George Herraghty hits the nail on the head (Letters, 24 July) with his criticism of the crushing Scottish Power Renewables (SPR) plan to repower the Whitelee wind farm. For local residents who had hoped to live long enough to see the landscape returned to its former glory, this is devastating news.
SPR proposes replacing the current 110m and 140m turbines with a smaller number of colossal 250m structures. This will not only increase the visual impact for surrounding communities, but greatly multiply the distance at which they are visible.
Furthermore, the environmental claims behind this repowering are highly questionable. The existing turbine bases – the vast majority of which sit on peat up to 12 metres deep in some areas – will be left in the ground. Completely new, even bigger and deeper foundations will have to be constructed, destroying a crucial part of Europe’s largest carbon sinks.
Wildlife, which may have only just returned to the moor, will be driven from their homes once again, and larger blades will put even more species of bird at risk. It is difficult to see how the large-scale industrialisation of a moorland ecosystem could be construed as “saving the planet”.
Aileen Jackson
Scotland Against Spin,
Uplawmoor, East Renfrewshire
The National Grid is not a UK national grid. It supplies power only to England and Wales. Scotland is supplied in the North by SSE and in the south by Scottishpower.
When Margaret Thatcher and John Major fully privatised the electricity network in 1990 and 1991 it was sold off to various private companies. Now the largest shareholder of the National Grid (formerly the Central Electricity Generation Board) is the American giant Blackrock. The total compensation package for National Grid CEO Zoë Yujnovich is worth some £7 million a year.
Scottishpower is owned by Spanish company Iberdrola, whose largest shareholder is the Qatar Investment Authority. The largest shareholder of SSE is Blackrock, again.
Since privatisation, electricity bills have steadily increased in real terms. Compared with France whose electricity generation and transmission network is state-owned, the UK’S network is quite inefficient. While it is true that renewables, which now supply 60 per cent of electricity generation, have increased the cost of UK electricity by a third, I think that ownership may also be a factor. In France electricity prices are around 16.5p/kwh compared with ours at 28p/ kwh. Not having to pay shareholders vast sums reduces bills and if you add in the advantages of owning a vital national security asset there’s a strong case for renationalising the entire British generation and supply system.
William Loneskie Lauder, Scottish Borders
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