Readers' Letters: Wind isn't enough to keep the lights on

Stephen Moreton (Letters, 29 February, 4 March) is a great advocate for renewable electricity generation, the most important of which is wind power, as the thousands of wind machines blighting Scotland’s hillsides show.

As the Scottish landscape becomes ever busier with wind turbines, are they really a smart option? (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Emeritus Professor of Physics Wade Allison at the University of Oxford is a fierce critic of wind farms. He states: “Whichever way you look at it, wind power is inadequate. It is intermittent and unreliable; it is exposed and vulnerable; it is weak with a short lifespan.”

He illustrates his argument by comparing the power output of a single nuclear power station with an equivalent generation output by wind farms.

Assuming a steady wind speed of 20mph the swept area of the number of turbines required to match the power station would be 5.5 million square metres of turbine area. And he adds another little-known fact, that if wind speed halves electricity generation drops by a factor of 8. In addition, it is difficult for National Grid to balance a fluctuating supply, and of course, there are periods of calm.

When you consider that both Labour and the Conservatives are committed to closing down all our gas-fired power stations by 2030 and 2035 respectively, while dramatically increasing demand by mandating battery-powered cars and heat pumps, we are going to be in a pickle in keeping the lights on in the next decade – or sooner.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Berwickshire

The MUP Show

In his article “Does minimum unit price work?” (Scotsman, 4 March), lawyer Stephen McGowan states that the decision on whether minimum unit price (MUP) should be made permanent is centred on 40-odd studies, and “only one out of all the studies suggests [MUP] had any discernible impact”.

But only eight of those studies looked at alcohol health harm and only one of those looked at deaths and hospital admissions caused by alcohol – the crucial measure of success or failure – and here MUP was seen to have saved lives in Scotland.

The other health-related studies which found “no discernible impact” were looking at specific issues such as ambulance callouts and emergency admissions. Indeed, for some studies, “no discernible impact” is a good result as far as MUP is concerned, as these were designed to check for unintended negative consequences such as crime, cross-border sales and illicit drug substitution.

Mr McGowan attempts to discredit the study which demonstrated reduced deaths and hospital admissions, saying it is “not real-world data”.

In fact the opposite is true. Having MUP in Scotland but not in England provides a real-world natural experiment. What the study found was that although alcohol deaths have risen in both Scotland and England in recent years, the rise in Scotland was significantly less than in England. Having ruled out alternative explanations, the study concluded that this difference was due to MUP. The reality is that had MUP not been in place, hundreds more Scots lives would have been lost.

Mr McGowan correctly points out that MUP is intended to reduce health inequalities. It seems strange that he fails to mention that MUP has done just that. Most of the lives saved are in the 40 per cent most deprived areas in Scotland.

Our MSPs will soon vote on whether MUP should continue and if so, at what rate. I trust that they will base their decision on a fairer and more complete assessment of the evidence than Mr McGowan’s article provides.

(Dr) Alastair MacGilchrist, Chair, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, Edinburgh

Not reassured

I was horrified to read your report, “New assisted dying report should give public ‘reassurances’” (29 February). MSP Liam McArthur gave an extremely biased view of the report of the Parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee to the Westminster Parliament. It was claimed, for instance, that, far from having a deleterious effect on palliative care, assisted dying legislation usually improved it.

In fact, the best that can be claimed is that in many countries and states which have legalised some form of assisted suicide, the effect is neutral. In some, such as Canada, where the MAID programme has had a markedly negative effect on the availability of palliative care, the legislation has proved harmful.

I was glad to see elsewhere that the Committee in fact rejected the call for a Parliamentary debate on “assisted dying”, more properly called “assisted suicide”, by a majority of 3-2. This was after a 14-month examination of a wide range of evidence from both supporters and opponents of a change in the law. They helpfully list the dangers of introducing any form of assisted suicide, which are well documented. These include incremental extension of criteria to qualify for assisted death, both informal and formal; the risk of internal or external pressure on vulnerable people to accept assisted dying; and the possibility of encouraging disturbed people to see suicide as the answer to their problems.

(Rev Dr) Donald M MacDonald, Edinburgh

Baseless boast

Odd that Finance Minister Shona Robison doesn’t want UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt to lower taxes, given her baseless boast that Scotland has the lowest tax rates in the country.

Surely she should be in favour of extending these supposed benefits of lower tax to others? She talks about diverting monies to investment instead, so perhaps she might also want the Chancellor to save money by giving councils the same level of “increase” as awarded to Scottish councils.

I am beginning to suspect that she really doesn’t have a clue and that worries me. Given First Minister Humza Yousaf’s willingness to “escape” from the frontline on his forthcoming paternity leave, Scotland will actually have Ms Robison in charge for a spell. Should we not be concerned about the future of Scotland?

Ken Currie, Edinburgh

Polling problems

Before Robert Farquharson (Letters, 2 March) gets too excited about the opinion poll he refers to showing support for Scottish independence has increased to “a solid 50 per cent”, let’s cast our minds back to the toxic run-up to the 2014 referendum.

We were constantly told by pollsters that the result would be “too close to call.” The day before ballots were cast, some survey or other even put the separatists ahead with 51 per cent support.

Few experts predicted that a majority would opt for Brexit, or that Neil Kinnock would lose the 1992 general election. The problem with polling is that it all depends on who you ask, so results need to be treated with a degree of scepticism.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

True solution

Ni Holmes (Letters, 4 March) makes a cynical attempt to relate independence with the ongoing war in Gaza.

Perhaps he should listen to Hamas instead of Humza Yousaf. They have stated that they will never accept the State of Israel and have promised to replicate the events of 7 October.

Their very reason for existence is the genocide of all Israelis. Many people seek personal solace in street protests but the only true solution is the return of the hostages and the complete elimination of Hamas. Yes, innocent civilians have lost their lives. Has there ever been a war in which this is not the case?

Lewis Finnie, Edinburgh

Quiet hospitals

Apparently impressed by ITV dramas Mr Bates vs The Post Office and Breathtaking, Fiona Garwood challenges the Covid Inquiry to answer the question, what lessons have we learnt from the last pandemic? (Letters, 23 February)

She then states that the NHS was “working at beyond endurance levels during the pandemic”, a claim which is in stark contrast with the evidence of Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology, who told the Inquiry that “most of the hospitals in Scotland had their quietest time in living memory during the first lockdown because no-one else was going to hospital”.

He made it clear that a lot of people who should have been going to hospital died because the focus of the government was “on preparing the NHS in Scotland for Covid”. It will be interesting to see if the Inquiry accepts Prof Woolhouse's evidence and follows his line of reasoning.

Harald Tobermann, Edinburgh

Bridging facts

The SNP's candidate for the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross seat, Lucy Beattie, has kept up her party's reputation as a world leader – unfortunately in the category of misleading statements. It seems the simple, unalloyed truth is beyond them.

Ms Beattie declared the Kessock Bridge, opened in 1982, was built with EU-supplied cash. The truth is it was completed after 15 years of planning and financed almost entirely by the UK Government. The EU did not even exist until after the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. Its predecessor was the EC, who apparently made a 20 per cent grant available to the project.

The SNP candidate can long for a return to the EU as much as she likes – and I write this a pro-EU Remain voter – and those golden days when she seems to think they provided the unending cash for infrastructure projects.

What I would like to return to are the days when candidates were entirely honest with the voters in their constituencies.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

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