Poll trickery
The latest Survation poll published yesterday commissioned by RenewableUK tells us that “nearly two-thirds of people support building a new power grid in the UK to boost energy security and decarbonise the UK economy”.
Such polls, are often paid for by industry wanting to show evidence of their desired public opinion. For example a poll claiming 70 per cent support for onshore wind farms showed that of the 1,700 respondents to the poll, only 7 per cent (119) were from Scotland where the greatest number of onshore turbines are located.
That is 0.002 per cent of the Scottish population. Of those 119, only 38 (32 per cent) replied that they lived within five miles of a wind farm. That is 0.0007 per cent of the Scottish population. In contrast, there were 192 respondents from London. Why ask Londoners their opinion of living within five miles of an onshore turbine or a pylon when they are never likely to live anywhere near them?
It is not widely known that survey firms select their respondents from a panel and even use outside respondents from other companies. Those respondents are paid. The selection criteria are not published and any attempts to find out what these are by campaign group Scotland Against Spin, have resulted in silence. There is simply weighting applied to factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status and UK regions. Questions are loaded and you cannot progress in a questionnaire without answering all questions. You are ‘forced’ to answer all questions if you want payment.
It really is about time that the wider press investigated the sham conclusions presented by these polls and reported poll data more accurately.
Aileen Jackson, Scotland Against Spin, Uplawmoor
Green energy cost
The warning from power company Vattenfall that wind farm material and labour costs have increased by 40 per cent and interest rate charges have escalated implies that when it comes to the offshore wind farm Seagreen, the cost of £3 billion per GW will have risen to around £6bn per GW for future projects.
These factors surely highlights the requirement of the SNP to re-assess the cost of a green transition. For example, is the £150bn price tag for a green revolution (given at 2020 values) now above £300bn? Does it also mean that the diktat from Patrick Harvie that flat owners must fit a heat pump, at a cost of £40,000 per flat owner, now comes at a revised cost of over £80,000?
The SNP energy paper outlines a 45 GW increase in wind farm capacity above the current 15GW of generation plant but there is no mention that the revised cost means a bill of £270bn to be underwritten by Scottish energy consumers. Repaid over ten years, does this mean an annual increase of around £9,000 in household energy bills?
However, as wind farm output is inefficient (it requires 60GW of renewables to match the 20GW of the SNP proposed gas turbine project output), it is inefficient (no wind means no output) and is unreliable (any drop in wind speed results in a drop in output) means consumers paying for yet another 20GW of hydrogen fuelled plant to keep the lights on in Scotland. The only problem is that the energy secretary has yet to announce the debt faced by consumers to install such an unproven technology. Assuming it is another £270bn then the total bill for a Green Transition will be about £840bn. That raises the question: can Scottish consumers repay such a debt if independence results in a decade of austerity?
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas
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