Off the grid
Alan Brown MP said in your article in the Scotsman (July 10) that Scots windfarms are being penalised by staggering energy grid charges. Scotland is subject to the highest grid charges in Europe.
In Sutherland constraint payments have now reached £68.4 million. Why do we keep following the SNP line of building more turbines to keep paying more and more constraint payments?
Since April 2009 operators in the north of Scotland have been charged £21 per kW for high voltage access, three times the £7 levied on windfarms in Southern England.
Much of the electricity is sent over long distances to centres of demand in the rest of Britain. Ofgem is considering charging reforms.
Michael Baird, Bonar Bridge
Carrot and stick
It was heartening to note a sense of reality in Charles Wardrop’s letter ‘Wild Goose Chase’ (Scotland on Sunday July 11) referring to the stratospheric costs entailed in our nation’s dubious quest to lead the world towards net-zero carbon emissions. The original government estimate has already escalated by 40 per cent to £1.4 trillion.
Climate activists claim that events such as wildfires perfectly portray their prophecies of a scorched earth. They also maintain that the costs of achieving net-zero far outweigh the possible consequences of inaction.
Petrolium with its multitude of by products that have brought unprecedented prosperity will, like it or not, be a necessity for the foreseeable future. We need a staged and pragmatic transition to viable alternatives. Those who believe that electric vehicles (EVs) with their much vaunted “zero tailpipe emissions” are one of those options, are badly misinformed. Such technologies are creating a hidden chain of human exploitation, suffering and environmental degradation.
This spurious quest for net-zero carbon has degenerated into a carrot and stick situation of escalating taxes and lucrative carbon trading.
Neil J Bryce, Kelso
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