Three letters in the Herald this morning. You may not agree with them all.
Gross lack of planning on energy
MARTIN Williams’ report of payments to switch off turbines (“Wind farm switch-offs cost bill-payers £1bn over the past five years”, October 2) reminded me about the old fable concerning the inventor of an acid which could eat through any mineral, plastic or fabric. His problem was that he could not find a container for its storage. Likewise we seem to have invented a renewable resource which cannot be saved, but this time we forgot to design and construct its storage or its ready connection to the main grid.
Surely the turbines should never be switched off except for maintenance. When there is insufficient wind, the scaled-down solid fuel generators can be powered up to supply our needs. This would be a greener solution to the present one.
There seems to have been a gross lack of thought and planning to the principles of renewable energy and its transmission by past governments – or does the status quo suit the power-generating companies’ incomes?
JB Drummond, Kilmarnock
JB Drummond, Kilmarnock
Green hydrogen must be the future
MARTIN Williams’ exposé of the absurdity of wind farm operators, many foreign-owned, being paid £200 million a year, increasing to £500 million, to switch off electricity generation during output peaks demonstrates just how crazy UK energy policy has become. Not only is this a waste of precious green power generation, but a scandalous waste of public funds.
As the article explains, the problem is exacerbated by lack of grid capacity to handle peak demand and an inability to store the excess power generated. Surely the answer, as I have argued now for a quarter of a century, is to use the otherwise unwanted and essentially-free excess peak generation to produce hydrogen by electrolyzing water. Hydrogen produced in this way is after all widely regarded as the green fuel of the future. When converted back into electricity, the only emission is water vapour, which ends up in the sea from whence it came.
With Scotland’s huge renewable energy potential, we should become a world leader not only in green hydrogen production, but in its employment for home heating and as a fuel for cars, trains and ships. The Norwegians are already building hydrogen-powered ferries for their Lofoten service. We should do likewise with our transport networks. The challenge for the Scottish Government is to find and hire competent and visionary management to make it happen in the most cost-effective way.
Roy Pedersen, Inverness
Roy Pedersen, Inverness
The truth about tidal
GEOFF Moore (Letters, October 2) has evidently misread my letter of September 24.
For tidal stream turbines to work optimally, the tidal flow needs to be above a certain threshold average velocity – currently reckoned at 2.5 m/s at springs. With further development more efficient tidal turbines ought to be able to reduce this threshold, so opening up a wider range of suitable sites for capture of tidal stream energy.
Tidal stream turbines use kinetic energy from the actual ebbing and flowing of the tides in real time. Tidal barrages may use both the actual kinetic energy of the tidal flood, but can also regulate outflows from the dammed area, to optimise energy capture during the ebb cycle.
Faster tidal streams are found in different geographical locations to the estuaries capable of being dammed with barrages, the Severn being a possible exception.
They tend to be located off headlands or island races, ideally with constrictions that accelerate tidal stream velocities, such as in the Pentland Firth. Sites suitable for tidal stream turbines are not often suitable for barrages. It is unlikely there will be a barrage built across the Sound of Islay, or across the Pentland Firth.
Conversely, tidal barrages are preferable in estuarine locations with high tidal ranges, such as the Severn and Mersey, which may or may not have sufficiently fast tidal streams.
So those sites with lower tidal stream velocities but high tidal ranges are suitable for barrages, but are not then suitable for tidal stream turbines.
Mr Moore then seeks to use false equivalence to sustain his naysaying. Both turbines and barrages capture tidal energy. Combine both types of sites – estuaries and off headlands – and you have a wider range of choice for integrated electricity generation from tidal energy.
As it is, both tidal stream turbines and barrages extract tidal energy and are eminently suitable for generating renewables baseload, the tides being predictable, howsoever that energy is captured.
It is about time the levels of funding to really kickstart this technology were made. Strategically we need renewables baseload. The shortcomings in UK resource appraisal that have constrained this development go back several decades.
Anti-renewables campaigners, and especially the pro-nuclear lobby, often complain there is no way for renewables to generate baseload. This is a falsehood.
Tony Philpin, Isle of Gigha
Tony Philpin, Isle of Gigha
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