Peter McColl, Green Party, 19.8.13
Three topics to be discussed:-
- Independence and North Sea Oil
- Renewables in Scotland
- The experience of community ownership in the Highlands and Islands
1. The current UK government is tied to a policy of
developing unorthodox fossil fuels, e.g. shale gas and fracking. This is part
of a wider trend found in the USA and Ireland (where there is also a prospect
of lignite reserves being used). This benefits the energy corporations. Osborne
wants to divert government subsidies from renewables to the energy corporations
involved in fracking. This is tied to a strategy of increasing people’s
dependence on these corporations, since the alternative course of developing
renewables opens up the prospect of local or community ownership.
Scotland still has considerable reserves of North Sea Oil,
as well as undeveloped oil reserves west of Shetland. However, given the impact
of burning fossil fuels on climate change, we need to consider methods of
moving away from these. Money raised from existing reserves could be used to
finance the transition to renewables, whilst the new reserves are left
undeveloped. Climate change hits the poorest the hardest.
This would also mean opposing shale gas and fracking, which
have other environmentally damaging costs – including polluted ground water and
possible earthquakes. There is currently a planning application to frack under
Mossmorran gas fractionation plant in Fife, with possible devastating
consequences.
2. Scotland has the potential to take the lead in
renewables – particularly wind, tidal and wave power. The unit costs of wind
power have been falling dramatically. Even the cost of solar power is falling
to such an extent that it could be used economically in more limited cases in
Scotland, despite poorer weather and longer winters.
Money from oil and gas currently goes to the National
Exchequer and the energy corporations (although ironically Norway’s state owned
Statoil is one of the beneficiaries of oil and gas currently in the UK sector).
Now the development of wind power is in the hands of 3 major
private corporations.
The alternatives to these forms of ownership include state
control and/or locally owned companies or cooperatives. These can be more
empowering.
3. The potential of social ownership can be best seen in
the Highlands and Islands. The success of recent community land buyouts has
been linked to the development of local renewable energy. This can be seen on
Gigha, Eigg and in South Harris. These places have moved away from dependence
on imported diesel fuel and are now energy self-sufficient, sometimes with
surplus available for other uses.
Peter has been involved in an attempt to establish a
community owned wind turbine in Portobello. However, they had faced major
obstacles from the local council, including spurious opposition to a site next
to a water and sewage treatment plant on the grounds of possible danger to the
plant.
Discussion
Allan, Gordon, Iain, Liam, Sarah, Vincent contributed to the
discussion, raising the issue of the potential of carbon storage schemes,
enhanced local democracy, how independence could actually improve the
energy/environment situation, where the money for investment in renewables
would come from, the balance between electricity distributed on the National
Grid and more locally, the lack of constancy of wind power, the balance between
old and new sources of energy, and the issue of fuel poverty
Two facts were revealed in this discussion. Ian Taylor, oil
businessman and major financer behind ‘Better Together’ has s strong interest
in fracking development. Food parcels, which require no heating, are having to be
developed for the poorest, because people can not afford the cost of fuel.
Peter summed up by supporting further research into carbon
storage schemes, but not placing any great credence on false promises. These have
been made in the past, but have just been used to continue with old energy
production methods in the meantime. The cost of renewables is falling rapidly
making them increasingly cost efficient. Fossil fuels may initially have low
costs when reserves are still large, but these deplete leading to a longer term
rise in costs. There were also other potential energy sources such as biomass,
but these are likely only to have more limited local potential. It would be
possible to overcome some of the problems of the lack of constancy of wind
power by having an underwater power connector with Norway, which has surplus energy
produced by hydro-power. Electricity from wind power could then be fed back to
Norway, when such power was being generated (a similar concept to power
transfers in pumped storage schemes in the Highlands). There would be a need to
keep some high voltage power stations for industry, e.g. aluminium plants, but
these could use hydro-power. A major cause of fuel poverty lay in the control
of energy by profiteering corporations. The creation of more local community
power schemes was one way of addressing this problem.
