THERE is nothing at all contradictory in the Scottish Government's twin desires to maximise the benefit of North Sea oil while preparing for a green energy future.
The timing of yesterday's leaked draft Government paper, however, arguing that a "transition to renewable energy reduces our dependence on damaging, price-volatile fossil fuels" was more than mildly embarrassing.
It came a day after Alex Salmond launched a major report highlighting the value of North Sea oil and gas to the economy of an independent Scotland.
The First Minister aimed to reassure the industry in the run-up to the referendum, telling oil companies that an independent Scotland would meet existing UK pledges to provide £20bn in tax breaks for decommissioning rigs, and to tempt voters with an image of North Sea riches to come. A day later, it seemed, the black gold was history and we were all going green.
The circumstances of the leak remain vague, though the document was authenticated by a spokesman for the First Minister. It was drafted by officials in Finance Minister John Swinney's department, from where a far more damaging private memo emerged a few months ago. Whether the Government finds the mole we'll probably never know.
It would be far more productive, in any case, to consider what the paper actually says.
Plans include a new Scottish energy regulator, a replacement for Ofgem which Ministers claim could help tackle fuel poverty in an independent Scotland. But at the heart of the report is not something that would change but something the SNP hopes would stay the same – a proposal for an independent Scotland to remain part of a single energy market with the rest of the UK.
That would happen, it insists, because it would be in the UK's interests as much as Scotland's. Wind farms could continue to expand because of the "higher levels of public acceptance of renewable energy developments in Scotland". They would supply England's homes and help to meet England's emissions targets while England's taxpayers, the report argues, would be happy to continue subsidising Scottish wind farms because of their "more polarised" views on turbine-filled landscapes.
Would such a scenario emerge if Scots vote Yes next year? Or might the rest of the UK be tempted to subsidise new wind farms of its own? It might if it agreed with Alex Salmond that renewable energy holds the key to reindustrialisation, creating tens of thousands of jobs over the coming decades.
Such questions could only be answered by the negotiations that would follow a Yes vote next year. One thing is certain though: the Government's confident assertion that Scots are keener on wind farms than the English (a claim based on a poll by industry body Scottish Renewables, it should be noted) will set alarm bells ringing across rural Scotland.
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