ONE can always count on supporters of the wind industry to trumpet its
supposed achievements in a misleading manner (“Green energy overtakes
nuclear to become Scotland’s main source of power”, The Herald, November 27).
It is misleading to compare nuclear and renewables output in Scotland alone
as these figures are meaningless outside of the UK context.
Scotland has only two of the UK’s nine nuclear power stations but nearly
half of the UK’s wind turbines and more than half of its hydro resource. It
is thus no particular achievement for renewables output in Scotland to have
exceeded Scottish nuclear generation over the first six months of 2014,
which included unusually windy weather, although UK-wide, nuclear output
was on average more than twice that of wind.
In contrast, for about half of the six months from April to September, UK
wind turbines were producing less than 10 per cent of their nominal output.
The first three weeks of September were particularly windless and wind
generation from the whole UK was usually below one per cent of electricity
demand.
No imaginable number of wind turbines can substitute for nuclear or other
dependable power sources since we cannot control when or if the wind will
blow.
Our energy security depends on these and it is irresponsible for lobby
groups or politicians to pretend that it does not.
Professor Jack Ponton FREng,
Scientific Alliance Scotland, 7-9 North St David Street,
Edinburgh.
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