COP28 discussions are throwing up some old chestnuts for a second rumination. In last weekend’s local weather they would possibly be roasting on an open fire.
Asking questions about things that have been asked before, but discarded for good reason, allows us to recheck that our decisions are still valid.
Discussions are around the base load of power that any country will need if fossil fuels are to be removed by the target of 2045 or 2050.
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Scotland is in a very fortunate position where we have a significant renewable resource, being as we are stuck out into the North Atlantic, with both wind and tidal.
However, other countries are not so fortunate, and some are contemplating nuclear power. That is their choice.
Where Scotland has gaps are the storage and re-use of the energy generated by renewables. Pumped (water) storage and batteries and using excess to create green hydrogen are options yet to get full development.
One area frequently gets glossed over as being too difficult, and that is insulating Scotland’s housing stock.
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Nuclear stations based on the current funding is akin to the “Shell Game” where the cost of the nuclear power station is not funded by government borrowing, it is funded by the building contractor, and the contractor gets paid gradually by each gigawatt delivered to the network. So, the greater the demand, the greater the revenue and hence profit. The current Hinkley C is estimated to cost £23 billion, up from the initial £18 billion in 2016, and the latest estimate of its operational date is the end of 2025, or 10 years. We the consumer pay the cost of the higher-priced electricity generated by nuclear and the clean-up activities required by nuclear waste.
Rather than spend vast sums on nuclear, instead insulate those houses most in need of upgrades to reduce their energy consumption, with grants for triple glazing and internal wall insulation cladding,
at the same time upgrading the national network to transfer power from generators to users with no feed-in tariffs.
Unfortunately, this strategy is in Westminster’s shaky and dithering hands, and if Covid and recent oil licence decisions are anything to go by, we Scots will get the thin end of the “dirty” stick again: having to stump up for nuclear, no change in feed-in tariffs for renewable wind/tidal energy, and no insulation upgrade plan for single-glazed and older double-glazed properties.
Such is life living in Scotland. Doing nothing is not an option and this cold snap brings it into sharp focus.
Alistair Ballantyne
Angus
GRANT Frazer’s letter on Lesley Riddoch’s assessment of Norway (Letters, Dec 1) took me back a few years. Back in the 60s, I was one of the team doing the seismic surveys in the North Sea in the search for oil.
It saddened me at the time to learn that we would be based in Kristiansund and not Aberdeen. However, I flew in and joined our survey boat, the “Baranof”, in Norway, and our preparations were intense as our schedule was tight, and so it was about three weeks later that I actually went ashore in Kristiansund, and had an opportunity to visit a “pub”.
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My shipmates had gone on ahead, but I was involved with the instrumentation and recordings etc, and was at least half an hour behind them.
As I wandered up the road to the “pub”, I noticed with some surprise that the Norwegian road was moving under me, as it does when you’ve been out in the wintery North Sea for three weeks!
The revelation though, was when I entered the “pub”.
In every regard, it was my Aunt’s house in Logierieve, from back in the 1940s.
The greetings and smiles, as though I was family, the warmth in there, the very real sense of belonging, the musicians in the corner with their fiddles and accordions, and the smoke. There was just so much cigarette smoke.
A stranger handed me a beer, and they were just family in a sense. It was half an hour or so before I found and joined my friends, but they too were spread out, in different groups, just chatting and being happy, among so many blonde people.
The only real difference to my aunt’s house was that in this place you had to pay for your beer and the lighting was electric, whereas I had only known gas and candles in Auntie Mary’s house.
Fond memories for an old ’un.
Thanks Grant, thanks Lesley, thanks The National.
Christopher Bruce
Taynuilt
AS Wastemonster directs that Scottish Government ministers are forbidden to speak to foreign governments on subjects such as independence, should we not therefore speak on the matter of decolonisation? After all, the UK Government has been through this process many times, thus being well versed in the matter.
M Ross
Aviemore
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