windfarmaction

For those that live in the Kilmorack area behind Beauly this is the start of five years of hell. Starting with survey work in the next week I worry that everyone sees the survey work presently advertised by SSE as intrusive when in fact it is to decide whether a Bailey Bridge will work for bringing materials in to Fenallen or if the Black Bridge needs replacing as well as the condition of the road up to Fenallen. Intrusive for a couple of days but nothing like what is coming down the line. Tony Davidson, a local art dealer and gallery owner, pointed out that most are missing the Kilmorack/Aigas substation planning which is now in which calls for seven day working and even blasting(on Sundays?) with thousands of HGV movements. There are many more serious issues in those applications but the list would be too long for here. Few have challenged that. Remember this is on top of Culligran and Deanie substations and the undergrounding of the OHL in Strathfarrar. All those materials, lorries and oversized loads will be hitting this area at once and over up to a five year period. Our A831 road is simply not suitable for this level of traffic with local and holiday traffic, camper vans, tractors and farm machinery, buses and forestry lorries already impacting the area. The upgrading of the road is not deemed necessary and the listed passing places on Altyre are simply field gateways and not passing places. Incompetence or something more sinister. We know from the previous undergrounding, restitution work never really happened because Murphy and SSE denied it was no worse than when they started. We need to insist that roadways are upgraded prior to SSE starting and then any damage repaired before conclusion of the project. THC have the power to impose these as conditions of planning but have they the willingness to protect the communities or simply bow before corporate might? There is also the undergrounding between Wester Balblair to the new Kilmorack substation that they have asked for seven day working for ten months. Diggers, dump trucks, winches, tractors and trailers which they say they won’t cause a noise nuisance outside current operating hours. What does that mean? On Saturday afternoon and Sunday will they be reverting to picks and shovels? The Cumulative Impact on this area is beyond belief. Let’s list it: Current upgrade in Wester Blablair with work request seven days a week up to 1.00am, Culligran Substation, Deanie Substation, Strathfarrar undergrounding, Aigas substation, Kilmorack substation, Undergrounding from Wester Balblair to the new Kilmorack substation, Blackbridge upgrade, Fanellen mega project, 400Kv OHL, Western Isles underground route through Kilmorack Braes. Five years of construction, traffic and noise with no respect shown to local residents. I think for the residents we are all suffering overload. Where do you start in raising objections and many consider that THC, Energy Consents and Scottish Government will take no notice anyway. They may have a point but if enough stand up to be counted we could get many conditions on planning imposed on SSE and their contractors which might alleviate the worst of the issues we have listed. And before we rest we have three BESS systems in the immediate vicinity launched or about to be launched on an unsuspecting population.

There is an issue here that is presently unknown but calculable . Now Labour have won a majority in Westminster they intend to over-ride planning and, in the interests of speed to NetZero, everything will be green lighted. My suspicion, based on rhetoric from Sarwar, Labour leader in Holyrood, and the SNP behaviour in The Highland Council recently, is that Scotland will follow suite like a load of lemmings over the cliff. The Highland Council have paved the way with their Social Charter for Renewables that gives away all our protection for a wish list of unattainable voluntary contributions. The reality for The Highland Council is already writ large in the response of Scottish Renewables to their Social Charter. Our shareholders come first.  My suspicion is as well, considering the lack of foreknowledge and consultation except to the privileged few (stakeholders-i.e. Developers), SNP insiders have been under instruction from their masters and mistresses in Holyrood. That being the case one wonders what the outcome will be. It will be like an American gold rush with all the ne’re do wells of the world cashing in on our misfortune. We can already see that vanguard with the Field organisation. And it would seem from what we have heard and seen recently they will be welcomed with open arms. That frighten the be’jesus out of me. Will the last person to leave Scotland please turn out the lights!

Can we reverse the situation? I read a piece from someone who was visiting London and was discussing the impact on the Highlands. The reaction was ‘so what’. We need our electric cars, I-phones, heat pumps etc and we don’t care who it might inconvenience. Regrettably South of the Highlands and in the urban areas I think that is a common attitude. Fear and greed have proven good bedfellows for the Energy Industry. And in truth most of us will learn to live with it as our forebears did with the Hydro. A poorer quality of life but there are many far worse off. Imagine living in the centre of some of our main conurbations, riddled with knife crime and gangs, in the UK. Think also of those in the war torn regions of Europe.

All we can do is continue to challenge the authorities and politicians and slow the system up as best we can as that will cost them money and under a Starmer administration that will soon run out. As more is forced down our throats the voice of rejection will ring loud and practical problems like sourcing the steel for towers and Lithium-ion batteries from China and massive demands for hardware from Seimens will loom large in the public psyche. The pure scale of the project may well prove undeliverable as many engineers have commented recently. When those urbanites begin to realise this expansion will come at a cost to them on their electricity bills, reality may stem the flow of goodwill to the developers and electricity barons. We can but dream of better times.

Now the SNP, Just Stop Oil and the Net Zero brigade want to close down oil exploration which employs thousands of people in the North East of Scotland, 40,000 in Aberdeen alone, and thousands more in the supply chains throughout the UK. The attack on fossil fuels is relentless and ill conceived. However much has been said of Peak Oil but what does that mean. Peak oil is when production reaches it’s maximum output and moves forward year on year as new extraction technology allows greater production. Presently calculated at 2030 but new fields are becoming viable year on year. After Peak production the supply will decline but we are not talking of falling of a cliff. It will slow over decades and it may well be that new technologies will at some stage make it unviable. But that would be years away in another lifetime. Remember Petrol and Diesel or not the only products of the petro chemical industry many of which are irreplaceable via other sources from the ubiquitous farmer’s bailing twine to candles.

However there is a law of unintended consequences and one of them is an agricultural trailer manufacturer in Aberdeen that employs sixty people, is a third generation family business which exports all over the world. How can you manufacture trailers in Aberdeen and maintain a satisfactory delivery chain. Answer: the Oil Industry. There are thousands of trucks and ships bringing materials to Aberdeen that are looking for back loads and that is what makes Marshall’s business model viable. Exports are strong with many units sold to New Zealand and Australia. And all this started 74 years ago with a man making wheel barrows. I wonder how many other business’s in the North East from marine engineering to rope making rely on the oil industry to provide employment for Aberdonians and how many would falter and fail without the connections that the oil industry provides. Yes some of these industries can no doubt re-locate, probably supported by local development grants in Corby or Basingstoke, but Scottish jobs for Scottish people. I wonder? I wonder also in tomorrow’s world have many large and successful business’s will have started with a man making wheelbarrows today.

Can I be a bit perplexed? The SNP have for years decried anything coming out of Westminster as an irrelevance as after the next election they will declare independence. Now the elections are on us they are on every tv channel and every paper talking of ‘Highland’ Policies and all the usual sinners Swinney, Forbes et al campaigning as though they are being elected to the UK parliament. At the same time I am more than a bit fed up of the Presidential style of campaigning. Most of the players are well past their best and we would all like to know of the new candidates. Not the has beens and ne’re do wells that seem to think we want to hear more of the same. Whilst this bickering goes on we, the people, become more disenfranchised and depressed by the hour. Of course in these winds of change we see posturing by the SNP and Labour about future energy policies with not a cigarettes paper between them. We see the Highland Council imbued with the same policies that suggests collusion or worse. The SNP could have stood up for the National (local) Interest, culture and tourism and drawn a clear line between Starmer’s brave new world of wind turbines on every hill and hydros in every valley. I simply do not understand the myopia that engages every SNP Councillor and MSP. Let us be candid, the SNP will probably lose big time to the Labour Party in Scotland so why echo their policies. I think we all realise that nothing short of a Tsunami will help the conservatives now although in Scotland they are the party of the people, They have fought tooth and claw for the A9, the ferries, the hospitals and for a balanced approach to energy. However thanks in part to the Media, Murdo Fraser, Edward Mountain and many others strong contributors to Scotland are not household names. Only Douglas Ross is well ken’t and then often in a far from supportive way. With boundary changes his position is far from secure and one does wonder why he has put himself up for election south of the border again. OK not all Tories are on our message but there will still be some suffering cognitive dissonance over Net Zero and Climate but that is in the nature of all politicians. But how can we influence this situation. That is the million dollar question. First and foremost we can vote for those that support our policies if we know who they are. Certainly from the promotional rubbish hitting our door mats, I am none the wiser. They don’t seem to answer emails or letters much. Well apart from the Conservatives that is. I had an intriguing half hour with Jamie Halcro Johnston PA yesterday. And yes she speaks our language!

What worries me that all the disasters(Milliband and his like) of the Last Labour administration; you know the one that left the UK broke; are still there and like to be in power after the election. Difference this year is there is no money left in the bank post Covid and a blank cheque on the desk for the Energy industry to deliver Net Zero without a full understanding of what is actually needed if indeed anything is. The impact the UK can deliver is simply equivalent to an ant on an elephants back. I doubt many banks will want to lend except at extortionate rates. But don’t worry, Starmer already has his eyes on your cash. Yes folks, you and I will be paying for his generosity. However both Starmer and Milliband want to throw the rural areas under a bus with unfettered approvals of every wind farm, hydro(pumped storage), battery storage, substation and overhead lines and towers approved without challenge. Democracy? You’re having a larf! Boris demonstrated what could be done under Covid for a ‘National Emergency’. Labour have learnt well and Net Zero/Just Transition is the new National Emergency!

The Conservatives had a fantastic chance post Brexit to soar high in the opinion polls but totally cocked it up. They had the power to support our fishermen and our farmers. In each case they let the Eco-loons free reign. A world that wanted to trade with us unshackled by the EU. We opened our markets to then without protecting our own home grown producers. They even had the power to bring VAT down and stimulate growth in the home market. What did they do? Buy in to Net Zero and fail to get a grip on illegal migration. I will warrant that they had a Civil Service recruited during Blair’s years; a remoaner to an ‘it'(man woman and whatever is in between-woke reigns supreme); a biased left wing media, BLM with every police person in the Met bending their knees and Just Stop Oil and the un-expected or planned for Covid pandemic. Never before has a whole country been locked away behind closed doors. Inquiry after inquiry from the Post Office, to infected blood to Covid has diverted attention from improving the Country by referring back to the litany of mistakes many of which have connections to Government, past and present, action or inaction. An to cap it all you have wars in Ukraine and the Israel/Gaza minefield with weekly demonstrations about a situation over which the Government has little influence if any at all. I am minded of the film Brewster’s Millions and the political choice ‘None of the above’. Regrettably in the UK that would show as a spoiled vote and let those you wanted kept out IN.

Well what has this to do with wind farms, Battery storage and the 400Kv Overhead Line. Quite a lot really as The Highland Council whose leader Raymond Bremner, SNP is a devout believer of wind farms and would like thousands more sited in the Highlands. He sees the incursion of SSE bringing jobs and wealth to Highland Councils, whose coffers are badly depleted. He believes that more windfarms and ugly substations will bring tourists to the Highlands. Oh what delusion!

Now we have another Cllr Ken Gowans, SNP, Chair of Economy and Infrastructure, and another devout believer that renewables and tourism are a great mix asking for response to a new Sustainable Tourism Strategy. Well we have an answer.

There are three simple words behind sustainable tourism. Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Nothing else matters as with good infrastructure business will thrive and expand without interference from Councillors. Presently we have no A9 duelled, Tourist information offices have been closed and with them that most important element – loos. Our roads are peppered with potholes, car parks virtually non existent and a trail of hired campervans skirting the Highlands on roads barely suitable and driven by people who have no experience on driving such large vehicles. So they don’t need to waste more money on consultations, just get back to the day job and get the infrastructure repaired and fit for purpose. The rest will fall into place naturally. When Councils get involved they immediately think of the big hotel groups, the Marriots of this world, but generic growth is not fuelled by them but by enthusiastic local businesses, hotels, cafes and restaurants. No one comes to the Highlands to sit in an international chain hotel which looks the same whether in Salt Lake City, Dubai or Singapore. They want local character, local food and a wee dram or two. What they do not want is to look out over the landscape and see it peppered with 400Kv towers, massive industrial wharehouse style buildings for substations and a thousand or more extra wind turbines at 200m height. But with the SNP in charge will common sense ever come into play.

They talk of bringing jobs to the Highland but nearly everyone we know cannot get staff, whether it is a fencer, a car mechanic, a plumber, a waitress and a chef. What we do know is when SSEN sends their staff out to survey our land they are all from Glasgow or Edinburgh and their experts at consultations can come from as far as Manchester. Their contractors be it construction or forestry are usually either central belt or Ireland.

But back to Tourism, the problems are home grown. Insufficient investment in roads and services over decades. In fact little has been done since the old Highland and Islands Development Board was disbanded. New routes, the NC500, established without assessing the facilities necessary to allow fast growth of tourism without negatively impacting the local residents, the tradesmen and the health professionals who need to operate in the area. What has been missing from all of this from Tourism to Renewables is a large dollop of Critical Thinking! Tourism has increased but as in many other countries is this in a sustainable way. Cruise ships may up the number by thousands for Ken Gowans message but what financial gain do they bring. Precious little as all on board is tax free. Are Camper vans of all sorts a financial benefit or a headache. Regrettably they bring most of what they need with them, spend little locally and block up roads and car parks. So the figures may look great but are they the reality. So many Countries now from Netherlands to Venice to the Balearics are experiencing a kick back from too many tourists bringing too little economic benefit. Mostly because their infrastructure is creaking. Balancing the benefits against the costs is becoming even more difficult.

I think a well crafted few words on Tourism from a well respected local are aposite:

Tourism is a vital source of income, of employment, and of economic activity in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The Draft Sustainable Tourism Strategy discussed at the Highland Council meeting on 2nd May 2024 confirmed that tourism attracts circa 7 million visitors per annum to the region, generates around £1.6 billion of economic income, and supports around 25,000 jobs. The Draft Strategy also places much emphasis on the importance of the unspoiled natural environment in making the most of current and future tourism opportunities. According to the Nation Brands Index 2023, “… a country’s natural beauty is the most important reputational aspect driving the desire to visit a nation.”

Given the economic importance of tourism for the area, and the significance of our unspoiled natural environment to continuing to attract visitors to the area: What steps has the council taken to measure and mitigate the impact of the proposed new electricity supply infrastructure including the multiple new overhead pylon lines and new substation proposals, on the communities affected – particularly in relation to business and employment opportunities for the local businesses that rely on tourism.

Mr. Innes Lyons

Fighting the multi national corporations and Politicians heavily influenced by the phalanxes of PR and Lobbyists can be a lonely path much of the time. However two articles recently, Joe Gibbs in the Spectator and Martyn Ayre in the West Highland Free Press exemplified that a lot of educated and informed folks understand and are on our side. For those that don’t know Joe Gibbs lives at Belladrum, just outside Beauly and is the instigator and developer of the Belladrum Music Festival. We hear only too often that staff and consultants are told not to look at Social Media and that tells us that SSEN and the BESS/Wind Farm developers are frightened the truth will out. Certainly the information contained in such as CB4PC would rock their boats as at it is well edited and informative with some very well qualified contributors. There are many more local groups up and down the country who all sing from the same hymn book. The truth is out there and for those consultants and staff that take SSEN’s shilling perhaps they should consider their own moral compass and decide if they wish to work for such an organisation. Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch suggests that in ten years Renewables will be history. https://www.facebook.com/NetZeroWatch/videos/458333353478512

The recent court ruling in Surrey on oil drives a coach and horses through practical energy availability and is plainly ridiculous. That one court and one judge should cause such havoc at the behest of the Eco Warriors defies logic and calls our whole legal system into question. It plays into the hands of the renewable industry and such as the privatised National Grid and SSE/Scottish Power whose central goal is more profit for their shareholders, most of which are offshore.

Well the renewable electricity industry has shown total arrogance as they saw the fall of gas, coal and nuclear from popularity in the Political Classes. Greed and green ruled and in unequal measure. However pride comes before a fall and in both Germany and Italy new technology is emerging which could well burst their bubble. Essentially each house will have solar which through a small hydrogen electrolyser when you are at work or out will provide hydrogen which will be stored in two large scuba type bottles at 30PSI in a rack at the bottom of your garden. When the sun is not providing you enough power the hydrogen will power a fuel cell which will drive all your domestic appliances. No more lecky bills and no more standing(creeping up) charges. In fact self sufficiency. Many other options including hydrogen catalytic boilers from Italy. With our myopian view of renewables at scale costing billions of pounds we will miss the opportunity to provide a cost effective solution to our energy needs.

Cllr Helen Crawford (Cons) put forward a sensible motion to support local communities suffering a never ending barrage of energy infrastructure applications. Amongst the suggestions was to defer any applications until a proper map of all consultations considered, proposed or notified was available to identify the cumulative impact on Communities. With the skills available to THC that should have taken no longer than a couple of weeks. A senior executive of The Highland Council advised the convener this was not competent as THC Planning has no right to delay responses. (What by two weeks – in all fairness knowing Scottish Government and Scottish Regional Councils it would probably take them two years to set up a committee to discuss it, set up a new department to put the map out to tender to a company with no connection to Scotland let alone the local area on data supplied now which by the time it was available would be totally out of date.) Bit of a laugh that as 86% of applications presented to THC planning are not decided within that time window. Our view is that it is up to the Councillors to propose amendments or challenge the motion. That is debate and that is democracy. By bowing to an unelected assistant chief executive( there are three on £127k per annum in THC) the Convener, Bill Lobban, who sits as an independent but started as an SNP, went directly against the interests of those Communities he is elected to serve. A sense of frustration with all Councillors pervades based on their inability to express an opinion less they be disbarred from making a comment on a live planning application. However there are a number of Councillors who would privately support and agree with resident’s concerns. However those of the SNP persuasion are only too aware that the sword of Damocles will descend on them should they break ranks with their Lords and Masters in Holyrood. So they may whisper their support in dark corridors but are reticent for their views to see the light of day

Go to Helen’s page for a full explanation of her Motion as proposed. https://www.facebook.com/Helen4Highland

Councillor Helen Crawford (Cons)

Helen is no little housewife and would have taken good advice before drafting her Motion as presented..

Councillor Helen Crawford has represented Aird and Loch Ness since 2022.

Helen was educated as Alness Academy before going on to study Law at the University of Edinburgh and undertake the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice at the University of Glasgow. She has had a distinguished career in the civil service before returning to Scotland. She also runs a busy shop in Beauly with her husband which has won many awards. She is an accomplished Scottish Country Dance (RCDS) performer.

After 80 years of Hydro SSE renewables is offering Community Benefit to those impacted by Hydro. With the new substations not before time. However the devil is in the detail and despite a promise of £10million over 54 hydro plants it will be spread over five years. Which is £37k per community. Of course that is not how it will work with some getting largesse and some getting nought.

Science is never decided. That is the whole point of science that it continually evolves. Otherwise everything would stand still. No new cures in medicine, no new AI in computers(probably one we could do without) I found an old sheet from the early days of Climate Change dogma. You know, the ones that all the Politicians bought in to. Of course Net Zero and all the other buzz words are based on political dogma and not science. ‘Scientists’ and Universities may have signed up to it because that is where the money and the grants are. Guarantee of research projects and funding. That is their staff of life! IPCC made an industry of it and all those involved benefitted financially. Remember Al Gore and carbon trading. Sea level is rising and we are all going to drown. And then he builds a condominium on the beach. Even he didn’t believe. It was and always has been about money and multi million dollar bonuses and it is no different today. Just the bonuses have got bigger.

Shortly after I reported that the renewables company RWE operate the largest lignite(brown coal) open caste mine in North Rhine-Westphalia region in Germany and will do so until at least 2030; their purchase of new plant suggests that they may plan to continue well past 2030; we read that the largest high quality coal open caste mine in Wales at Ffos Y Fran, Merthyr, has closed despite millions of tons of coal still remaining on the surface. Not only the largest but the last sizeable UK Coal Mining operation. This is not an old worked out surface mine but a mere youngster of eighteen years with a bright future ahead of it. Neither was it high quality farmland but planned regeneration of a derelict landscape of burnt out cars, fly tipping and the remnants of the underground mining past. The reason is not commercial or the wish of the operators; one hundred men have lost well paid jobs in an area with little alternative employment; but simply because the Welsh Government will not give them planning permission to continue mining. So what is happening to those vast reserves of coal. They are being covered up to prevent people coming on site and stealing them. £millions are being spent to make millions of tons of high quality coal inaccessible. At the same time millions of tons of coal are imported from far away around the world to support our remaining coal fired power stations and steel works. A sense of the absurd lurks in the corridors of power both in Wales, Holyrood and Westminster that defies logic. Carbon savings(disputable) in the UK are but an ant on an elephants back in world terms and simply moving the mining to another country and then adding the carbon footprint of importing coal on ships makes a mockery of any Net Zero claims. CO2 is the staff of life needed for photosynthesis for growing crops and food. Digging up peat for wind farms, haul roads and for the OHLs undoes any good perceived of carbon capture and the myriad of schemes of the ranks of carbon bunnies now employed by local and national government. A footnote is that the mine operators are now awaiting planning approval for the forthcoming restoration work with the bulk of the equipment parked up and the drivers laid off. You could not make it up. The point I make here is that energy produced close to demand makes far more sense than renewables in the Highlands and off our coasts without the destructive infrastructure that goes with it. Energy density of coal and gas is good, Energy density of intermittent wind is poor. The high cost of imported steel(no doubt from China) whilst exporting the carbon costs to other countries, the carbon cost of all the concrete and transport surely vastly outweigh the perceived advantage of cancelling coal production in Wales. Common sense seems sadly lacking in the groupthink of renewables and the targets of Net Zero. Truth is the world has enough coal for many generations as it does with oil for the foreseeable future. So why are we pursuing an expensive and unproven dream which is simply not deliverable in any meaningful way. Modern technologies are cleaner and more efficient than those of past decades. Adapt to them and we can all benefit without destroying those areas we hold dear. And at a fraction of the costs.

June 2024 – and something rather strange is happening. All over the Highlands and way south SSE is changing the names of it’s substations. Some of these new names are non sequitors and some vaguely connected. Here is a list for starters,

Fasnakyle – Bingally

Stonehaven – Hurley

New Deer 2 – Greens

Tealing – Emmock (derives from a Scots word meaning Ant.)

Blackhillock 2 – Coachford

Loch Buidhe(Bonar Bridge) – Carnaig

Cochno Road – Whitehall

There are more and we will list those as they are advised to us.

Potentially there has been talk of changing the name of Fenallen to Beauly and include Wester Balblair too. They both have a very negative reputation.

One does wonder why, and with Fasnakyle SSEN claimed it was a response to local opinion. That would probably be one of the only times SSEN has reacted positively to any consultation. Do we smell a R>>

Seeing as Carn Bingally is possibly some distant from the new substation I think it would be apposite to take such claims with a shovel full of salt. SSEN Maps are universally rubbish. The map below is courtesy of WalkLakes

Could it be as they move to planning applications they wish to obfuscate and restrict the numbers of objections due to locals thinking this is someone else’s substation. Perhaps that is the cynic in me but experience has sadly showed us in the past that such shenanigans are common in the modern electricity industry! And is there any evidence? The existing hashtags won’t work or previous searches obsolete. Design or accident?

Many thanks to Josh https://http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com

And from another wise old owl!

Our government, lead like donkeys, have followed a one horse race for electric power and heating. However there is another horse in town and I think it will be coming up on the outside soon whilst the government’s horse falls at the first gate. And let’s be clear it is the EU that is leading this field. First a few facts. Peak oil has not passed contrary to what some say but is slated for 2030 but in the way of things as the dates have moved forward driven by new technology for deeper drilling, better extraction and new areas in seas which have until now been uneconomical we are likely not to reach peak oil for decades to come. The problem is as population expands and nominally third world countries become wealthier the demand for petro chemicals increases. But what about this new kid in town, the horse coming up on the outside. For that we must ask is diesel dead. Well not yet as HVO, hydrogenated vegetable oils, made from rapeseed, used cooking oils from chips shops and factories, wood pulp and other bi products is a drop in fuel for both diesel engines and heating oil. Last year Ollie Harrison drove a Class Combine Harvester from John ‘O Groats to Lands End on HVO and did so without any issues and raised a lot of money for charity. But yet again the UK is lagging behind as Rotterdam, Finland, Spain and Italy are leading the charge and we have to import all our HVO fuel. Now taking into account that modern diesel engines are cleaner and more efficient than petrol and have the required energy density the future for the combustion engine looks sound. What better way than to supplement our petro chemical industry with a fuel derivative of a percentage of waste products and a cropping element which is sustainable. Presently HVO which is nominally more expensive is taxed as fossil fuels. Why not bite the bullet and reduce fuel tax to bring the cost of HVO in line with petro chemicals. You know it makes sense. After all electric energy for cars is virtually tax free and contributes nothing to the cost of road maintenance. Also the love affair with electric cars is waning fast as cost, residuals, range anxiety and fires concern buyers of both new and second hand EVs. Where is the level playing field or has the electricity industry got the government by the short and curlies to the exclusion of common sense. What of hydrogen I hear you say. Beloved of the renewables industry as it needs large amounts of electric power to manufacture and therefor big profits for electricity. It is difficult to transport and expensive to store operating at high pressure and low temperatures. Unless costs can be reduced it will have a limited market. Unlike HVO which can simply be transported and stored using existing infrastructure, hydrogen would need a completely new and expensive storage and transport facilities. Doable but at what cost.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) applications often suggest that the applicant is either technically incompetent, or doesn’t want you to know how big the proposed BESS will be. Giving the size of a BESS in megawatts (MW) is nonsensical. MW is a measurement of the rate at which electricity can flow into or out of the BESS. (Like the size of the pipe connected to a water tank). It tells you nothing about the SIZE of the BESS. (The size of the water tank). For the size of a BESS, you need to know the number of hours for which the BESS will be able to produce electricity at the quoted rate. This is measured in megawatt-hours (MWh). A few other facts may be useful. One hazard associated with BESS is the potential for “Thermal Runaway” (TR). This occurs when an internal failure results in a chemical interaction commencing inside the battery. Unlike a fire, it does not require a supply of oxygen to continue. It therefore cannot be extinguished using existing firefighting techniques, which all work by seeking to deprive a fire of oxygen. The only emergency response currently available in the event of TR is to try to cool it using copious amounts of water to stop it spreading. The smoke and fumes given off during TR, and the run-off from the cooling water are both extremely toxic. The TR will continue until the chemical interaction between the materials inside the battery is complete, which may take several days. Spontaneous re-combustion can occur for a significant time after it seems to have gone out, It’s useful to have an idea of how big the conflagration resulting from a BESS TR could be. In energy terms, 40KWh of electricity is equivalent to around 2-1/2 gallons of petrol. So TR in a BESS would be the equivalent of setting fire to around10 tons (!) of petrol for every 100MWh of the BESS’s size! (Except, of course, you can extinguish 10 tons of petrol, but you can’t extinguish a TR). So you want to be pretty careful where you go putting BESS’s!!!

It make you want to weep. From our decking you can look up to the north west and see an upbroken line of hills. We often see groups of Red Deer on the very top. If you are lucky you see Golden Eagles quartering the ridge looking for a snack. Most days you see Red Kite and often a wide variety of other species including Heron and Osprey to name but two. Total silence except the call of a curlew or the mewing of a buzzard. However this little pleasure is time limited because SSEN intend to site a row of 400Kv towers right across this vista, probably this side of the hill from their original drawing or possibly just over the ridge with towers and wires in clear sight. And the likes of Greg Clarke think this entirely acceptable. We already host three 132Kv towers on our land to the south with one close to the house. These carry the power from the Affric-Beauly Hydro scheme. The Beauly Denny is in clear sight to the south of Ruttle Wood. Aigas Dam producing Hydro power is only 100yd from our southern border with Kilmorack Dam only a mile down the road. Both dams are to have new very much enlarged substations and every time we leave the area we pass the notorious Wester Balblair Transmission Hub or whatever they call it this week. We can’t help but feel we have done our bit to support renewables with the local Affric-Beauly hydro scheme producing some 168.4mw installed capacity with an annual output of 852 Million Kwhr. That is enough power for 878,350 homes for a year. Well if wind farms quote ridiculous statistics of homes supplied we will provide accurate ones!

Let us be honest. This is commercial exploitation. The energy providers say nothing about cutting usage but much about electric cars, electric hungry air source heat pump, electric mountain bikes and even more electric based consumerism. They work hard to decry log burning heating and seek to destroy gas as cooking and heating fuel. Why? Because this is about forcing the populace to transfer their energy needs to electricity to the benefit of one industry. The only thing green in this is pure envy and greed.

There are many before us that have suffered from Wind Farms, the Beauly Buzz, pylons, haul roads built over peat bogs and much much more. People now live with shadow flicker in houses they are unable to give away let alone sell. We have fought wind farms and won but this time we are fighting a religion. The religion of Net Zero and we all know religious beliefs are the most difficult to overturn. No zealot can brook dissent. Wars have been fought on religious beliefs. Truth is this will collapse as it surely must. A lie cannot last forever. When that lie is exposed though we will still have £billions of infrastructure polluting the Highlands and no way to turn back the clock. The Highlands will resemble a scrap yard. Remember when we were told wind farms had to be decommissioned by year 25. They could not be built without subsidy and our politicians(remember Ed Davey before he was a Sir, Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change in February 2012 in the coalition government) could not give them all they wanted fast enough, The beginning of the Climate Emergency. The carbon savings that Scotland and the UK can make in world terms are the equivalent of an ant on an elephants back. And that before we can prove that Carbon and CO2 are a pollutant and there is plenty of proof that they are not. They are in fact the bedrock of life through photosynthesis. But China, Russia and India haven’t bought into the religion. They are still building coal fired power stations at the rate of one a week(or is it a month-at that rate immaterial) So what is the EU and the UK planning to do about that. Impose a Carbon Tax on all imports from these countries, Yes the Politicians response is to raise a tax that we will all pay in higher prices. Politicians of whatever hew don’t change. If it Moves, Tax it. If it Keeps Moving, Regulate it. And if it Stops Moving, Subsidize it.

By Doug Brodie

An interesting read and not without a lot of research, Debunking the Climate Change Hoax

I have recently had call to write to our Deputy First Minister and the comment have been well received by those following Social Media. Now this all centred around an Energy and Tourism Conference that she fronted in Inverness. Truth is it has probably been agreed with her predecessor but seeing as this is her constituency I consider that it was unwise to become dragged into this particular forum as it was used indirectly as a platform for the Field group of companies to launch their ‘attack’ on the Highlands for a plethora of Battery schemes(BESS) as they were partners in this conference. The reaction to Kate Forbes has been totally negative. Perhaps a more astute player would have handed the baton to another and dodged the negative publicity. Perhaps she is still a bit politically naïve or was this aimed at re-aligning her support of renewables to the party policies.

And therein brings us to modern Politics and especially Scottish Politics. There are two sorts of politicians. One the idealist and one the career politicians with ambitions for Cabinet and the big pay cheques. Regrettably many idealists are like the Borg. They get assimilated by the Party. They become part of the Collective. This starts on day one when they enter Parliament with high ideals and ambitions to change politics to the better. First they find a PA who is war weary and well versed in political realism. They will direct the new MSP’s diary, will tell them when to vote,  which committees may be available, when to eat and probably even when to defecate. The new MSP will be allowed their one moment of independent glory with their first speech. Then the whips will close in. The SNP have developed that into a fine art but Nationalist Politics from history have a well-earned and unfortunate reputation for that. They will tell them when to vote and what to say. It is a brave man or woman that challenges their writ. Part of this is the allocation to committees which in reality is in the hands of the whips. A safe pair of hands can look forward to a good committee in an area that interests them and ultimately the career path to the Cabinet. Now alongside what is an unrelenting workload the interest of the constituents slowly get flooded out with Parliamentary responsibilities. More and more are dealt with by staff rather than your MSP. The Standard letter. And then what I will call the step to oblivion. Appointment to the cabinet albeit in a minor roll to start. Therein lies Cabinet responsibility which in fact means that you must tow the line on ALL cabinet decisions however much they may go against constituent’s interests. Running along side this is the role of the Lobbyists. A Politician is one of the few jobs in the UK that needs no qualification or experience. A waste operative(binman) has more qualifications. Lobbyists on the other hand are very articulate and personable individuals, normally graduates, with a whole phalanx of skilled and capable staff in the wings. They are employed on their ability to influence politicians be they from big business or national charities. So our Politician has lost their idealism in the face of reality and has been assimilated into the Collective (the Party). However much they might wish to stand alone only the true maverick will and for them it will be a lonely place and a limited future. They will now listen more to their colleagues, secretaries and lobbyists than to those who voted them in. Ok they may walk the walk and talk the talk in the constituency but as soon as they step into the confines of Holyrood, or in similar vein Westminster, they are again part of the Collective and their views are that of the Party.

There are many that will challenge my view of modern politics and politicians and I will agree this is a broad brush approach but had more open discourse been allowed we can only wonder whether the disastrous record from Ferries to Scottish NHS to Schools to Marine parks to new National Parks to the Deposit Return Scheme to Independence and so many more would have been so allowed to fester as it has. I will concur that this mostly relates to the SNP and Green parties and Conservative and Labour are less restrictive in the management of MSPs but then they re not in power and to hold power may well prove as controlling as the Nationalists. Certainly Westminster has proven less accommodating to individual thoughts but then many mavericks exist down there and it has a far longer history than Holyrood.

What has this to do with Renewables? Simply that the current policy of the SNP in Holyrood is to sacrifice the whole of Scotland to an industrialised landscape owned by mostly foreign corporate investors and hedge funds with income and profits exiting Scotland to the overall cost of landscape and local residents in some wild and unrealistic vision that Scotland will lead the world in Renewables, when in fact we lag behind nearly every other country in Europe if not the rest of the developed world. And when it all goes pear shaped they have the temerity to blame Westminster even when all planning is a devolved issue, Energy Consents is a Scottish body and the power of approval rests with Scottish Ministers.