Renewables - where this is all going
With the EU setting cross-border targets for renewable energy, it is clear that wave, tidal, solar and wind are all going to be part of the future - if we want a future for our children.
The challenge for the Western Isles is: do we want to be at the vanguard of these developments and the economic spin-off, or, will we give the potential benefit to others?
VANGUARD: we spent the next five or ten years persuading everyone to invest in renewables in the islands. Some will work, some won't, but by the end of that time we are (hopefully) the renewables capital of Europe.
WAIT: Orkney, Shetland or Ireland get all the development jobs and when the technology is working, we can buy from them and have it installed off our coast, with no value added.
Clearly, I favour the former despite the problems it will cause in the short-term, in the hope that within 20 years we will have the new technology developed and working here, and that today's technologies will be superseded by new highly-efficient alternatives.
1 comment:
Angus:
I agree that 'renewables' are an important energy source; what concerns me is that investment is being skewed by a deeply flawed programme of subsidy which has discouraged some technologies while encouraging others.
Of them all, it appears that tidal power carries the most long-term possibility; the tides are regular and predictable, and can provide in total(I'm told) gigawatts of energy to the UK. It seems to me that there would be many areas around the Isles suitable for such technologies given the many narrow channels in the area.
Offshore wind, and wave power, suffer the intermittency issues associated with onshore wind. However, they appear to be somewhat less intermittent than onshore wind power, and might be worth some investment.
Onshore wind has a fairly disappointing record in Germany and Denmark; it requires conventional fossil-fuel plants to backstop the (highly variable) electricity so generated, and to my knowledge has had no appreciable effect in CO2 emissions reduction in either nation; nor has it allowed either to shut down a conventional station.
In addition, onshore farms are highly intrusive, both in their effect on the local terrain (deep foundations, access roads, etc, etc) and visually. Did they provide an actual distinct benefit, I'd say 'okay, a necessary evil', but the performance record of onshore wind is not encouraging.
So yes, renewables, definitely, but I'd hope that the Isles would opt for those technologies most likely to be sustainable in the long term, and which would actually allow us to shut off some conventional power plants. THAT would be a true benefit for both the Isles and the environment.
Thoughts, if any?
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