Thursday, 12th January 2012
‘Betrayal of Trust: Scotland’s Looming Energy Crisis’
By Struan Stevenson MEP
Note: This speech was delivered at a meeting of Communities Against Turbines Scotland at the Kilmaronock Millenium Hall, Gartocharn, West Dunbartonshire, on Thursday 12 January 2012
Introduction
The incumbent SNP Government was elected because the people of Scotland trusted them to create and administer public policy on their behalf. They were trusted to spend taxpayers' money wisely and they were trusted to provide a secure supply of energy to their electorate. In Scotland, the SNP Government has betrayed that trust. They have hijacked energy policy as a vehicle for political rather than economic gain. They have caused our electricity and heating bills to skyrocket and they have forced over a third of Scottish homes into crippling fuel poverty.
They are currently attempting completely to replace fossil fuels and nuclear power with renewable energy. They seem not to realise that commercially available renewable technologies simply cannot provide energy security. They are visual monstrosities that produce a trickle of electricity at vast cost to the consumer. They don't significantly reduce CO2 emissions and they threaten to plunge us into an energy crisis, just as we try to drag ourselves out of a financial crisis.
Jobs/financial impacts
In my keynote speech at the Scottish National Windfarm Conference in Ayr last November, I outlined the financial scandal perpetuated by Alex Salmond and his Ministers. I depicted how steep increases in our gas bills were caused by their mad-dash for wind power. I noted that Britons will face an extra £500 on their fuel bills over the next four years and I highlighted how energy companies and landowners are netting millions annually just to keep turbines turned off when there is too much wind. Indeed figures for last year show how Scotland’s wind farm operators were paid a total of £13 million to switch off their turbines to avoid a glut of power on the national grid. Scotland’s turbines had to be “powered down” for one out of every four days. £1.2 million of that cash went to a Norwegian company that owns 60 turbines in the Borders. Incidents like this simply confirm that wind power is unpredictable and intermittent. They show that just like the SNP Government, wind power cannot be trusted. Now Ofgem and the National Grid are predicting that paying windfarms to shut down could cost almost £300 million a year by 2020.
The Scottish Government’s claims that 50-60,000 new ‘Green’ jobs could be created by 2020 have been countered by Verso Economics who found that for every green job created in the UK, 3.7 jobs are lost. A similar situation is happening across Europe. In Spain, the world's fourth largest producer of wind power, a study by Juan Carlos University showed that 2.2 jobs are lost for every green job created. Thus, wind power is increasing energy costs and forcing energy-intensive companies to leave Spain. No amount of subsidies will solve this because wind power just isn't competitive, it isn't affordable and it isn't reliable.
The Dutch Government has learned this lesson. They have recently reduced their support for renewables, cutting their total annual subsidy from €4.5 billion to €1.5 billion and vetoing any new off-shore developments. This comes after they paid €4.5 billion to a German developer to install two 300 MW off-shore windfarms off the Dutch coast. Dutch politicians have woken up to something which so far hasn’t occurred to either Chris Huhne or Alex Salmond; the heavily subsidised green jobs which our taxpayers have to fund are actually being created in the countries that manufacture the turbines and not in the countries that install them.
Few people realise that UK wind power operators receive a higher subsidy per MWh than in most other EU Member States, including even Denmark and Germany. Subsidies in Ireland, Spain and Portugal are significantly lower than in the UK, even though their average generation costs are similar. I think as taxpayers, we have the right to ask whether our money would not be better spent on increasing energy efficiency and investment in technologies that will actually keep our lights on?
Looming Energy Crisis
I am convinced that the SNP's mad-dash for wind power threatens to plunge Scotland into a catastrophic energy crisis.
Wind is inherently intermittent and unpredictable. But we know this already. We also know that every single megawatt of generating capacity from windfarms has to be matched by a reliable, affordable back-up supply for when the wind is either not blowing or blowing too much. The proven, currently available technologies are gas, coal or nuclear. But nobody from the SNP Government is planning for coal or gas and they have made their position quite clear about nuclear.
Even if Alex Salmond woke up tomorrow realising the error of his ways, there is simply not enough time to commission any coal based plants with carbon capture and storage capabilities before 2015. The two remaining nuclear plants at Hunterston B and Torness, which together provide us with 30% of our power, are nearing the end of their active lives. In fact Hunterston will be closed in 2016. Even if he wanted to, Alex Salmond could not commission a replacement nuclear plant and have it fully operational before 2019 at the earliest. So to avoid widespread blackouts at the end of the decade, we will be relying on large numbers of open cycle gas turbines being constructed between 2012 and 2015. Increased dependency on imported gas will increase demand. Increased demand will increase fuel bills and increased fuel bills will increase fuel poverty when 800,000 Scots are already faced with the stark choice between food or fuel.
The SNP has either failed to realise this or they have completely ignored it. They continue on their nonsensical stampede for renewables which has become their flagship policy, second only to independence in order of importance. They aim to achieve their ludicrous target of 30 GW of installed capacity by 2020, which would mean virtually doubling every year the number of on and offshore wind farms currently under construction. But even the experts struggle to justify such unrealistic targets. The Adam Smith Institute and the Scientific Alliance recently noted that to deliver 18 or 19 GW of offshore wind, the Government would need to construct another 5,000 turbines before 2020. With roughly 3,000 days left until 2020 and estimating that around 120 days per year will be suitable for offshore construction, starting from today, 5 turbines will have to be installed every day until 2020. Anyone can see that this is improbable, if not totally impossible. And that is just 5,000 turbines. Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change wants another 32,000 turbines to be constructed across the UK. How many of these would be in Scotland?
Denmark is often cited as a ‘success’ story by wind advocates and wind has become a major component of their energy mix, comprising around 20% of all power generated, although they only ever use half of what is generated. Even the SNP propaganda machine has referenced Denmark when trying to pull the wool over our eyes. But what they forget, or neglect, to mention is that Denmark simply cannot be compared to the UK or Scotland.
By virtue of its geographical position, Denmark lies in an “electrical transit corridor” with Sweden and Norway to the north and Germany to the south. The benefit of this corridor is that when wind power in Denmark exceeds the limit that their grid can handle, the power is simply sent to Scandanavia and Germany. Conversely, when Danish windfarms are not working, there are net power inflows, mostly from Norwegian and Swedish hydropower, which balance the Danish grid system and prevent electric chaos.
The amount of wind we get in the UK is similar to Denmark and our windfarms have similar load factors. However, geographical positioning is the all important issue. The UK is not in an electrical transit corridor. It is part of an ‘electric island system’. Therefore, balancing the grid is much more difficult. If the UK generates too much wind energy, there is nowhere to export it to, so it overloads the grid. That is why the National Grid has to pay power companies and landowners to shut down their turbines. It is also absurd for Fergus Ewing to claim that we will be able to export massive amounts of renewable energy to England. Why on earth would England want to buy grossly expensive wind power from Scotland, when they have much cheaper and more reliable nuclear power in England?
There is also another glaring discrepancy in the SNP Government’s energy policy. Fergus Ewing recently said that subsidies paid to Scotland’s fat cat windfarm operators and wealthy landowners comes from consumers “spread across the UK…since this is how the Renewable Obligation operates and will continue to do so.” Oh really? So what if Scotland becomes an independent nation before 2020, fulfilling the SNPs other key objective…who will have to meet the costs of our renewables then? Does Fergus Ewing really expect us to believe that the English would be happy to continue footing the bill for Scotland’s prohibitively expensive and ludicrously ambitious energy targets?
Impacts on Health
The impact of windfarms on people’s health has become a hot topic recently in the media and public outrage is growing. Increasing numbers of my constituents are contacting me regularly to describe the unbearable acoustic and optical effects of turbines. After long ignoring the problem, governments and renewable energy companies have employed acoustic experts to argue that audible and low frequency noise from turbines is unlikely to affect health. But independent biomedical experts have come to very different conclusions, showing that living close to a turbine can cause headaches, dizziness, sleep deprivation, unsteadiness, nausea, exhaustion, mood-swings and the inability to concentrate.
Government experts argue that turbines don’t create any more sound than already exists in rural areas from normal background noise. However, the human ear does not only respond to 'loudness' or sound pressure which is measured in decibels. It also responds to sound frequency which is measured in Hertz and affects the body even when a sound is 'inaudible'. This is low-frequency noise and is very important to consider. Turbine blades emit low frequency noise which travels easily and varies according to the wind. This constitutes a permanent risk to people exposed to it.
There is even military weaponry that relies on low-frequency sound for crowd control purposes. At high intensities it creates discrepancies in the brain, producing disorientation in the body and resulting in what is called ‘simulated sickness’. The Israeli army uses this technology to cause instability, nausea and headaches. Suddenly, nobody feels like protesting anymore! It is great for crowd control as it has no adverse effects...unless you are exposed to it for hours, as you would be if you lived beside a turbine.
Turbine noise presents a further danger when combined with visual effects such as shadow flicker. This compounds the adverse impact on residents and can induce both physical and psychological symptoms. Visual flicker and 'strobing' effects occur at certain times of the day, similar to when you drive past a row of trees with the sun behind them. Night-time flicker can also occur with the rising and setting of the moon. On elevated ridges, tall turbines can cast shadows for thousands of feet, well above any vegetative screening and nearby residents will be exposed to numerous shadow flickers simultaneously. That is, all three blades of each turbine will cause flicker, and the flicker from each turbine will not be synchronised.
Shadow flicker is a relatively new phenomenon that hasn't been experienced on such an industrial scale before. Therefore, few governments have properly legislated for it. In Sweden, they have recognised shadow flicker and introduced a rule that the calculation of shadow flicker should be made for the entire plot, instead of only the window of a building. Needless to say, the SNP Government has yet to do the same. The health impacts of turbines need to be scrutinised more rigorously. The SNP government’s failure to do so is another betrayal of trust.
What I haven't mentioned
So, I have covered the health impacts, the financial aspects and the looming energy crisis. There is simply not enough time to highlight the direct impact that industrial wind developments will have on Scottish wildlife, the protected species of birds and our ecologically fragile water courses. I have not described the implications for our beautiful Scottish landscape. I have not discussed the 25 million trees that will be felled to make room for these turbines, the irreparable damage to our precious peatlands or even the poisonous effect that the SNP’s energy policy will have on the environment in China, where neodymium is extracted for use in the turbine magnets.
It would take me at least another hour to mention wind turbines' effects on Scottish tourism or the 150 turbines planned for the shores of Loch Ness. I have not mentioned the hundreds of hill-walkers, mountaineers, cyclists, ramblers, amateur aviation enthusiasts, and hoteliers that have contacted me about the impacts that these monstrosities have on their livelihoods and pastimes.
We all saw the turbine that burst into flames at Ardrossan during Hurricane Bawbag and we all heard about the houses that were evacuated when a turbine came crashing to the ground in Berwickshire. But I have not mentioned the other 1500 incidents on UK windfarms over the past 5 years, which include four deaths and 300 injuries to workers. Alarmingly, there is an average of one incident per day including cases where 14 tonne blades have crashed to the ground or where a 50 ft turbine collapsed in the playground of a school on the Island of Raasay. But there is simply not enough time to cover everything today.
Conclusion
In any speech I give, particularly on windfarms, I don't like to end on a negative note and I don't want to be accused of attacking renewable energy without considering other options. I have looked at the other viable alternatives, but the more I research the problem, the more I realise that we are moving further from the solution.
Hydropower and wave power cannot help. Hydropwer in Scotland plays only a minor role and currently there are no operating wave power stations in the UK. Solar, like wind power, can only form a tiny part of the overall energy mix. Biomass has none of the drawbacks of wind or solar power, but it is constrained by the need to grow food and provide raw materials for transport, biofuels and industrial processing.
But I am not against innovation. We should be investing much more into developing the new sunrise technologies such as the hydrogen economy. So far, no-one has invented an efficient method for large-scale electricity storage. But hydrogen, which is the lightest and most abundant chemical element in the Universe, can be readily stored and is an effective energy source which already the Germans use to construct hydrogen powered homes, cars, trains and ferries.
Shale Gas is another possible option. In America, the flourishing shale gas industry now provides around 30% of US gas output, which has driven down energy prices. There are vast reserves of shale gas in the UK. Exploiting them may help us reduce our dependency on imported gas from geo-politically sensitive areas such as Russia, Iran and the Middle East. Admittedly, exploiting UK reserves would take some time and I fully recognise that more research needs to be conducted into the safety risks and costs, but there is potential. The Government must recognise that gas will be a major part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future and they must at least consider shale gas technology.
Rather than pumping taxpayer’s money into hopeless renewable technologies, the government must fund measures to increase energy efficiency. We can save up to 75% of the energy we currently use simply by being more efficient. Triple glazing and proper insulation would cut our energy bills dramatically.
We are facing tough times, which will only worsen if we allow the SNP’s energy crisis to unfold. Now is the time to take action if we are going to avoid blackouts and widespread fuel poverty. Now is the time to write to your councillors, write to your MSPs and MPs. The SNP propaganda machine has fooled them as much as anyone. We are beginning to see the effects of well-organised community action groups and public pressure. We must also take the fight to Europe. I would urge all interested parties to take part in the European Commission's Public Consultation on the Renewable Energy Strategy. The consultation period is open until 7th February 2012 and aims to solicit the views of all stakeholders in order to assess public opinion on the strategy. Anyone can complete the online questionnaire in order to get their voice heard and I would urge you all to do so.
STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP
Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP for Scotland. He is Chairman of the Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development Intergroup in the European Parliament.
