AS she is paid to do, Morag Watson, director of policy for Scottish Renewables in her predictable criticism (Letters, May 31) of Struan Stevenson's earlier challenging article (“March of the wind farms is destroying Scotland’s beauty – but we can stop it”, The Herald, May 27) praises the benefits of wind and solar generation and claims that their rapid increase is the way forward.

Perhaps she could explain my concern? With coal-fired generators being shut down, nuclear generating plants reaching the end of life accompanied by demand increases resulting from electric vehicles and hydrogen generation by electrolysis, where will the electricity come from on cold windless nights?

GM Lindsay, Kinross.

ENERGY CLAIM IS DISINGENUOUS

MORAG Watson is disingenuous in the way she promotes wind energy. She claims that renewable energy now provides the equivalent of 97.4 per cent of Scotland's energy consumption. The key word here is “equivalent”, and her 97.4% figure is over a year, not from day to day.

Undoubtedly there are calm days when renewables only provide around 10% and gas power stations have to make up the shortfall, and also there are days when renewables provide more than 100% and we have to expensively pay to shut down wind turbines.

She also wrongly uses the word “energy” when she really means “electricity”. Renewables only provides 17% of Scotland's energy.

Geoff Moore, Alness.

* WIND energy on any day is lucky to be above 17%. Gas still produces the most electricity at 58 %. Solar is about 5%.

Wind is not cheap as Morag Watson says, as constraint payments have to be made when the Grid cannot use the power. In Sutherland this is £66.8 million and rising, for Gordonbush it is £19.9m.

With a whole rake of developments at planning this figure will rise considerably.

Perhaps Ms Watson will be content paying higher electricity bills to compensate for the constraint and community benefit payments.

Michael Baird, Bonar Bridge.

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

MORAG Watson should look to the future, when our reliable fossil fuel power stations have been closed and we are dependent on the wind for power. This is why smart meters were invented, as rationing will be needed. What else does she think they are actually for? How about differential pricing and phased disconnections when the wind does not blow?

Then when the windmills themselves are worn out, and the subsidy farmers who built them are long gone, we have a perfect storm of no fossil power and no wind power.

How in heavens name did the country that invented nuclear energy ever come to such a pathetic position?

Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.

SORRY, BUT I LIKE TURBINES

I RELISH Aileen Jackson's letters and note her pleas for turbine extinction in my local area (Letters, May 31). Unfortunately for her, I like the turbines.

As I cycle the highways and byways around Neilston I see all the local small schemes, the individual turbines on the farms, the big farms at Whitelee and Dalry. They are elegant and statuesque.

They don't pollute, they power my home, our industries and services, and my bike (at least partially).

I don't think nature has been destroyed, I see wildlife everywhere and like watching out for the buzzards, the deer, the rabbits and the pheasants as I cycle about.

Allan McDougall, Neilston.

TV HAS BEEN HIJACKED

AS I grow older and grumpier my memory is supposed to fade, but I distinctly remember TV adverts were always an irritation – unwanted, irrelevant and uninvited.

Grumpiness now also extends to most of the repetitive rubbish which now passes for programme content, so now I just switch the damn thing off.

This leaves an aura of peace and quiet to speculate how this great invention which can bring a world of information and entertainment into our homes has been hijacked by multi-national business interests and political propaganda.

I suppose much of this is unavoidable, but wouldn’t it be great to have a TV service which provided a genuine escape from the daily grind of money-making and consumerism?

I expect some of us would pay quite handsomely for it.

RF Morrison, Helensburgh.

A CLOSE SHAVE FOR THE PLANET

SHAVING used to be so simple; one had a safety razor which lasted a lifetime fitted with double-sided replaceable blades, a brush which was bought for you as part of an adolescent rite of passage (usually just the boys) which was also indestructible and a stick of shaving soap which never seemed to get any smaller. To use aftershave or deodorants prior to boxing hero Henry Cooper encouraging men to “splash it all over” was almost tantamount to an admission of moral turpitude.

In direct contrast, today everything is disposable, we have cans of foam that quickly run out but are designed to leave rings of rust on any surface, garishly coloured razors with so many blades it’s impossible to shave the philtrum or nostrils. These multi-bladed monstrosities stay sharp for days rather than weeks and then you are forced to discard the whole razor rather than one wee part of it. One ends up with so many half-empty cans of smelly skooshy stuff that supposedly make one irresistible to the opposite sex and other junk that a larger bathroom cabinet is required. Getting replacement razors is a fag as usually the shop has 25 different types but not the simple two-bladed type you reluctantly started to use.

I’m surprised Greta Thunberg hasn’t identified shaving as the major source of global warming. Go beardy to save the planet.

David J Crawford, Glasgow.

Read more: Why do we insist on destroying nature on the pretext of saving it?