Mike Wade
Alex Salmond’s vision of a Scotland powered entirely by renewable energy by
2020 has been dismissed as “nonsense” by one of the UK’s leading energy
economists.
In an interview with The Times Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at
the University of Oxford, insisted it did not make economic sense for
Scotland to be reliant on renewable energy and nor would it help in the
battle against climate change.
Professor Helm said: “Salmond has talked about 100 per cent renewables for
Scotland. Well, it’s nonsense. Wind is intermittent by definition. You have
to ask a very simple question: even if you wanted to do this, what are you
going to do when the wind doesn’t blow?
“The truth is Scotland relies on baseload nuclear power, coal and gas to
balance its system and it will have to for a very long time to come. Full
stop.”
Professor Helm, a member of the economic advisory committee to the UK
secretary of state for energy and climate change, accepted that renewables
had their place, particularly in helping to power remote island
communities. However, he insisted the government should embrace a balanced
energy policy as opposed to the notion of Scotland as “the Saudi Arabia of
renewables” which Mr Salmond has helped to popularise.
Mr Salmond, who will stand down as first minister next week, raised
Scotland’s renewable electricity target to 100 per cent by 2020 during the
last election campaign. Figures released in July showed that in 2013
renewable electricity generation was equivalent to 46.6 per cent of gross
electricity consumption compared with 16.9 per cent in 2006.
But as the amount of electricity generated from renewables has grown so has
Scotland’s reliance on millions of pounds of subsidy, factored into energy
bills across the UK, warned Professor Helm. He questioned whether it made
economic sense for Scotland to pursue a strategy that relied predominantly
on English consumers to pay the costs of systems and interconnections.
Tracing energy policy back a decade and more, he said Mr Salmond who in
other ways appeared “a rather good economist” had fallen in with other
European politicians by promoting green technologies, which seemed to offer
a competitive investment, against an anticipated rise in oil prices.
This had proved a fallacy, said Professor Helm, particularly in light of
the 25 per cent fall in the oil price over recent weeks.
He added: “If only we were about to run out of fossil fuels, we might
address the problem of climate change more quickly, but the truth is we
have enough left to fry the planet many times over. Salmond’s energy policy
is economically dependent on the rest of the UK and it is pricing Scotland
out of the world market as the price of fossil fuels falls away.”
Professor Helm is the author of The Carbon Crunch, a powerful polemic
arguing that governments around the world are failing in their efforts to
tackle global warming. He argues for a more urgent response including a
transition from coal to gas, carbon pricing and investment in new energy
technology.
He reserves strong criticisms for wind power “disaggregated, diffuse and
intermittent” which in Scotland is despoiling “some of the most beautiful
wild open landscapes in the world”.
Pointing out that northern Europe is prone to high pressure climatic
conditions in mid to late winter, when there is little or no wind,
Professor Helm notes that in addition to thousands of turbines a “complete
non-wind system” is required to cover those periods of calm “two sets of
electricity capacity rather than one”.
He went on: “Thus the next time you hear a politician like Alex Salmond
claiming that ‘by generating all of Scotland’s electricity needs from
renewables by 2020, we will be well placed to go further and become a
leading exporter’ you will know it is nonsense.”
Last night, the Scottish government maintained it was committed to
delivering its 2020 target from renewables “as part of a wider, balanced
electricity mix” and said renewables were going from “strength to strength”.
A spokesman added: “This should be another record year for renewable
electricity generation in Scotland, with 30 per cent higher generation in
the first half of 2014 compared to the same period last year.”
Despite his apparent commitment to renewables during this year’s
independence campaign, Mr Salmond often set himself at odds with his Green
allies by stressing the importance of oil to Scotland’s economy.
“When you take the rhetoric away, he is as keen as mustard on fossil
fuels,” said Professor Helm. “Weren’t fossil fuels meant to pay for the
entire Scottish economy? If he genuinely wanted to be zero-fossil fuels and
low carbon, he should have closed down the North Sea.”
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