GR Weir (Letters, October 15) asks about the huge quantities of energy that
Scotland currently exports to England without asking why the Norway/UK
subsea link does make landfall at Peterhead. It carries on under the North
Sea for a further 250 miles before coming ashore in the North of England
which is a higher-risk project in the event of cable faults over the life
of the project. However it does ensure cheap hydro power for England in the
event of independence.
A further series of links from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and
Denmark are either operational, being commissioned or are at the planning
stage bringing in over 8,000 MW to England, thus negating the demand for
expensive renewable energy from Scottish wind farms.
The pledge by the First Minister to ban gas by 2026 means there will be no
such product to export from Scotland to ensure the environment is protected
from CO2 emissions Note also that Holyrood will have to ban the import of
fracking gas to Grangemouth from the US to tackle the Climate Emergency,
which will result in the jobs being transferred across the North Sea,
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas.
[This is GR Weir’s earlier letter ]
THERE is an identical story running right across the media this morning;
that Nicola Sturgeon refuses to rule out a “hard border” with England in
the event of independence (“FM refuses to rule out hard border with England
after independence”, The Herald, October 14). It is not in Ms Sturgeon’s
gift to rule this out. In 2014 the Unionist parties/Better Together all
proclaimed a Scotland/England border would consist of “hard border posts,
barbed wire and armed guards”. Is this nonsense still their policy? England
exports vastly more to Scotland than we do to them, so this would be an
economically illiterate policy to implement. One example: how well would
England manage without the huge quantities of gas and electricity they
import from Scotland? The cros-Channel electricity interconnectors already
run at full capacity. Better to keep open, tariff-free borders as far as
possible, I would have thought.
GR Weir, Ochiltree.
0 Comments