News Elsewhere contains mainly articles we have permission to republish from Views of Scotland and Country Guardian. You can learn more about these organisations by visiting: http://www.countryguardian.net/ and http://www.viewsofscotland.org/. Occasionally we will also post news from elsewhere on the web.
A wind farm that could provide electricity for two million homes risks having “significant adverse effects” on the landscape and cultural heritage of Scottish islands, councillors have been told. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/wind-farm-2-million-homes-132736668.html
A leading planning expert has quit Scotland’s professional body accusing it of “cosying up” to the energy giant behind a £29bn green energy grid expansion designed to transform how renewable power is carried across Britain. Ian Kelly, who had been a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute for more Read more
NEW figures reveal that, in the first half of this year, Britain wasted nearly £1 billion paying wind farms, 99% of them in Scotland, to switch off their turbines while paying gas-fired power stations in England to switch on. This “curtailment” cost arises because so many wind farms have been Read more
The mess is so total and complete that it would be advisable for future British Right-wing governments, despite their commitment to saner energy policies, not to promise any major immediate consumer relief on energy bills. Fixing this will take decades. Britain, like much of Europe, has got itself in such Read more
The Forsinain Forest Wind Farm is an 86 megawatt scheme proposed for land three kilometres north of Forsinard and 16 kilometres south of Melvich. The company behind the plans says that the site “sits predominantly within non-native commercial forestry and fully outwith the Flow Country Unesco World Heritage Site”. It Read more
On behalf of SAS, I wrote recently to the Scottish Government’s PARD (Planning Architecure and Regeneration Directorate), which includes Scotland’s Chief Planner, about the ability of local authorities to unilaterally change planning conditions or not enforce a breach of a planning condition – which as we know are imposed on Read more
Campaigners are angry over plans to build a huge energy park in one of Perthshire’s hidden beauty spots. Developers Eurowind Energy Limited want to build eight wind turbines with blade tips up to 200 metres high on land within the Abercairny Estate near Crieff. The site would be visible from Read more
We’re on a roll! 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 Read more