I AM keen that Herald readers should have a perspective which is realistic about the inevitable impact on our beautiful, precious and diminishing wild landscapes of the huge wind power development programme which well-meaning but ill-advised politicians of all parties believe is necessary to meet the net zero target by 2050. The level of landscape destruction is hard to visualise and organisations like the John Muir Trust, Mountaineering Scotland and more who are opposing a huge pump storage scheme above
Loch Laggan have not recognised that they are now too late.
We have already installed too many wind farms and storage must be provided to compensate for lack of wind. There is an essential inexorable link between wind energy and storage which cannot be avoided. If this scheme does not get approval, an alternative must be found as soon as possible. Except for short-term battery storage (hours), pump storage is the only solution. Moreover it is the only green source of synchronous power which has inherent inertia, vital for system stability.
The reality is even more stark. The Loch an h-earba scheme is huge, with by far the largest energy storage capacity yet conceived for the UK, at 40Gwhrs: enough to keep Scotland energised for 12 hours at present demand. Unfortunately, windless periods are sometimes very much longer and sensible energy planning would require storage for a minimum of at least a week. To plan for a windless week would require 16 schemes the size of the Earba scheme and probably by 2050 somewhere in the region of 40, if the aspiration to divert all transport and heating to electricity is to be achieved with zero carbon.
To transport all this energy to where the demand is needs transmission infrastructure and would result in a vast network of high-voltage transmission lines and switching stations, making the controversial Denny-beauly line appear insignificant. This is not to overlook the associated access roads, borrow pits and peatland attrition adding to landscape destruction.
Forget hydrogen as a solution. It will have a part to play, but renewable energy is by far the most expensive form of energy, without making it even more so by the electrolysis of water, transporting it and storing at cryogenic temperatures and extremely high pressure.
The country has three options: A, invest in a nuclear programme, B, continue to burn gas, or C, accept load shedding and extended power outages with the distressing consequences. To make no change and continue with the present renewables policy, as all the politicians promise at present, will deliver hellish consequences. The financial outcomes are equally depressing since this policy will ensure that electricity will be unaffordable for all but the wealthy.
There is a place for wind as part of the diverse energy mix which we still have, but only just. Politicians who suggest a cheap energy future are either ignorant, naive, or mendacious. All we can strive for is to achieve international parity. Pay attention to what the politicians promise in the run-up to the coming election. They want to make you happy, but we need the truth.
Norman Mcnab, Killearn.
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