IN 2014, just before the independence referendum, Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Ed Davey all came to Peterhead and announced £100 million for a carbon capture and storage facility to tackle climate change. This was sold as one of the “benefits” of the Union. £1 billion and a job bonanza were “promised”. Once Scotland voted to stay in the UK the Westminster government promptly cancelled the contract.
In 2021 the St Fergus gas terminal was in line to set up a similar scheme. It would have been able to help reduce carbon emissions and been part of the process of decarbonising the Scottish economy. It would have brought 21,000 jobs to north-east Scotland. The Tories again have pulled the plug, preferring to funnel the money down south. It is an indisputable fact that both of these schemes would have gone ahead had Scotland been a normal independent country. Instead Scotland is shackled to a deluded rampant English nationalist Tory clown cartel. They are virulently anti-Scottish and seek to harm Scotland to prevent any example of Scotland having better governance than Westminster.
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They have a “Scottish” branch manager, Douglas Ross. He is a soulless minion of Unionism. An empty vessel trained to endlessly repeat bare-faced lies in defence of the income streams of Tory donors.
The shortages within the labour force of the Scottish economy are all because of the Tory Unionist philosophy of Ayn Rand that greed is the only thing that matters. The basic infrastructure of Scotland has been run down by the Tory oligarchy. Their only interest is debt and speculation-fuelled enlargement of their personal fortunes. Tory Unionism has no desire to have even minimal basic services and infrastructure. Things such as an adequately paid and trained workforce are an anathema to them.
The Tories, the free market and the Union have all self-evidently failed Scotland. There needs to be a visible campaign for an independence referendum early next year.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
IT was a level of incredulity that I heard on television a Westminster COP26 public relations announcement about their net-zero spend plans. This included £140m for carbon capture the same day that I read in The National that they are not funding such a proposal in the north-east of Scotland. All words for the media only – that and tax increases are all we get from this useless government. They are the most incompetent bunch of Cabinet ministers in my lifetime.
Robert Anderson
Dunning
THE announcement that the UK Government will not support a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in Scotland seems to have ruffled feathers in the SNP. Why? SNP politicians should just shrug the shoulders and carry on. Our future independent nation does not need CCS, because we do not need natural gas. Spending hundreds of millions on a CCS plant would be a total waste, only exceeded by the sums being squandered on nuclear energy and HS2.
READ MORE: Ian Blackford blasts Boris Johnson over carbon capture decision
If the SNP as the governing party in Scotland truly wants to build a sustainable future for Scotland, then renewable energy and all the ancillaries thereof are the way to go. All the elements of a green energy revolution are available, from generation to storage and delivery. Grasping this opportunity firmly now will be a major foundation stone of a Scotland that has re-grasped the reality of independence.
Carbon fuels and nuclear energy are the past, renewables are the future. The UK is the past, we all surely know what is our future.
Jon Southerington
Deerness, Orkney
I HAVE been reading that the UK Government are to offer a grant of £5,000 to England and Wales residents to convert gas fired boiler to heat pumps. On the face of it, this seems a great move.
On further analysis, the current housing stock leaks about 25% of energy consumption back into the environment, as wasted energy.
This “wasted energy” has to be generated in the first place by coal, oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar or tidal. Some methods generate CO2 in the process, others leave behind more toxic presents for our “children’s children’s children”, and then some.
READ MORE: UK Government's heat pump strategy 'meagre and unambitious', say campaigners
Reducing this energy “leakage” is the first job. It is unfortunate that heat loss is invisible to us all, perhaps if it was akin to water we would have fixed the leaks many years ago. Can you imagine, a steady trickle of water dripping from each window, door, wall and roof of your home? It would be very visible to target areas of your house to stop the leaks.
Several years ago I recall the water industry in the UK being told to stop the water leaks in the ageing water pipe network, as the levels of reservoirs were dropping due to increased demand, and there was a demand to increase reservoir capacity, which was seen as unreasonable.
If we reduce the need to heat each home by insulating, this reduces the demand for energy generation by the home gas boiler and any future heat systems. Demand reduction follows through to the other major generation systems. Reducing consumption is therefore the key.
Alistair Ballantyne
Birkhill, Angus
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