Power crazy

Published on Tuesday 25 May 2010 19:02

"Can the Green Economy Deliver for Scotland?" (your conference, 24 May). No, it cannot. The country has been bewitched by the idea that, by generating electricity from all sorts of renewable methods, the lights will stay on and greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced.

An example is energy minister Jim Mather's article "Offshore resources: if we've got them, we should flaunt them" (Opinion, 22 May). Advocating a low-carbon economy, he thinks that we can "power Scotland many times over" with renewable generation, especially from tidal and wave power.

His claim that a quarter of our electricity comes from renewables is misleading. Although the Scottish Government's website claims that, in 2008, 22 per cent of gross electricity consumption came from renewables (about half of this from hydro), this is a statistical trick. Because (coincidentally) 22 per cent of our electricity was exported, no-one can tell what proportion of that generated from renewables ended up consumed in Scotland. In any case, the statistics record total generation and consumption (energy) and do not reveal how often renewable generation was unable to contribute to demand (power).

Especially at this time of economic stringency, we should not be pouring money into subsidising renewables. We do not need them and we cannot afford them. We should certainly not be flaunting them. The whole thing is madness and will lead to blackouts.

STEUART CAMPBELL

Dovecot Loan

Edinburgh

I noted with interest the comments at the Scotsman conference by Lady Susan Rice (your report, 25 May) that 20 billion is needed to fund investments in renewables to bring about green schemes such as major wind farms and new marine renewable energy technology, but that only 2bn is to be made available from the planned new Green Investment Bank.

The public sector must, of course, look to increase investment in renewable energy technologies to make them more bankable, fuelling the next round in renewables growth.

However, the public sector in the current economic environment cannot be expected to fund it alone; the banks and venture capitalists need to loosen their purse strings to offer developers greater access to capital for the delivery of these projects, and reap the financial rewards.

Given the growth of the renewable energy sector, traditional investors are missing a trick in ignoring the potential returns that can be delivered from the escalating green "gold rush".

TOM SPEIRS

HBJ Gateley Wareing

Canning Street

Edinburgh