There was little press coverage yesterday about what our First Minister Alex Salmond hailed as a ‘new green energy revolution.’ He predicted renewable technology off Scotland’s coast would soon create enough energy to power the nation up to 10 times over and announced that permission had been given for companies to begin surveying sites on which to build 10 offshore windfarms. The 10 sites have the potential to generate over 6GW of offshore electricity, equalling Scotland’s energy consumption on an average day.
“Scotland has a fantastic competitive advantage in developing offshore renewables, with up to 25% of Europe’s offshore wind, wave and tidal energy potential and a world-class scientific capacity and skills base. If you like, this represents our second big win in the energy lottery. We have to make sure that, with this new big win, the benefits are here to stay for the Scottish economy,” Mr Salmond said yesterday in Aberdeen.
The BBC was promoting Jim Murphy’s 'idea of the week' that Scotland needs nuclear to secure energy supplies and jobs. He knows the majority of people in Scotland are against nuclear but he continues to beat the drum for his pal Gordon, whose brother makes billions out of building nuclear power stations. Short term thinking Jim, we’ve had enough of that in the past decade.
Today’s buzz words are renewables, marine renewables Jim, Scotland’s renewables.
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39 comments:
Indeed Scotland is Energy rich and can scale to its own needs 24/7 with hydro usage and tidal.
Browns fascination with using us as a generator rump for England is becoming increasingly more apparent and the lack of protest reagrding the creeping and insidious revocation of Scotlands right to deny nuclear power.When it is clearl NOT in the nations interest.
Aye - heard Murphy on Scotland at Ten last night. This lot are just like the CBI after our water - they will never stop. Their game is to wear out the opposition by an endless repetition of the same old propaganda. Doesn't matter to them how many times you disprove their case - they will be back next week saying exactly the same thing.
It's renewables Jim, but not as we know it...
WV: inesses (Cool, that's where I'm going on me hols this year)
Juan, I'd like to hear more about the government's efforts in negotiating a decent price for connection to the national grid.
Your right scunnert, but now with the power of the internet they can be kicked back into touch faster and easier.
Hello Elvis, good to see you. The only renewables Jim understands are his weekly resurrections. He really should stay down in London with his pals.
his pal Gordon, whose brother makes billions out of building nuclear power stations. Short term thinking Jim, we’ve had enough of that in the past decade
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Ain't that the truth!
Oldrightie,
His brother may be influential but I hardly imagine that he makes billions.
Maybe the billions aren't quite all for him brownlie, but the brother seems to be the man who collects the payments.
We used to have one of them when I was a bairn, he used to empty the meter, count up all the shillings and florins, and take most of them away.
Thieving b'stard.
Conan,
This is absolutely true. Bristol Zoo has a car park for cars and coaches. They also had a nice gentleman with a uniform and ticket machine and he used to charge £1 per car and £5 per coach. He worked there every day for over 20 years until one day he did not turn up for work. After a few days Bristol Zoo rang up Bristol City Council to ask for a replacement car park attendant. The council replied that the car park was the zoo's responsibily and the zoo asked what about your car park attendant. The council's reply was "What car park attendant??
Meanwhile the nice gentleman who should have been the Chancellor is relaxing somewhere sunny.
I didn't know you lived in a zoo for 20 years brownlie. Bristol zoo at that! Good zoo though, I've visited a few times but before the canny manny was around the car park.
Conan the Librarian™
we had one to but we used cut out
coins from the lid of a shoe polish tin and put them in the meter..
The good old days
scunnert
Back at you........
sorry couldn't resist it ha ha
subrosa,
Don't be so "beastly"!
Niko, surely you didn't cheat the old electricity board?? I remember in my youth a lad who was an expert with meters ;)
Me beastly brownlie? A good kind wifey like me beastly?
The only reason I can think why you would consider me that is because I eat bananas, but my knuckles don't trail on the ground, honestly!
subrosa,
Aha, so you deny the reference to me living in a zoo for 20 years?!! Actually, Kirky's not that bad although some of my mates are animals especially when I beat them at golf!
Yeah we did everybody did in my street.used to know a family who having been cut off from the gas.
Hooked up an bike tyre inner tube from the mains to the gas oven.
Another run their electric from the street lighting...
I was raised on the mean streets
Nikos,
Aye, Niko, you can the boy out of the mean streets but you can't take the mean streak out of Labour politicians.
Meant to say on your blog, I hope your good lady is feeling much better and that your own piles have got correspondingly worse.
Subrosa
Basically the method used by the National Grid, dictated to them by the Treasury I think, is to charge the transmission cost of electricity within the grid based on the distance to London.
The French EDF can sell their electricity over the Channel on a price basis of whatever they feel is economic without reference to where it is produced, even from on the Spanish border.
It is an unlevel playing field based on two different methods of calculating the absorbtion of the fixed cost of the transmission line.
Take for example a car factory; you have to build the factory to produce even 1 car. Of course the factory is designed to make x cars but can make 2X or 3x that number if it runs a nightshift and week-end shifts.
The point is that every car absorbs a proportion of the fixed cost of the establishment of the factory and thus cars produced during the night and at week-end are intrinsically cheaper.
Say that the factory can get an offer to sell these extra cars for export but at a price 10% less than the normal day shift price? Should it take the order or insist on charging the old price and lose the order.
The answer is that it should cost the new cars based on the new price so long as it does not undermine the existing day price.
Thus export prices often are lower than domestic prices.
This is called marginal costing, that is to say charging individual markets prices based on the marginal or extra cost to make the object, beit car or megawatt.
The other method is called full absorbtion costing and has long since, apart from The Treasury, been abandoned in cost accounting except as a concept for understanding price modeling and opportunity pricing.
Electricity generated in Scotland is charged through the grid higher than that generated in London, if any exist, even if it is consumed in Carlisle (I think).
French EDF electricity is supplied to London or the Grid at a contract price and so it is being charged at the marginal price.
Extra electricity coming from the new wind farms and tidal stations is still charged at the old full absorbtion price notwithstanding the fact that it costs nothing extra to transmit it.
The gun is loaded against electricity generated in Scotland by political will.
I wonder why?
My description above is an abstraction but fundamentally correct, although there may twists and nuances regarding inter connectors upgrade costs etc.
If there was separate and independent grid in Scotland and true free market in electricity then things would be different I think.
Norway which generates much more hydro electricity than it consumes has an inter-connector to Denmark, onto Sweden, and down to Holland and Germany.
WeeEck is triyng get ourselves plugged into that system thereby bypassing the English block on us exporting.
If SLab Murphy has his master's way and we build loads of nuclear power stations I wonder which method of transmission charge will be use, full absorbtion or marginal?
Silly question that.
Subrosa
Were you a teacher at Dundee High?
Faux Cu
whats he say whats he say
Subrosa
translation please
nikostratos II said...
Faux Cu
whats he say whats he say
Subrosa
translation please
was that translation request for me?
Faux Cu
Thanks so much for that explanation. It makes it clearer to me now. I know Alex's trying to get a connection to the Scandanavian grid but haven't heard anything more about it recently.
No Faux Cu, I didn't even attend Dundee High although I knew a lot of them in the 50s. My school was Morgan Academy.
I think niko is playing stupid Faux Cu, just like all labour supporters. I'm sure he understands exactly what you were saying.
Niko, how's your wife? (She was taken to hospital last night Faux Cu).
Sorry but you look like a teacher there. My daughter studied at Dundee HS.
nikostratos II said...
Subrosa and all of you
Wife came home 3 am in morning had some painkilling injections and given more medication for pain relief...
So today she is much better op in 13 days
which will help to start a full recovery...
and we can get our lives back on track,
Thanks for all your kind comments
February 18, 2009 11:44 AM
gnight,,...
We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources.OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100. per barrel. The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. Oil is finite. We are using oil globally at the rate of 2X faster than new oil is being discovered. We need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail ourselves out of our dependence on foreign oil. Jeff Wilson has a really good new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. He explores our uses of oil besides gasoline, our depletion, out reserves and stores as well as viable options to replace oil.Oil is finite, it will run out in the not too distant future. WE need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail America out of it's dependence on foreign oil. The historic high price of gas this past year did serious damage to our economy and society. WE should never allow others to have that much power over our economy again. http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com
Brownlie, all golfers are animals. You have the big bears, the chipmunks and then of course the ladies :)
Im all for Green energy but what i dont want is the countryside litterd with loads of them windmills. Tidal power has to be explored more and the Pentland Firth has some of the strongest tides.
Faux Cu, the picture in my banner is not me although the person who designed it says it's my double. I like to think my hair is far trendier.
Dundee HS was a good school in the 50s and 60s, I'm not so sure about any Dundee schools these days. The comprehensive system has a great deal to answer for in my opinion.
Niko that's good news. Pleased to hear something's progressing. Only 12 days to go now ...
Hello BeyondGreen, thanks for your comment. Yes oil is finite but Scotland can surely meet our energy needs with renewables.
I agree the damage done by the utility companies this year is unspeakable. The numbers of elderly who have suffered is also unspeakable. Wonder how Westminster will fudge the figures for deaths from hypothermia this year.
I shall look at the book you recommend. Thanks. Are you in the US?
Subrosa
Dundee HS is doing just fine although to call it a comprehensive is stretching the definition a bit far.
My daughter took to Dundee HS like a duck to water and has never looked back.
subrosa,
I know a true story about a lady golfer but as Spooks and Conan read your blog I don't want to offend their young and tender sensibilities.
As you may know there are wind-farms on Lewis and I don't know if it's just me but I find it very relaxing watching them. Perhaps if they were more pleasing to the eye like Dutch wind-mills a lot more people would be in favour of them.
As for wave/tide-power there is a lot of potential for that in my part of the world and I believe there are quite a few initiatives there.
Hopefully that will lead to an expanding population rather than the decline which has become more rapid as years go on when economic necessity forces islanders to leave for the barbaric, except for Tayside, mainland.
Faux Cu, sorry I wasn't implying DHS was comprehensive. In fact Dundee is more in need of DHS than ever. My comment about comprehensives was aimed at the 4 academies who were equal in quality to DHS in my day. In fact, I had a few pals (through music) at DHS and they'd have never gained access to any of the academies because of poor primary results. They were aware how privileged they were having wealthy parents. But that was back in the late 50s.
Comprehensives haven't achieved the balance between good academic teaching and vocational teaching. You can't do both well under the same roof unless you stick an extension of 100% onto it.
Awe brownlie, I and I'm sure others would be interested to hear your story of lady golfers. Isn't there a way I can put 'parental control' on here for 24 hours? :)
I love Brownlie's Bristol Zoo Story. That was where I lived before I saw the light and moved to Scotland.
Is it a myth or was there really a clever old scallywag?
Mr Weasel,
Yes, sir, I understand the story is true and he really was a clever scallywag who saw an opportunity and took it. He probably thought he'd get away with it for a while and then realised that he was onto a good thing. Was it a crime? probably we'd all say yes, but who did he harm and who did he help?
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