THE closure of Longannet power station is a crime against the Scottish
economy (“Scotland’s last coal-fired power station shuts down”, The Herald,
November 24). Longannet generated 2.4 Gigawatts of base load electricity in
all seasons and all weathers. No number of wind turbines, generating
electricity only when the wind blows, will be enough to replace that.
In years to come, we will suffer brown-outs and black-outs, because of this
decision and the Climate Change Act, which led to it.
Otto Inglis,
6 Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh.
I READ with interest the letter from DB Watson (March 23) regarding the
unreliability of wind generation. He is not the first by any means to
highlight hard facts and verifiable figures relating to the problems in
maintaining a constant and reliable supply of electricity across the
national grid while relying primarily on renewables. His example related to
Orkney but previous correspondents have argued similarly on a much wider
geographic base.
I have yet to read in your columns any rebuttals to such letters from
supporters of renewables, using similar facts and figures, rather than
sweeping generalisations about total installed capacity and the perils of
nuclear generation.
I, along with most of the population, am not a professional electrical
engineer, therefore it would be comforting to hear from those supporters –
especially the Government – an authoritative, verifiable fact-based
explanation of how stability of supply can be maintained while nuclear and
fossil-based generation capacity is aggressively reduced.
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Lewis Niven,
78 Eastcote Avenue, Glasgow.
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