KEITH Anderson, ScottishPower’s chief corporate office writes about
investing massive sums in power generation (“We must invest energy on
keeping the lights on for the longer term”, Agenda, The Herald, May 4)
without mentioning microgeneration and the benefits of schemes such as
small-scale wind generators, run-of-river schemes, geothermal heat, that
can help to avoid excess investment in mega-systems that serve to further
the exploitation of the earth and generation of profits for unsustainable
commercial interests.
Think also of the insulation on all our poorly insulated housing that such
sums could give.
Your leader column already mentions solar power, something that complements
recent advances in battery technology (“Warming to solar power”, The
Herald, May 4). We must think in more imaginative terms than those promoted
by ScottishPower and it may require government to do this if the industry
is unable.
Donald Thomson,
8 West Chapelton Avenue,
Bearsden.
I HAVE always been a bit puzzled as to why a group of wind turbines should
be called a wind “farm” – these massive industrial installations are as far
from true farming as is possible.
However, if they are to be referred to as farms, a more appropriate name
would be subsidy farms, on the basis that they are subsidised when they
produce intermittent electricity and again subsidised through constraint
payments when they don’t generate. They are an excellent investment for
developers which generate an income no matter what happens – but are a poor
investment for electricity consumers, who pay all these subsidies in their
ever increasing bills.
GM Lindsay,
Whinfield Gardens, Kinross.
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