The limits of renewables – The Herald

I REGARD Niall Stuart’s article on the future of renewables as a mixture of
wishful thinking and good intentions, neither of which have ever made good
energy policy (“Future can be bright for our wind, wave and tidal power
renewables”, The Herald, November 27).

Scotland’s so-called renewables (mostly wind power) will never make the
slightest difference to global climate change.

Furthermore, intermittent wind energy requires back-up “spinning” capacity
from conventional generation and, if this backup capacity is provided by
gas or coal fired stations, they will still be emitting CO2 to the
atmosphere, but not actually generating electricity.

I have no problem in principle with the whole concept of renewables and
believe that realistic development work should continue in this sector.
Unfortunately, we have jumped en masse onto the wind energy bandwagon at
huge expense to the consumer and we need to get off it.

Politicians of any political persuasion would be doing the country a great
favour by abandoning further onshore and offshore wind energy projects
after the 2015 UK general election.

Alastair Runcie,
5 Vivian Avenue,
Milngavie.