Letter: Energy disputes

Rarely has there been a more clear indication of why our politicians are trying to kid us over the question of renewable energy.

On page 32 of Tuesday's Scotsman we have a letter from Jim Mather, our minister for energy, stating that we produced 27.4 per cent of our energy needs from "green energy" but on the preceding page you published a chart showing that on the previous day wind and hydro had jointly accounted for a mere 3.7 per cent of UK generation.

Mr Mather (like his boss Mr Salmond) appears oblivious to the fact that installed load is meaningless.

At two recent exhibitions of intended wind farms in the Borders the developers claimed that their estimates were that their projects would produce about 30 per cent of the stated installed energy capacity whereas the UK figure for 2010 has shown the actual UK figure to be no more than 19 per cent.

When will our government get real ?

Ian Scott-Watson

Harelaw Moor

Greenlaw

Jenny Hogan, for Renewables Scotland, claims (29 December) that the report of "green" Scotland's recent dependency on electricity from nuclear-powered French sources was conjectural, but the facts of the proportions of our power from various sources are available on the Neta website. These showed that her complaint is spurious and misleading, as are her grossly exaggerated descriptions of the contributions of windpower. The letters from Scottish Renewables' spokespeople read like advertisements.

(Dr) Charles Wardrop

Viewlands Road West

Perth

I never understand why people like Arthur Robertson (Letters, 28 December) always associate "renewable energy" with wind farms and nothing else. Wave and tidal power hold far more potential for Scotland, and more money and effort should be put into developing these rather than subsidising more inefficient wind farms.

Peter Swain

Innerwick

Dunbar