AS can be seen from past failures, the Scottish Government seems to throw money at any company with "renewables" in its name.

Its latest generosity with taxpayers' money, through its agency Scottish Enterprise, is giving £475,000 to Silva Renewables, which is working to develop a biomass plant in Grangemouth using wood pellets.

Although £395,000 of this is repayable, if the company goes into liquidation then this is lost.

The judgment of Scottish Enterprise must be questioned since environmental watchdog Biofuelwatch deemed this project an "unsustainable, high-risk investment".

To compound the Scottish Governments' embarrassment a recent report claimed that biomass plants contribute to climate change.

There is nothing environmentally friendly about cutting down trees in America or Canada and shipping the wood pellets thousands of miles to the UK for burning in biomass plants.

The replacement trees take 20 years to absorb the CO2 released by the harvested trees, so what is green about biomass?

Clark Cross,

138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.