It was on this exact day 2 years ago that we posted about the blocking of a Wind Farm application on the Isle of Lewis. At the time there were widespread complaints from some island residents and campaign groups that the wind turbines would have a detrimental affect on the tourism and wildlife of Lewis, particularly the bird population (Scotland’s largest). Well, it now seems that the tide has turned completely and the Isle of Lewis scheme has been given the go-ahead as part of the Scottish Governments latest ‘green energy’ plans. However, it seems that the islanders (whether the want to or not) are going to have to pay £18.5m to buy the equiptment to make it happen.
As with all of these major rural developments there are a wide range of viewpoints – is the generation of power from renewable sources more important than preserving the natural beauty of these landscapes?. A very difficult question to answer, and we imagine even more problematic for the Isle of Lewis residents that will have to live with the development every day.
What are your opinons on this wind farm – should it have been given the go-ahead?
For further information on this developing story see:
The oil and gas industry in Scotland is to benefit, along with the rest of the UK in receiving huge tax breaks. The tax break plan has been drawing up so it will attract new investment in the oil and gas industry around the UK. Scotland will see a lot of benefit from this as it still has undeveloped areas around the Western Isles.
British Oil and Gas Rigs to Benefit
The news could trigger a massive rush of investment totaling 14 billion pounds, spread out over the next ten years. Scotland still has remote gas fields in the west of Shetland and the likes of these sites will see most of the investment.
Scottish Saltire
Good old Scottish gas will keep the country going for a while yet, but these sites have never got the investment they need due to tax reasons. It was the Chancellor (Alastair Darling) himself who announced the tax break, that will see a £1 billion tax boost that will hopefully put the wheels in motion for investment and production of more Scottish gas.
Alastair Darling
Another plus side to the plans on producing more Scottish gas, is the news that it will create up to 600 jobs, and further more spin off jobs, throughout Scotland. The oil and gas services business around the UK will see the biggest impact.
Controversy surrounding the Beauly to Denny power line replacement linking Nothern and Central Scotland continues to rumble on. Last week the Scottish Government approved the 137 mile line (with 600 overhead pylons). The decision was made despite 18,000 objections. The latest development is that appears that some of the line could go underground after all – if you take Energy Minister Jim Mathers rather Rumsfeld-esque take on the issue:
“We cannot require them to underground. What we can require them to do is to mitigate. That them leaves them the option to mitigate by undergrounding.”
In other words, he can’t force Scottish and Southern Energy (the developers of the line) to go underground but the option is open.
Another intriguing aspect of this project is the fine line being straddled by environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth Scotland, who lent their support to the line on the principal that it’s worth scarifcing the aesthtics of the Scottish landscape in order to combat future climate change.
Those of you who have an hour and a half of your time to spare can watch Scottish Energy Minister Jim Mather being questioned on the decision.
Well, it was probably always going to come down to this – todays the day that the Copenhagen Summit will either produce an agreement of some kind or not. President Obama has deemed it worthy enough to warrant an appearance. We will update this post throughout the day with the breaking news as it happens………apologies for the rather rambling nature - we’ll have a proper summary once the dust has settled……..
There is no time to waste. America has made our choice. We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say. Now, I believe that it’s time for the nations and people of the world to come together behind a common purpose.
We must choose action over inaction; the future over the past – with courage and faith, let us meet our responsibility to our people, and to the future of our planet. Thank you.
12.45 – Obama’s speech hasn’t exactly went down too well…..
ActionAid’s climate expert, Raman Mehta, said:
Obama has said nothing to save the Copenhagen conference from failure.
The US is the one major player yet to move. Developing countries have come here to negotiate in good faith but feel they have been cheated and it looks like they will leave empty handed.
Greenpeace US’s executive director Phil Radford said:
The world was waiting for the spirit of yes we can, but all we got was my way or the highway.
He said all parties must move, but he offered no movement. He said the decades long split between the rich world and poor needs to end, but his vision of a deal here would give us a 3C temperature rise and devastate Africa and the small island states.
Friends of the Earth is “deeply disappointed” by Obama’s speech.
Andy Atkins, Friends of The Earth
The President is right that the endeavours in Copenhagen will go down in history – but unless we see a massive shift in the US position, it will be for all the wrong reasons.
Obama has deeply disappointed not just those listening to his speech at the UN talks – he has disappointed the whole world.
20.49 – In a similar vein to the negotiations in Copenhagen, we have been sidelined by technical issues today, apologies. Nothing much has happened really – we are now on the fourth draft of the ‘accord’ which you can read here (although there’s probably another one being uploaded as i type). The ‘highlights’ of the deal (ripped shamelessly from Auntie Beeb):
“Recognises the scientific view” on keeping temperature rise below 2C (3.6F) but does not set it as a target
No date for peaking emissions – just “as soon as possible”
Developing countries to monitor and verify their own emissions without international oversight
“Support a goal” of raising $100bn per year by 2020, not commit to achieving that goal
No date for concluding a detailed agreement, nor whether it should be legally binding
Copenhagen is only officially three days old and has almost managed to draw as much controversy as Tiger Woods private life. Here’s a quick summary of the main stories so far from Copenhagen……
Email scandal – even before the conference kicked off we had the leaking of a controversial group of emails from the University of East Anglia which seemed to suggest that academic research from climate change “deniers” should be supressed. This was immediately seized upon by sceptics to paint the entire climate change movement with the same brush, and rubbish the entirity of scientific evidence for man-made Climate Change. Not the best of starts then……….
Developing countries have been “outraged” by draft agreement that would see the bulk of decision making powers of the future switch to the developed nations and remove the power of the UN in situations such as these. Not exactly the unified front that was hoped for before the conference began then. Infact, the developing nations have even began to bicker amongst themselves (something that rarely happens at big summits like these, they normally stick together). However, hope may come in the shape of billionaire investor George Soros, who has a proposal the rich countries hand their $150bn (£92bn) of Special Drawing Rights to poor countries for immediate use to combat climate change – will they agree to this?
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is just under three weeks away (Dec 7th to Dec 18th) and the last few days have seen some high stakes political games going on behind the scenes. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has described the negiotiations as:
………..the most complex set of international negotiations ever, on any issue
With a conference dealing with such complex issues it can be difficult to track what exactly is going on – opinion on what will actually be achieved at the conference seems to be shifting constantly. There are screeds of Copenhagen coverage around the web – these are what we will be checking in the run up to and during the conference itself.
Hopefully there will be a channel that will provide you with the latest news from Copenhagen to meet your requirements. We are aiming to post on all the major developments as they happen.
The IEA has warned everyone to brace themselves for the biggest energy revolution the world has ever seen. The economic crises gives us and the electricity suppliers the opportunity to make things right in the world by spearheading a worldwide low carbon energy surge that will fight global warming and ensure we have enough energy supplies around the globe.
A Very little amount of people actually realize the size of the tasks we face in the next few decades to tackle global warming whilst still supplying the energy that we have become so reliant on over the last 100 years.
The International Energy Agency said:“But it can and must be met,” it said. “The time to act has arrived.”
The reality of the damages that climate change “will” cause is starting to became clear, yet while everyone is making a lot of noises about it and setting targets the question has to be asked: Are we doing enough? We all know the answer to that is no, but countries who laughed at the idea 10 years ago (including the United States of America) are starting to come round and year by year we have more and more countries signing up to agreements to reduce our carbon footprint.
Just next month (December 2009) the landmark international Conference will be held in Copenhagen. The IEA is expected to tell the top 30 industrialized countries that they along with the rest of the planet will face dire consequences if they continue with their current policies on energy and climate change.
Change is needed, and now.
Read and rewritten byGavin Boyd with his own views added.
Im sure that you are all too aware of the feeling you get sometimes: “i wish id thought of doing that!” – well, this sensation washed over me quickly this week when i came across this great illustration from US website Power and Energy.
Essentially, it encapsulates in one tidy design the questions regarding Wind Energy, the generation of which has been risen rapidly in the USA over the past two years. Although the statistics are all related to North America (and New York state in particular), the questions posed still hold relevance worldwide.
With scottish power suppliers and the government in this country pushing Wind Energy as THE answer to our energy needs, perhaps it would help them to consider this graph.
Excellent news for Glasgow yesterday that Scottish and Southern Energy had agreed to join with The University of Strathclyde (renowned for wind power research) in Glasgow to create a new Centre of Engineering Excellence for Renewable Energy (CEERE). The new facility will primarily become a new a new research and management centre for wind farm projects.
SSE Manging Director Ian Marchant:
“Our Centre of Excellence which will be known as CEERE will play a crucial part in helping SSE to realise its renewable energy goals in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, helping to secure energy supplies and contributing to the development of a lower carbon economy.
“Having considered all of the options in mainland Europe, Ireland and the UK, we have settled on Glasgow as the best location for CEERE, and the city’s own sustainable energy ambitions also make it a very appropriate choice.
“Working with the University of Strathclyde, and with the support of the Scottish Government, we will create and secure several hundred skilled jobs for Scotland.
“Scotland’s ambition to become a leader in renewable energy is well known and we are delighted to be making this investment in Scotland. We’re very positive about the prospects for creating new jobs to harness Europe’s renewable energy resources and the potential make a significant contribution to the achievement of Scotland’s ambitions.”
Strathclyde University Principal (and Professor) Jim McDonald said:
“If we are to address the challenges of climate change, rapid and widespread deployment of renewable energy technologies is critical.
“The new partnership reflects Scotland’s potential to be at the forefront of the UK and European renewable energy sectors, creating new jobs and research and development opportunities.”
The Scottish Government is investing £2.8m into the scheme, First Minister Alex Salmond spoke on the new energy centre yesterday.
Good news for Glasgow and Scotland – this is a considerable commitment to the green economy and hopefully another step on the way for Scotland to become a true renewable energy hub.
10:10 - Can you take 10% of your carbon emissions?
Homes and Businesses urged to cut their carbon emissions by 10%
A new initiative by the people behind The Age of Stupid has been launched last week with the aim of getting as many homes, schools, universities, business and everything in-between to sign up and commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 (hence the 10:10). Four of the ‘big 6′ of major UK energy companies have signed up (Centria, EDF, E.ON and Scottish and Southern) already, and are pledging to introduce measures to assist homes and businesses meet this target in 2010, including energy use tracking equipment.
It’s not only large companies who are signing up though, a whole host of other organisations have already pledged their support, whilst individual members of the public can enroll themselves.
You can find out more information of the project on the 10:10 website.
