SAS letter in the Scotsman today

It is revealing that the Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland views local opposition to renewable energy infrastructure not through the lens of local democracy, but through anxiety for his beloved net zero project.

Alistair Carmichael asks whether net zero goals can be realised when relying on corporate energy giants that practice “old-fashioned corporate greed” while preaching social responsibility. He is right that promises of “community benefit” now trigger nothing but weary sighs from local people.

However, the MP should look at the bigger picture. Rather than blaming corporate structures, he ought to ponder whether the headlong rush to net zero is the unmitigated good he assumes it to be. The realities of this policy are soaring energy bills, localised environmental damage, a reliance on unpredictable power sources and a staggering financial burden on taxpayers.

Instead of dismissing public scepticism, he and his likeminded colleagues should ask themselves if opposition to net zero is truly irrational – or if the real irrationality lies in their own unwavering dogmatism.

Aileen Jackson Scotland Against Spin, Uplawmoor, East Renfrewshire

One thing immediately caught my attention in the article from Alistair Carmichael, “Give communities a voice or risk killing net zero progress” (Perspective, 28 August).

It was the statement that “energy giant SSE was paid £9 million last year not to generate electricity”. Readers of a nervous disposition should look away now.

Constraint payments, which are added to our electricity bills, are escalating way past the £2.2 billion mark. Why should wind turbine owners, mostly foreign, get this payment?

What idiot civil service person agreed to this? You do not pay a shopkeeper not to supply you with goods. All-new proposed wind turbine developments, and unfortunately they will continue, should ensure there are no constraint payments. That would take the wind out of their sails.

Clark Cross Linlithgow, West Lothian

The SNP complains to the UK governmentabouthighenergy prices, repeating the myth that Scotland is energy rich. Well, we would be if the same SNP supported extracting gas from the North Sea, and perhaps even supported the extraction of oil – both of which would bring jobs, or at least safeguard jobs in Aberdeen.

The UK Department of Energy argues that extracting oil would not reduce the price of oil as the price is set on international markets. This false mantra is repeated ad nauseam, seemingly on the basis that if you say it often enough, it will become fact, despite being nonsense. As anyone with a basic knowledge of economics knows – something which seems lacking in both governments – if you increase supply, the price falls, so by adding oil from the North Sea to the international markets – everything else being equal – the price of oil would indeed fall, or at least, not rise as much.

The desire for net-zero is something most of us agree on, but given that the UK is responsible for only 1 per cent of global emissions, and we have done so much already, we should be progressing not with zeal, but at a pace that allows transition without hammering businesses and the wider population with high energy costs. There is no point in washing our halos while exporting jobs to China, along with the tax revenue that would otherwise arrive from extracting our own resources close to home.

That is especially true of gas where we could, by the end of October this year, be using North Sea gas instead of importing Liquified Natural Gas from Qatar or the USA on tankers that are some of the worst emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, giving us energy security in the face of world instability.

Let’s get real. Extract from the North Sea while we transition to net zero, and as we are at it, break the artificial link between electricity prices and the price of gas. When solar and wind can produce cheaper electricity, why we do we burden business and the public with high energy costs? This destroys jobs and loses tax revenue. Madness. Let’s hope the new Prime Minister listens to logic and not zealots. A hae ma doots !

Brian Barbour Haddington, East Lothian