I just noticed that The National in Scotland had posted a video of a discussion I had with its editor, Laura Webster, on the subject of the significance of independence to the Scottish renewables industry last week, based on my column published last Wednesday:
For love nor money I could not embed this, for reasons I cannot explain. So, you can watch it here. you can watch it here.
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You have no credit to talk about renewable energy as you have no idea about the science of battery storage nor the environment issues relating to the mining of commodities needed to support battery infrastructure and functioning. As a consequence this is no more than amateur cheerleading.
Might you lay out your credentials for commenting here please?
What do you know about running an industry?
I listened to the post & most of it was about energy policy and the fact that Scotland has a large renewable resource (wind, tides, hydro and to some extent PV) that it could exploit. In terms of RES, the business case is well established and prior to the events of 2021 (gas price hike) Levelised Costs for elec’ from RES was competitive with most forms of fossil (and nuclear) generation. Mr Murphy is aware of these business & political realities – & one does not need to have an understanding of batt’ chemistry to know this.
There is a commondity (& indeed environmental) problem with RES, in the case of batt’s – the tech trajectory is to replace lithium with sodium. In the case of PV (& sliver) the trajectory is to replace silver with copper, super conducting generators will be a feature for wind in the near future (probably post-2030). There are no simple tech answers. One could stick with fossils and take the CCs route or nuclear (remind me how Hinkley is going). Sadly despite the money thrown at CCS (well north of £500m) so far the results have been… somewhat dissapointing – but perhaps it will still deliver – at some point in the future – but therin lies a problem – we need workable low/zero carbon solutions asap – thus RES.
As for me, I design and build RES projects – mostly on the network side – but also on the energy flows and storage aspects. On the latter subject, I’m much less interested in batt’ chemistries (LiFePO4 is the most popular one at the moment) more interested in absolute volume stored – & on that basis electrolysers (using nickel catalysts – see the IMEC paper on the subject) is probably the most promising route to take. There we are, hope you (Mr Hollins) found something of interest in the above.
Thanks
I think you hit the nail on the head Richard when you talk about the motivation of independence. I used to work in management training, a key aspect of our work being workforce motivation. My mantra was always that providing greater autonomy for the workforce and then supporting their decisions was the best way for management to increase motivation. I’ve always believed that the same is true of an independent Scotland. With independence and the realisation that it’s entirely down to us, the people of Scotland to make it work (and knowing that some in England will want us to fail) and no longer being shackled to Westminster edicts about what or how we do things, will be the greatest driver of a successful Scotland, both economically and socially.
Thanks
The motivation seems to be catching on in Scotland as it’s been reported that there has been a 70% increase in university and college courses relating to careers in the renewable sector.
” The students at the heart of the green jobs boom”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64865088
May it long continue.
I have just been listening to a “Wind Europe” webinar on what happened in 2022. Summarising, the EU is in trouble with its RES ambitions (45% elec from RES by 2030). It needs to build around 31GW per year of on & off-shore wind if it is to reach this goal. (we were saying this back in 2020). At the moment it is doing 16GW. The discussion was split between on and off-shore wind. Oh dear, the EU is getting nowhere with respect to off-shore (Germans have been farting around for perhaps a decade, the French have only just built their 1st off-shore farm). Pathetic is not the half of it.
The country leading in off-shore wind is…. the UK – by a country mile. & the bit of the Uk with the best wind resource is: Scotland. With some clever footwork the Scots could dig the EU out of the policy hole it has put itself in. Obviously there would be a quid pro quo but I think we know what that would be. I note that at the moment, most off-shore development in the Uk is focused in England. I wonder why that is? Over to you Scotland – everything to gain and very little to lose. & note: wind farms lead to much better fishing – because trawlers dragging stuff along the seabed are banned. So a better marine environment, more fish, low cost elec and a new best friend.
Indeed….
Scotland has the biggest renewable energy FDI flow in the world right now, to build 27gw of capacity
Offshore wind farms creating a form of marine reserve – like an artificial reef – is an interesting angle I’d not considered before. As I understanding, relatively small protected areas can have a large positive impact on fishing stocks in the surrounding areas.
The marine reserve takes two forms. First, scour protection around the base of the WT – where it goes into the seabed – this usually takes the form of large rocks etc. These then become havens for shell fish, fish etc. Second, no trawling is allowed in the farm area – which then leads to a gradual regeneration of the sea bed = all sorts of shell fish etc. As Monbiot observed in his book Feral – the North Sea used to be gin-clear – until trawling started at scale in the mid to late 19th century. My contact with DG Mare (= DG Fishing) in the European Commission suggests that they look very favourably on off-shore wind farms as de-facto marine reserves. The Greens/NGOs have shown some unhappiness with off-shore wind – fact of the matter is that the could re-generate the seabed.