Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2015
If that is the minister’s position, he is not convincing anyone involved in the industry. Just last week, Professor Paul Younger, the professor of energy engineering at the University of Glasgow—a man who we might expect to know a little bit about the subject—said:
“We’re already getting to where it’s getting too late to design, commission and build new power stations, especially when you have got the Scottish Government making common cause with the anti-everything brigade.”
Given that those are the views of a professor of energy engineering, one would think that the Scottish Government might be listening to them. Instead, the Scottish Government is putting all its eggs in the basket of intermittent wind power, it has slammed the door shut on fracking and the potential for unconventional gas, and it refuses to consent to any new nuclear plants. Within a decade, we will lose 55 per cent of our electricity generating capacity and there is simply no Scottish National Party Government strategy on how we are going to keep the lights on after 2025.
Professor Younger got it right again last week when he said:
“It doesn't help when last week we have got the Scottish Government cheerleading against fossil fuels and then this week saying ‘Oh, hang on a minute, we desperately need them.’ Well, you know, let’s get consistent guys.”
The minister may think that his position is consistent, but that is certainly not reflected in some of his colleagues’ statements. We need a clear statement from the Scottish Government on exactly what its energy strategy for the next decade is.
To be fair to the minister, he can, on occasion, approach the issues with a degree of good sense. Unfortunately, his amendment resorts to the tired old tactic of blaming everything on Westminster. The Scottish Government amendment does not recognise the full picture, even in relation to Longannet. It does not mention the issues of EU emissions targets or of carbon pricing, both of which the SNP Government is fully signed up to. Even in relation to the transmission charging issue it misses the point, because the transmission charging regime, which has been in existence for many years, affects all generating plant in Scotland.
Exactly the same transmission charging regime that applies to Longannet applies to Scottish Power’s other generating asset, the Whitelee wind farm. It sits on more or less the same latitude as Longannet, but the charging regime does not threaten that project’s viability. Indeed, we see applications flooding in daily for wind farms, all over Scotland, that would be subject to the same transmission charging regime that affects conventional stations. Clearly, the transmission charging regime is a barrier that we need to overcome, but it is not insurmountable if one has the right project, with the right technology.
The SNP amendment leaves us with the question: what exactly is the SNP electricity generation policy? Is it to rely wholly on renewables? The minister is fond of saying that, in energy, variety is everything. However, there are no concrete proposals to replace our existing nuclear capacity or conventional generation. Although the SNP may not like nuclear power, it is a low-carbon green energy and we will need that if we want to meet our climate change targets while keeping the lights on.