IF virtue-signalling were an Olympic sport then Nicola Sturgeon, after decades of dedicated training, would be in line for gold.
I heard a protracted soundbite this week, scripted to the last half-laugh and emphasis on the essential phrase …."in the world”. It’s never enough to claim excellence or even competence, however dubiously. We always have to be leading the world, even when we patently aren’t.
Within the normal knockabout of politics, this is familiar if tedious stuff which seems to impress a significant minority. Climate change and energy transition are, however, serious matters. It would be handy to have a few practical actions to report rather than a string of dodgy assertions.
We apparently have the most advanced zero emissions target in the world by setting 2045 as the appointed date, five years ahead of the UK’s target. (Pause for this important distinction to sink in). Frankly, it doesn’t add up to a row of green beans since nobody is going to remember in 2045 to check up.
Then, she advised, we have the third highest proportion of renewable power in the world and, of course, that is far ahead of the United Kingdom as a whole. Well, of course it is because this is where the wind blows but the claim and how it conflicts with Ms Sturgeon’s only political objective is worthy of further inspection.
I live on an island where there is enough wind to power half of Scotland on some days in the year. So what? The resource is largely wasted because there is no interconnector to link it with the National Grid. That’s a metaphor which could apply to Scottish renewables as a whole.
A resource is worthless if there is nowhere to send its output. That is why, 20 years ago, we put in place physical infrastructure and trading arrangements which would allow Scottish renewables to be exported to the rest of the UK – a market 11 times the size of our own but one which could, in other circumstances, have choices about where to get its green power.
Quite rightly, consumers throughout the UK were asked to pay for the subsidy required to take Scotland to our current level of renewables generation. That was perfectly reasonable because we are all part of the same country and market. It certainly wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t. Indeed, it is difficult to think of an industry which offers better evidence of why we have been better together. And so it will be in the future.
I am quite proud to have had a hand 20 years ago in putting in place support mechanisms for renewables which proved most effective (I’d better not say in the world). However, I always tempered these claims by recognising that (hydro excepted) renewables do not provide baseload. On calm days, the contribution can drop to near zero. In these circumstances, we become importers of electricity. That is a crucial factor in the equation that also needs addressing.
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Ms Sturgeon’s third signal was about the energy transition to green jobs. Cue heavy-handed oblique reference to Boris Johnson’s foolish faux pas about mine closures. This transition was not going to be like that transition, she intoned. It would all be achieved with respect for people’s livelihoods, communities and so on and so forth. But will it and how does she know?
It is estimated that the boom in offshore wind power around the British coast is going to create 90,000 jobs by 2030 including those in oil and gas. That sounds a lot but it is fewer than half of what currently exists in oil and gas alone. And who knows where new jobs will be located? If the past 14 years of SNP government is anything to go by, not a lot will be in Scotland.
Pious digs at Boris Johnson are not a substitute for actually doing something to ensure the maximisation of jobs in Scotland from the renewables industry which certainly has not materialised until now. A bit of humility, however out of character, would not go amiss. “We have done appallingly in the past but will lead the world in the future” would be at least half true.
I look with some envy but also respect to Humberside and Teeside which, without bloated announcements about being “world-leading”, have just getting on with the job over recent years. Very large sums of private and public investment are rapidly turning the north-east of England into the centres of UK renewables manufacturing.
We learned this week that Siemens Gamesa will expand its blade manufacturing near Hull, creating and safeguarding over 1000 direct jobs. They will be able to manufacture the next generation of offshore wind turbines and blades greater than 100 metres. Another company has pitched in with £78 million investment in an offshore turbine tower factory, creating up to 260 direct jobs.
Given our huge lead in renewables – the one thing Ms Sturgeon got right but which owes absolutely nothing to her – why have none of these investments come to Scotland? Where are our once mighty inward investment agencies? Why have we done so world-beatingly badly in turning renewables into jobs and does anyone have a strategic plan for the future?
Only when these questions are faced up to will Ms Sturgeon’s virtue signals have any relevance to the real world and the many whose livelihoods depend on it.
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