual suspects can’t understand.
As it happens, I’m minded to agree with your earlier post. 2026 is a long way away, and Labour will be well out of favour by then. So the chances of an SNP comeback at HR seem plausibly feasible to me.
The trick will be to get all the court cases done and dusted soon, all the compensation payments issued, and a few scapegoats put on the naughty step for a year or so. Then the claims of having learned lessons and moved on will be lapped up by the apolitical, apathetic Scottish electorate.
“Vote for us to keep out Reform” will rally any waverers.
@Alf Baird says: 22 September, 2024 at 7:43 pm
with several close to zero
Sure, and they don’t manufacture anything either.
What you insist on doing, Alf, is taking complex multi-variable equations, and changing the value of one variable, whilst insisting that none of the other variables will change as a result.
Great, you fool some of those on here, but you don’t fool me.
I’m going to increase my personal wealth ten-fold tomorrow. How? I’m going to take the wealth of my five neighbours on either side. As long as nothing else changes, I’ll be quids in.
Of course, in the real world, my actions will have consequences, some of them severe. And I won’t come out of it better off.
But in your world, England, with ten times the population, will sit meekly by and let Scotland use the infrastructure they’re paying for to provide us Scots with energy “too cheap to meter”.
Ha bloody ha.
This feels just like the late 70s and 80s all over again. Scotland literally dripping with oil, left penniless whilst the asset is strolen by England and money raised invested down there. Ever wonder how they afforded the M25 round London – Scottish oil revenue. Or what about the Channel Tunnel, only ever beneficial to the South East of England – Scottish oil revenue.
In the late 70s and 80s, barrels and barrels of oil, every minute were being extracted in Scotland, yet NONE of the revenue raised stayed in Scotland, it all went to London, to be spent as English MPs decided.
Now, here we are in 2024, blessed with vast renewable potential, yet the very people tasked with protecting us – the SNP Scottish government – are doing England’s dirty work. AND, to make matter worse, England is yet again stealing ALL our natural resources, whilst simultaneously ensuring the demise of Scottish industry and manufacturing. They stole our oil, now they steal our electricity, soon they will start stealing our water.
And Lothian buses buying from China instead of our very own Scottish bus manufacturing plant just literally twenty minutes up the road from Edinburgh. WTF?
It is a total f***ing disgrace! And the SNP do nothing, or even worse, actively collude.
Whats up Kenny The House Jock, you cannot have just realised this, you have watched it like a slow train wreck your whole political life while every time you were elected to stop it the first thing you did was to swear an oath to a foreign queen and country, our colonisers. How much silver have you taken over that time you fucking weasel ("Tractor" - Ed), go rot in hell with the rest of the house jock bastards.
In a decade or two, perhaps sooner, cool kids will be wearing t-shirts with iconic ‘Che’-style images of Ibrahim Traore, the current military leader of Burkina Faso.
The guy’s only 36, FFS, but he’s just one of the African leaders now telling those colonial throbbers to pack their bags and GTF. And they are.
How much longer can he get away with such Bolshie nonsense?! Bloody savages, hoarding our resources…
Hatey McHateface @ 8:13 pm
“Of course, in the real world, my actions will have consequences”
Yes, in the real world colonialism is regarded as a crime against humanity, with UN calls for it to be ended. It is only the colonizer or the native with a colonized mind which supports colonialism.
george william addison
I call bullshit.
What you have written is a pack of lies.
Either you are a fucking idiot or a fucking troll.
Anybody can fact check your bullshit using a search engine.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/08/15/fact-check-false-claim-wind-turbine-generators-only-last-3-4-
years/10243903002/
Why come here to spout this kind of stupid low grade garbage?
Fuck off back to stupid land and take your lies with you.
The energy in the wind goes as the cube of the wind speed. Pick a speed and design your wind farm around it. On the days that the wind blows half speed, you only get one eighth of the electricity. Nothing like enough. How much does the wind speed have to drop to halve the wind farms output? You can play with your calculator: 0.8 cubed is 51.2%. It only takes the wind to drop to 79% of nominal speed and electricity output is below half of the design value.
Some critics of wind power ask: what happens when the wind doesn’t blow? Those critics are too kind to wind power. The country will be running on battery power when the wind speed dips 21% and it still feels quite windy.
George William Addison (18 September 1849 – 8 November 1937) [1] was an English soldier who played for the Royal Engineers in the 1872 and 1874 FA Cup Finals.
George William Addison (18 September 1849 – 8 November 1937) was an English soldier who played for the Royal Engineers in the 1872 and 1874 FA Cup Finals.
Interestingly there was a currency conference this weekend.
No SNP mps or mps attended!!
The the SNP vetoed the holyrood magazine from covering it.
An international speaker list was blackballed by the SNP!!!
The SNP is toxic to independence.
Has Swinney been turned or is he up to his neck in the Salmond conspiracy and worried about jail.
What a sorry state this party is in
He has a matter of weeks to decide if he wants indy or devolution and painted by the unionists as the man who sank the snp
The whole climate chaos narrative is just another con, designed to separate people from their cash. Only when politicians start telling the truth about this will anything change. So called ‘green’ energy will result in the de-industrialisation of Scotland, and we will be left with a tartan biscuit-tin culture, where we only produce whisky and shortbread.
Ian Brotherhood
I think they’ll have those t-shirts far sooner.
Ibrahim Traore not only gave his country energy security but is educating the next generation to prolong capability & R through ROSATOM is providing the skill, technology & investment.
You can see why ‘the education of the next generation’ part is vital. The fecking dumbos this country churns out to pretend at playing politicians.
They signed deals of memorandum at St Petersburg international economic forum. That same forum the West boycotts & everyone is forbidden to go incase they learn something.
The West is in meltdown because with R on its side it can tell Western sanctions to get itself tae…
This is what Scotland should be doing. Going external & mingling. Not continually bleating to our captors how unfair they’re being while we’re being continually shafted. The continued shock by politicians that we’ve been shafted, yet again, should’ve gone when oil first came ashore over fifty yrs ago ffs.
Scotland doesn’t need UK approval to talk to other countries & it’s high time they got off their arse & ventured further afield than little England looking for scraps & ending up with shit. They don’t own us ffs or our travels.
Scotland is a very wealthy country IN A VOLUNTARY UNION. Not a prison. Time politicians started acting like it.. we already gave them mandates to work with. They squandered them.
Climate chaos was created by the West & it’s used as a punishment on poorer countries who didn’t create it.
Its the usual colonial stick of keeping the poor, poorer & issue sanctions if they fail to meet targets that they themselves miss but that’s okay because the rules they invent don’t apply to them.
Geri @ 12.52
Absolutely spot on!
Well said.
Geri
Ignored
says:
23 September, 2024 at 1:12 am
Climate chaos was created by the West & it’s used as a punishment on poorer countries who didn’t create it.
If climate change is a conspiracy, then it’s a monumental conspiracy on a global scale.
I’m not convinced it’s fully fact or fully fiction, but if the phenomenon drives home a more enlightened respect for the vulnerability of our planet, and more particularly the miraculous diversity of life crawling, galloping, swimming, flying, burrowing, all over it, then it gets my vote.
If we found the lowest form of single cell organism living on another planet, as one day we surely will, the ramifications will alter our perceptions of the Universe. Yet here on Earth we are surrounded by a natural cathedral of complexities and interdependencies between plants, animals, environments and conditions, where every critter, even that tiny wee moth at the window, has a history and evolution as long as our own.
Nevermind destroying and turning it to dust. What right do we have to danage this paradise and even leave our mark upon it? How dare we empty its seas of whales, blast its birds out the sky, or make a desert from their habitat. What right? The right of intellect? That’s some “intellect” that it allows us to act with such stupidity. I rather think we’ve evolved a particularly profound and arrogant dumbness at the same time – a “Sturgeon” type dumbness some would say…
I’m not your convemtional tree hugger. I believe humanity has a potential to fulfil and needs science to fulfill it. But we desperately need draconian Nature Reserves, but not to keep our dwindling stocks of wild animals in, but to contain the imbalance of our umchecked human proliferation – before its too late.
Nature Reserves should not be disparate oases of benign compassion. That philosophy should be the planetary norm underpinning our entire existence.
We should step through the looking glass, see the World differently, and adopt an alternative Nature Reserve philosophy which contains and limits the grime and insatiable consumption of humanity; a reverse Biodome philosophy where we seal in the crap, not give it free reign. Fence in the dangerous ones.
If we don’t, then we won’t need the planet to destroy us. Karma will do it.
We have batteries, that’s what the pumped storage hydro stations act as. When there’s a surfeit of wind and the spot price is low they can use the power to pump water back up to their reservoir.
If Liberation get registered with the UN they will have standing to bring a case in the ICJ against WM since the Acts of Union do not empower a territorial union. The land belongs to the Crown in Scotland and that is the sovereign people. Queen Anne, the last monarch to swear the Scots coronation oath, could not take the territory of Scotland into the union as she did not own it. Being Queen of Scots not Scotland is more than just a style. Here the monarch is first amongst equals. The people own Scotland.
This rape of our land and resources is illegal. Reparations are due going back to 1707.
No thanks to Scotgov who will look like a rabbit caught in the headlights. This is sovereign Scots doing it for themselves.
@Alf Baird 9:34
Haha, what about the native with a colon for his mind?
But to be serious, just for a moment.
Electricity consumers the length and breadth of England are stumping up, through their standing charges, for the offshore wind farms and the distribution infrastructure needed to get the wind energy to their homes and castles.
So are Scottish consumers too, but there’s ten times as many of the English consumers as there are of us.
My view is that in the real world, which includes the UN, ownership of the assets will be determined in proportion to who paid for them. That’s entirely uncontroversial, and also consistent with how liabilities were divvied up between EU and UK after Brexit.
Other respected commenters (Robin McAlpine) have covered this in some depth and outlined the process by which an Independent Scotland could, over time, maximise revenue and transfer ownership in accordance with international norms.
So yes, it could be done, and no, we won’t be basking in power too cheap to meter any time soon.
Muscleguy @ 7:40 am
“This rape of our land and resources is illegal. Reparations are due going back to 1707.”
Yes, the international crime of colonialism is primarily about ‘economic plunder’ (Memmi) involving the theft of a peoples lands and resources, much as we continue to see in Scotland. As one of the earliest and wealthiest plundered colonies, reparations due to Scotland may be expected to be vast, especially given current levels of plunder exceeding £150 billion per annum. Quantifying the displacement of 3-4 million Scots is another matter.
Swinney’s mistakes
Failing to unite with Alba.
Edinburgh rape crisis centre silence.
Swinney defending Mackay and his ipad.
Failing to appoint someone with professionalism and character like Crag Murray international secretary and going with the current air miles Robertson
Failing to take advantage of the skills of Joanna Cherry
Mathieson still sacked.
Mackay not sacked
Lindon johnstone??
Pulling out of carbon target with no real explanation.
Failing to unite campaign around independence.
Focusing on protecting Scotland’s interests in westminster instead of planning to leave it.
Suggesting Nicola has something to contribute.
Offering to speak up for Scotland in Westminster instead of planning to leave it.
John Swinney- if we win the majority of votes we negotiate independence, I mean if we win the majority if seats, I mean if we win the majority we will ask for another referendum, I mean we will do fuck all. Oh we are back to a majority of seats negotiate indy.
Starmer has already said no!!
SNP silent on Grangemouth closure, silent on power lines headed south.
Conservatives and labour do a deal in Aberdeen and labour pull their candidate allowing Ross a clear run. Silence from SNP.
Yellow glasses on old man weird not cool. If he hasd shell suit on he looked like Saville.
Sturgeon and Lloyd on TV saying Swinney should have pushed independence to the front of the campaign.
Post election, the aim was to get the tories out, that was our campaign, and people made the choice ie labour.
Kirsty Blackman for chief whip. She can teach them a dance or two!! Swinney clearly has a sense of humour.
Months after a disastrous election no enquiry and signs the party is manipulation the conference agenda
Angus Robertson having a meeting of support with Israel when Gaza is ongoing and it appears leaked. Swinney again supporting the unsupportable.
Power lines are being built to take green electricity south while Scots have to pay a surcharge to connect and pay international rates for elect. All at a time when a labour government removed the heating allowance. At the same time the labour government plans a new bridge over the thames.
Silence from the SNP.
Rejecting ash regan’ proposal for the next electoral event in favour of a wishy washy proposal from the greens.
Alexander Dennis paying off 200, elect busses jow coming from china, silence fro the SNP.
Still silence on elect transfer, and Grangemouth.
SNP talking about a coalition with labour after 2026. The conservatives are more likely to support labour than labour working with the SNP. Why would labour consider being tainted by the SNP. SNP appear dilusional
SNP veto Holyrood magazine reporting in scottish currency conference.
Breeks
Agreed. We should take care of our planet.
But the climate information needs sorted fact from fiction.
The Americans have weaponised it to use as a beating stick – especially targeting poorer countries who have to accept all kinds of crazy policies in order to receive loans & investment or used against larger ones like China & India, who were robbed blind during the industrial revolution, are to put their tools away & get with one with the bees instead.
Even we don’t escape this madness via the Greens. A newly independent Scotland should just turn off the oil wells immediately & turn off the wind farms, they hurt birds. Aye, so do planes but that doesn’t stop their jollies.
The Chinese are actually meeting targets & invented a cheap electric car that can travel from New York to Florida keys on a single charge. The Yanks put a 100% tarrif on them because they can’t compete. They’ve wasted all their time & energy playing world police that they’re left behind & now consumers are to be punished & prove they’re not really that interested in the environment they force others to.
Before we get collectively carried away with aspirations of “Green energy too cheap to meter”, let’s consider the entities that already have dibs on the excess electricity generated periodically during periods of high winds and more reliably during the wee, small hours of the night.
Without access to reliable data (much of which will be commercially embargoed) we can only consider this subject in terms of general principle. All of the end uses discussed have at least the potential to grow and new end uses emerge with some frequency.
First, let’s list the competing consumers for this finite resource (finite without constructing additional generating capacity at which point the excess production ceases to be free (at least in terms of Capital investment)) and give an indication of their scope for expansion and / or limitations.
Secondly, we can contemplate the mechanisms by which these competing end uses achieve access (or not) to the resource.
* The increase in sales of private electric cars is tailing off or reversing in the last Quarter of 2023. This may be attributable to an artificial drought in supply to meet challenging, mandatory sales figures in 2024. In any case, this is being replaced by an increase in Fleet sales of electric vehicles (EV) largely due to financial incentives available only to businesses.
Despite Panglossian predictions from some sources fixated on the elimination of the internal combustion engine vehicle by some preposterous impending date, this was always going to be the case. Simply put, a great many folk are reliant on parking their cars in the street (anywhere a space is available). The phenomenon of theft of charging cables from EV charging points (to extract copper) which is rife in some areas was apparently unforeseen by the desk bound and unworldly consultants that advised our Governments. A saturation point for sales and ownership of EVs is inevitable and will to some extent be informed by the dearth of charging points for on-street parking. As on-street parking, charging points are devolved to Local Government (who else would become involved given the issue with theft / vandalism) financial restraints limit expansion of a network. The proposed prohibition on sales of hydrocarbon fuelled engines for road vehicles (postponed from 2030 to 2035) is impractical, ideologically driven dogma.
Nonetheless considerable investment has gone into the construction of battery production facilities and their supply chain down to mineral extraction and refining. This is already being redirected towards small commercial vehicles for parcel delivery etc.. In turn, the number of electric buses will expand rapidly and the at present tiny number of electric HGVs will expand exponentially. With the exception of HGVs which tend preferentially to run at night to avoid congestion and meet early delivery schedules, these additional vehicles will be competing for the excess electricity notionally available between say 23:00 and 06:00.
* Existing Hydroelectric pump storage, generating capacity (mainly located in Scotland) is substantially increasing. This is mature technology with the oldest UK facility, Ffestiniog being 60 years old. For obvious geographical / topographical reasons these projects are located in the West of Scotland and Wales. Understandably new projects occupy the most advantageous sites and each successive development is left with a less desirable location.
Several projects are either under construction or are in the final stages of planning approval. The six most viable projects currently being worked on would create 4.9 GW of additional generating capacity against the current UK total of 2.8 GW.
The self imposed target set by the UK Government for Hydro pump storage capacity is 15 GW by 2050. Clearly, a substantial number of new sites will have to be identified. Some recent proposals such as retrofitting the Loch Sloy generating station for pump storage should be readily achievable as much of the Civil engineering infrastructure is already in place.
* Hydrogen generating whether for immediate transmission or for storage and later use, is set to grow substantially in the near future (economics being favourable).
In the last Quarter of 2023, the Scottish Government signed an exclusive agreement with Norwegian utilities giant Equinor for the construction of Hydrogen generating capacity in Scotland with the product of these facilities notionally going immediately into the transmission network to Germany.
Meanwhile, INEOS is investing substantially sums in Hydrogen generation with a number of distinct end uses being targeted. These include, industrial chemical feedstock and Hydrogen powered vehicles. The latter would help resolve some of the limitations encountered by electric battery powered vehicles for those determined to see the elimination of hydrocarbon fuelled internal combustion engines.
* Increased reliance on electricity as the primary energy source for manufacturing industry has very recently come to the fore. In the second half of 2023, the UK Government signed an agreement to subsidise the replacement of coke fuelled Blast furnaces at the Tata, Port Talbot works to the tune of £500 million. An identical deal for the British Steel site in Scunthorpe is anticipated. These developments alone provide a massive base load for electricity generation.
This development is essentially politically driven (hence the subsidy). For the most recent available figures (2023) the Steel sector accounts for 2.4% of total UK Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
For reasons discussed in a previous essay, the UK Glass manufacturing sector may transition from hydrocarbon fuels to electric furnaces. This would not be out of political considerations but would result from pressing technical necessity if the UK natural gas network is “poisoned” by the introduction of a Hydrogen “supplement”. The Glass sector is responsible for 0.5% of total UK GHG emissions. Unlike steel production, glass manufacturing cannot be “outsourced” overseas (glass containers won’t ship well from the far East either practically or economically).
* Domestic Heat pumps (air or ground source) will increasingly be a feature of at least new-build construction. While these units should individually have relatively modest electrical demand, they will require greater electrical input than a Natural gas equivalent. If Heat pumps are installed in large enough numbers the cumulative effect will impinge on off-peak electricity demand.
This brings us to consideration of what happens when the supply of this “free”, “excess” electricity fails to satisfy demand. Which of the competing, would be consumers will be prioritised?
The five usages can be divided into Primary and Secondary demand. Primary demand includes; Electric Vehicles, industrial production and domestic heat pumps. These demands must be met regardless of cost to the consumer.
This leaves Hydrogen generation and Hydroelectric pump storage as Secondary demand. In theory, these facilities can afford to operate only when excess (after all other demand has been met) electricity is available. Leaving aside politics which may override commercial common sense, Hydroelectric pump storage must be by far the largest priority for off-peak, excess electricity. This is a factor of the order of magnitude by which Capital investment in Hydro pump storage exceeds Hydrogen generation. The Coire Glas (1.5 GW) development alone will require an estimated £1.5 Billion to commission. This is commensurate with the massive civil engineering endeavour required. Against this, they are known to have extremely long operational life spans (Ffestiniog again). Hydrogen generation on the other hand can exist on a concrete plinth of relatively small footprint covered by a standard industrial building. In addition, one of the main benefits claimed for Hydroelectric pump storage is that it reduces the requirement for grid reinforcement. Simply put, the optimum wind (and presumably later wave and tidal) generation sites are geographically local to the best pump storage locations and the “bottleneck” in the electricity grid is the long stretch down to the population centres of England. By creating “battery” storage capacity local to generation, substantial investment in grid upgrades can be avoided as generating capacity is bled into the system as and when excess transmission capacity is available. This optimises existing grid capacity where the end users fall under the Primary demand category, being accustomed to paying an expensive tariff.
Here it is clear that the runt of the litter is Hydrogen generation. This said, the Curtailment charge accrued by energy generating companies in 2023 was £920 million, a 15% increase from the previous year. Clearly generating capacity runs far in advance of the upgrades to transmission grid. At least till the grid is substantially upgraded there is a window of opportunity for Hydrogen. As the excess electricity is “trapped” by the bottleneck in Scotland, the Hydrogen generating facilities and the jobs that go with them would have to be here.
This brings us back to Curtailment charges. If the entities being payed not to generate electricity are fundamentally the same as those who would generate Hydrogen, why invest in Hydrogen in the first place.
Muscleguy @ 07.40.
Just to thank you for mentioning our mostly ignored pump storage facility, surely the greatest forgotten or overlooked potential supply awaiting development.
We already have Cruachan, capable of delivering some 400mw, onstream in 30 seconds and able to deliver maximum output for some 16 hours. Which should power up to 90,000 homes.
And, whilst Drax, the owners aren’t a Scots company, at least they remain thus far a UK one.
Shitface
They own nothing in Scotland except their equipment which they are free to take with them if they choose to leave.
They’ll be under new administration the same with any contract, it would be renegotiated.
There’s plenty of companies out there. In fact, it’d be the ideal opportunity to make them state owned just as Africa is doing, you know, those dumb shanty town ppl you insult so much.
Their gold doesn’t leave their borders now either. It’ll back up their currency, new central bank.
The colonisers owns nothing but his taxi fare home.
Vivian O’Blivion @ 09.27.
My own post was being typed and then posted prior to my reading your own, very welcome and informative one, Viv.
Thanks for taking the time and trouble, please keep this type of info coming for the benefit of non techy types such as myself, it’s appreciated.
Fuck off back to stupid land and take your lies with you.
When I read comments like the above you can understand why I think I am being unfairly treated.
BTL on Wings is riddled with personal abuse and yet I appear to be the only person being censored.
It would be easy enough for me to present an argument that Wings is Sexist.
Not that I intend to do that so no need to go back and delete any previous comments.
Maybe I’m not being censored for ‘personal abuse’ but because you consider my posts to be rubbish.
Fair enough! Here again BTL on Wings is riddled with ‘rubbish’ so once again I’m asking ‘Why me?’
Shug@ 11.23pm
Was Alba there?
@ Breeks
” If climate change is a conspiracy, then it’s a monumental conspiracy on a global scale.”
For the record , B ….neither I , nor anyone credible , believe climate CHANGE is a conspiracy , the climate is a dynamic , constantly changing , unpredictable phenomenon . What’s being * manufactured * is climate CRISIS
Neither is anyone credible disputing that measures will have to be taken to mitigate the effects of climate change in particular locations .
Likewise we should not be poisoning our oceans , seas , rivers , land & air with the detritus of our manic , wasteful consumption
This should be obvious .
But the idea that the source of so much – unnecessary – pollution ie Neoliberal Capitalism , is going save us from the horrific environmental damage that system itself is creating is absolutely absurd .
Neither do we need diktats from the wired-for-war automatons in the E.U , WEF , U.N or any of the other New World Masters insisting WE have to make enormous sacrifices in terms of our freedom of movement , standard of living etc in order to ” save the Planet ” whilst THEY continue to reinforce the very policies/conditions that are wreaking untold damage on our Planet and enjoy extravagant salaries and bonuses and fawning adulation even as they make life more difficult – currently , existentially precarious – for the populaces under their demented rubric .
The issues created by changing climate must be addressed in non-hysterical, ergo rational manner ; with open , undogmatic debate allowed and plausible solutions sought .
Not , as is the case currently – by a tiny political elite shouting commands from atop their ivory towers , inoculated by their own lavish sinecures from the reality of what they’re proposing/inflicting on everyone else .
Nor by * Green * millionaires flying all over the globe to meet with their peers to tell the rest of us we have to travel less , or , as they would want , not at all .
Yes , stay in your little 15min ghettos , plebs , only your masters are permitted the freedom to go/do whatever-the-fuck they like .
NAW ! fuck-off wae yr threats to punish us for putting the * wrong * items in our ” recycling ” ( ie exporting to poorer countries ) bins whilst you spend incalculable amounts of our money on evermore lethal weaponry to create barren , desolate blood-soaked landscapes , of use only to scavengers & carrion-feeders – animal and human .
All responsibility lies with the incompetent SNP. I will never forgive their treachery….NEVER
Mr MacAskill writes…
«I welcome Chinese investment»
With the PRC’s internal political repression and minority human rights record, its industrial pollution problems and the quasi colonial nature of Xi’s «belt & road» initiative, notably in Africa, he might care to rethink that.
«Chinese investment» can devastate local economies leading to a neo-colonial dependency wherever it becomes embedded.
However, if you can make it or grow it at home do so; something the nations of east Asia, including the Chinese, learned decades ago.
«green hydrogen»?
Great in principle but…
https://www.ft.com/content/d3102a61-368e-4ec6-8de3-833f4c62e7ba
and Scotland alone could not countenance the huge R&D costs for a tech currently more futuristic theorizing than reality.
The heavily promoted battery powered e-cars with their ungreen lithium ion cells, whose environmentally toxic components are usually dumped in west Africa, likewise «obsolete» cell phone and other first world e-junk, ought to be a warning.
There are no fixing solutions, despite what certain after-government-dosh-lobbyists waving flags of the greenest green ever seen may proclaim. The physics of this tech is a long way from being planet friendly.
Any nationalist alternative to SNP must do significantly better to weed out these corporate schmoozers and fantasists or it risks sounding like that same self serving old politics.
@ Breeks
I wrote an earlier response to you but it was cast into the Black Hole of Moderation for reasons that escape me : don’t tell me any deviation from * Climate * dogma is now subject to cancellation here too .
Just to say – if it’s allowed ….no one – sensible – is saying Climate CHANGE is a conspiracy ; only that the hyperbolic Climate ” Emergency ” almost certainly is .
‘With the PRC’s internal political repression and minority human rights record, its industrial pollution problems and the quasi colonial nature of Xi’s «belt & road» initiative, notably in Africa, he might care to rethink that.’
Aye, right after the West. There is currently a geno-cide happening, funded, approved & sanctioned by the west. I don’t think the Chinese will take any lectures from them do you?
& The Chinese have gone from one of the poorest countries on the planet (due to colonialism) to one of the richest free from colonial rule. They don’t need lectures they should stop no either.
From what I’ve seen, the belt & road initiative has only poured much needed investment into countries long abandoned to rack & ruin, and with no strings attached. No GRR & climate emergency bullshit policies. No imposed American foreign policy. No treble repayments unlike the world bank/IMF imposes. So I doubt they need lectures there either.
The Americans are shitting themselves over Africa. They’re offering them two seats on the UN security council but only if they remain mute & it will be with no veto powers. They can just watch the grown ups LMAO. How insulting & so is the bullshit about human rights records.
They’re in no position to lecture anyone. How quick you are to forget one million dead Iraqis, violation of international laws to be all over the globe fighting or interfering & the use of illegal weapons during all of their conflicts against unarmed countries & civilians including their latest act of terrorism using personal devices. Whatever next? Planes, trains, people’s TVs?
They’re out of control.
They’re getting short shift at the UN these days. I doubt it will remain in its current form for much longer. That’s the danger of eejits thinking they’ll start lecturing others when they haven’t stopped warring & killing millions either through illegal occupation of boots on the ground or by economic sanctions since WW2.
Mary B
Yes alba was there
This is nonsense.
There is nothing whatsoever cheap about renewables and wind energy.
Otherwise it would not need subsidies, carbon credits, favourable supply and access terms, etc.
Rather than prices falling, the latest auctions needed a near doubling of the supplier price to get any takers.
The rest of the economy relies on cheap and reliable energy. That only comes from oil and gas. Coal if politicians hadn’t gloated over blowing up perfectly serviceable power stations, and nuclear if a campaign of irrational fear hadn’t tied up the UK industry in such environmental red tape that reactors cost four times the cost to build as they do in Korea.
We have already seen that the cost of purchasing emergency supplies on calm cold winter days reaches 100 times the cost we can sell our green power when there are large surpluses. So it only needs three or four dark still days and you have wiped out any gains for the rest of the year.
We pay more than double the price of power as North America does, and five times the price in China, the gap has grown the greener we have become.
It is a murderous, destructive insanity.
Given the state of education and closed-mindness in this country these days, I suspect it will be 20 years before any politician understands what –
“Hydrogen has less than one third of the calorific value (325 Btu / ft3) compared with Natural gas (1011 Btu / ft3)” actually means.
By then they will have flared off all of the gas in the North Sea (we probably aren’t even capable of selling it to the Chinese) and we’ll have a true energy crisis.
Save the Planet?
“We pay more than double the price of power as North America does, and five times the price in China, the gap has grown the greener we have become.”
Yip Scots pay through the nose for their energy – in a country that’s teeming with energy sources.
Climate change is happening because the Earth’s climate is dynamic and always has been.
Humans have little impact but due to our arrogance, some think we can control it.
We can’t.
I’m not saying humans don’t cause immense damage we do, mainly in manufacturing plastics.
So we can sort that.
Plastics will have to be phased out.
Even biodegradable ones still end up polluting, particularly the sea.
There have been 5 mass extinction throughout the Earth’s history and humans were responsible for none of them.
The last one occurred 66 m years ago.
If it isn’t obvious by now it really should be. Politicians representing Scotland in any party have been an utter and total failure. They, all of them have thrown us to the dogs at every opportunity. They of course have enriched themselves, a gigantic salary, pension, subsidised food and booze. They won’t be cold hungry or have a care in the world about anything. The era of the politician has to end
“Fair enough! Here again BTL on Wings is riddled with ‘rubbish’ so once again I’m asking ‘Why me?’”
Repeat offending after countless direct warnings is why. And even now you still do it every day to make sure I can’t lift the moderation.
Hydrogen can act as an energy store for otherwise ‘lost’ energy whether from renewably generated or off peak nuclear. However, in that regard, it is up against it when compared to alternative storage facilities.
The reason is that, in the absence of a low pressure storage and distribution network (i.e. the old gasometers of the coal gas age) the amount of energy taken to compress it or worse still liquify it, makes it very inefficient. Something like 50% of the energy stored in hydrogen would be lost.
Even pumped storage is more efficient. Of course, pumped storage, if topologically possible at all, does take years to develop.
However, new battery technologies are proven and ready to go, is vastly more efficient at storing energy. All the key factors for battery storage, namely cost, charge rate, energy density, hazardous materials, look set for paradigm shifts. For example, Li-S batteries require no cobalt and have about 3 times the energy capacity of Li-ion and will cost less to make.
This means that surplus renewables/nuclear energy is more likely to be stored in increased pump storage or new technology batteries and some other technologies I won’t go into here rather than in hydrogen.
There is a future for hydrogen in industries which need hydrogen, e.g. semiconductors for annealing and oxidation enhancement purposes and there could still be a massive market in green aviation.
Where’s my post on hydrogen?
Were these direct warnings for everyone or just me?
Why just me?
I never noticed the direct warnings. Maybe because like this one your post came at the very end of the thread when everyone has moved on to the next article or even the one after that. Sorry ………not sorry at least I had a good run uncensored until whoosh I got the moderation warning.
I honestly don’t know if I can change you know what they say about old dogs. Old bitches in my case.
The die is cast so you may have to keep me ‘in moderation’ for ever. 🙂
Unless you decide that ‘We Must Stop Meeting Like This and that would be a shame!
Also it’s a shame about the lack of diversity here on Wings.
Old bitches rights are human rights!
& don’t forget about my tourettes.
How are your swans? All covered in shit & bog roll?
Poor things & poor me.
Poor me not being allowed be my authentic self.
For a long time the agenda has been to dismantle Scottish industry and to rape its resources. Scotland is to be made a Dependency thus making independence impossible as it would own and control nothing. This will have been achieved with the consent of a gutless brain dead pop of “proud Scots” who will never express anger or outrage at the destruction of their country.
R.I.P
“Were these direct warnings for everyone or just me?”
Everyone who’s ever been put on pre-mod was repeatedly warned first, and countless general warnings have been given to everybody.
“Where’s my post on hydrogen?”
Fuck me, 13 years and still nobody bothers reading the About page.
Charles McGregor
Ignored
says:
23 September, 2024 at 7:24 pm
…. rather than in hydrogen.
There is a future for hydrogen in industries which need hydrogen…
I’m not going to argue with any of that Charles, it all makes sense, including the btu of hydrogen versus natural gas, but you’re overlooking one thing. All Hydrocarbons produce CO2. Burning Hydrogen only produces H2O.
OK, we’re not ready yet, but with incalculable Oceans of H20, at some time it is simply not credible that humanity will not be using water as fuel.
Even supposing you burn Hydogen to make Hydrogen, when it’s perfectly clean, perfectly safe, eternally renewable and safe, there is a formula which can be made to work, even on a marginal yield.
There are already generators capable of enough water electrolysis to produce their own fuel and run a power tool. OK, its not pure water, but a water based electrolyte, but the byproduct is remains H2O. Ok, this might be a dead end, I don’t know, but I like how compatible Hydrogen is with existing internal combustion engines.
It needs research, research, research, and a mindset which understands that profligacy with clean and safe renewable fuel is actually legitimate science and permissible.
Breeks
I know that hydrogen burning for energy only produces water. Hydrogen, if produced by electrolysis, is a completely green energy storage and delivery system.
Home boilers and stoves could easily be made or modified to burn hydrogen. Vehicles could run on it.
Engineering-wise, it is perfectly viable, the only issue is cost comparison with alternative storage systems.
If we had had the foresight to retain the old gasometer gas distribution network, it would be more viable. It is possible that this could be recreated. Some innovative ideas are being explored, like for instance, the use of old abandoned coal mines, suitably lined of course, for storing hydrogen could provide a physical storage network cheaply.
It all may well come about but even if it does not, it is nice to know that there is that zero carbon option base line.
As the Russians demonstrated over 30 years ago, passenger airliners can be converted to fly on hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen has a high enough energy density to replace kerosene for jet travel. The reason it did not take off, pun intended, was, again, the cost of storing the fuel and the loss of seating due to the size of the tanks. It would have meant a hefty hike in air fares. However, if it is in the near future, deemed necessary to save the planet, it could and probably will, happen.