Finnish first?
Laura Waddell seems in awe of Finland (“UK may envy Finnish heat pump revolution as winter bites”, Perspective, 22 September). So in awe that she did not say anything about the costs of heat pumps or reveal that the Green/SNP-dominated Scottish Government will ban gas boilers in all new homes, offices and newbuilds by April 2024. From 2030 existing homes will not be able to replace their existing gas boiler with a new one but will be forced to install far more expensive heat pumps, solar energy or electricity.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, ground source pumps cost £24-49,000. Air source pumps will cost £7-13,000 but larger radiators may be required, adding to the expense. Few people could afford this cost. I recently replaced my gas boiler for £2,970. Modern gas boilers can last anywhere from 10-15 years but many are still efficient after 20 years.
I trust Laura Waddell will advise people to buy a replacement gas boiler before 2030 and point out to the Scottish Government that the European Union Parliament recently declared that natural gas and nuclear can be labelled as green alongside wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, so will the Scottish Government now rescind this stupid gas boiler diktat?
Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian
Luddites rule
The General Secretary of the GMB, Gary Smith, has said that “the big winners from renewables have been the wealthy and big corporate interests”. He has urged the Labour Party to abandon “bourgeois environmentalism”, get real about energy supply and back fracking. I completely agree. The Labour Party and the SNP have been captured by people who have no experience of industry, engineering, or infrastructure projects, but like Luddites have turned their backs on economic development and its creation of greater wealth and higher living standards for ordinary people which reliable energy sources have provided for decades.
Now that the Government has realised that energy policy over the past 20 years has been disastrous and is trying to increase oil and gas output we can expect these bourgeois environmentalists to become more desperate in their demands to shut down oil and gas production. Stand by for more raving, ranting, disinformation, gluing, mobbing, smashing, tyre-deflating criminality in the months ahead.
William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire
Posture politics
We are subjected to the SNP’s energy secretary, Michael Matheson, putting on a tough and supposedly principled stance and insisting there will be no fracking licences issued in Scotland. But, in the meantime, there will be no ban on Grangemouth processing imported fracked oil and gas, nor in the banning of any fracked or nuclear power generated electricity.
In other words it will make not a bit of difference other than the SNP can do what they do best – hypocrisy and posture politics. If they were serious and principled, all fracking and nuclear end products would be banned. They would disengage Scotland from any power grid that is involved and instead rely entirely on unreliable and intermittent wind. Otherwise their “stance” is sheer hypocrisy and merely a meaningless posture.
Alexander McKay Edinburgh
Share this:
- Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
- Share on X (Opens in new window) X
- Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
- Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram
- Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
- Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
- Print (Opens in new window) Print
0 Comments