An informative piece in the Herald and missing only two things. A headline that clarifies just what is going on here, done above, and some indication of the scale of Scotland’s resilience in transferring huge amounts of power to England would help.
Note in the Herald’s headline ‘Scottish grid premium charges’ to refer to what are, of course, UK grid’s charges imposed on Scotland.
From David Bol today:
A LEADING energy company has warned that Scotland will not be able to scale up wind farms to meet climate targets without an overhaul of charging regimes that “penalises” projects north of the border. Currently, Scotland is planning or has installed around 740 MW of energy from offshore wind farms. But the Scottish Government hopes to scale up the infrastructure to between 8GW and 11GW by 2030 – by when a pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 75 per cent of 1990 levelswill need to be met.
Good, good, but why ‘penalises’ when you present the evidence that it penalises?
And, why no mention of this easily accessed information?
So, 15.6 GWh of electricity was transferred from Scotland to England in 2019 and is likely to increase to around 18GWh this year.
The small transfer to Scotland is from Northern Ireland.
1GWh is enough to power around 725 000 homes. 18GWh will power 13 million homes. There are around 2.5 million households in Scotland and 28 million in England.
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
This is what the Scottish government should put on a leaflet when they campaign for election and independence. It’s the sort of thing the people need to know about their own country being robbed. English government are such freeloaders, it’s obvious why they ‘love’ Scotland so much, it is however a very! very abusive relationship. Scotland knows that, it’s just how to make a getaway while England’s not looking…
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Ps Thanks for the article, will share later on twitter when on sensible device.
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The Tories will be desperate in the coming months to present their green credentials to the Biden administration.
Renewable energy consumption will be a large part of that spin but the fact that much of that energy is generated outside England will be covered up.
Having said that,their latest announcement about opening a new coal mine,doesn’t quite fit.
Their nuclear power program must be in even more difficulty than I thought.
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It was interesting that the general media response to the proposed coal mine in Cumbria was ‘jobs boost’ with scant mention of renewables targets, carbon emission, COP26.
Of course, Cumbria, viewed from London is far away – is it in Scotland????? and don’t we have that nuclear thingy, Sella-something up that way? – and the prevailing wind will carry any pollution across SE Scotland, the North Sea and Scandinavia.
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O/T
Prof Devi Sridhar headlined in the Herald online saying that an Independent Scotland could have done better re Covid-19. She mentions the near elimination in the summer and the constraints that did not allow Scotland to go as far and as fast as they wanted.
No doubt she will be getting pelters from the BTL armchair ‘warriors’
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here’s link https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,devi-sridhar-an-independent-scotland-wouldve-done-better-against-covid
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Did this appear in the print edition or was it hidden away in the online edition.
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England has no generating spare capacity.
England has little “peak demand capacity handling” e.g. Hydro electricity that can come online in seconds.
Yet we pay to service their demand?
Meanwhile generating stations in the South of England are PAID to supply the grid.
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Right now a clown is taking part in a meaningless ceremony at a military bade in a foreign country. The BBC are covering this
In this country our Leader is answering questions in our Parliament.
BBC radio based in Scotland is ignoring this.
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Exporting energy ? Nice little earner for an independent nation , eh ?
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Indeed. And a hard border (is it a wall or fence that will be threatened by Unionists?), armed border guards and customs checks will not be a barrier to Scotland’s energy exports to England – all we need are some new meters!
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Could earn £Billions for Scotland. 25% in surplus in fuel and energy. Yet Scotland pays more because it is colder despite being nearer the source and production.
Osbourne sticking his nose in again. Opening his lying gob. The Tories are an absolute disgrace. Brexit is a disaster. They will be voted out. Johnston will go.
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Scotland is FORCED to pay ‘more’ to simply connect to the ‘national grid’ where the control stations or whatever they are called are ALL in England, not because ‘it’s colder’!! However the fact it is ‘colder’ means that people in Scotland pay far more for heating their homes than people in England do, even though Scotland has a lot of their electricity output taken TO and by England.
‘Johnston’ will not ‘go’ and even if he did, there would be no change in Tory/red Tory tactics to keep Scotland shackled in order to keep removing Scotland’s massive wealth via their massive resources, such as oil, gas and renewables. Sadly there is still a massive amount of oil in Scottish waters, all to be siphoned away to line the pockets of the rich in the EngGov and elsewhere, it’s tragic.
We know that Brexit is catastrophic for Scotland and that the Tories are disaster capitalists, preying on the vulnerable and capitalising on the pandemic, some would call them evil.
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O/T It’s not often I find myself recommending a BBC programme as a source of useful, fact checking. But this is merited.
Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ is a programme that examines the statistics used in political debate, the news and ‘everyday life’. This morning (20 January) it examined the claims of Tory ministers concerning the UK/EU trade deal. In particular, it investigated the claims made regarding increased quota coming to the UK fishing industry made recently by both Michael Gove and Penny Mordaunt. (It’s about half way in.)
The BBC programme asked: “will UK fishing quotas increase two thirds in the wake of Brexit?” as is being claimed by Tory ministers. The results of the analysis could not have been clearer: it was ‘no’ – and not even close! Both ministers are shown as giving out wrong information. Is that otherwise known as blatantly lying?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rccm
I’ve heard a lot of BBC News coverage of Brexit-related fishing matters over recent weeks. However, I don’t expect even BBC produced exposure of Tory duplicity to be covered on BBC Scotland any time …(almost added ‘soon’ at the end in error!).
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Ed Miliband brought in variable tariffs in 2008 when he was Secretary for Energy and Climate Change. The tax was supposed to encourage local generation and local consumption thereby encouraging micro renewable generation in 2008. The further from ‘demand’, the greater use off the National Grid, therefore the higher the tariff.
I think the problem was that the centre of demand was deemed to be London. Scottish Power certainly cited high tariffs among the reasons for closing Longannet Power Station. Not sure if the tariffs, which generators and Scottish customers pay for, would have been due if Scotland didn’t export electricity to England.
England also imports energy from France. Contract renegotiations are tied tight to access to UK waters renegotiations in 2026 which is why the sell out of the fishing community is set to stay.
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This will be those “Broad Shoulders” and that “Union Dividend” we are always hearing about on BBC Shortbreid.
Shame they propagandise and lie it is England being charitable to Scotland when in reality we are keeping the lights on down South.
Subsidy Junkies!
😉
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The ‘national grid’ is US owned and in the main UK/England controlled.
They are upgrading some of the network to accomodate the growth in renewables, in, England. I read a while ago that the ‘grid’ may not be able to cope with the growing requirements for renewables, which of course are mostly based in and come from Scotland.
After independence, Scotland will need their own national grid will they not. A neighbour holding a grudge controlling your electricity system and out-put etc (I don’t know the technical stuff clearly!) is not a great prospect really.
Anyone recall the huge powercuts across mainly the highlands in 2014? A few hours of no power at all over alrge parts of Scotalnd, which some in the field said would have to have been caused by aliens or, be deliberately switched off. Others said no it’s just what happens because of all the things that can go wrong at the switch baord thingy, oh aye.
There was no valid explanation whatsoever. make sure you have plenty candles in and charge your torches, in the next few months folks.
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I think the power networks in Scotland are run by Scottish Power (as was) and SSE. My understanding is that The National Grid is England/Wales only. I may be wrong.
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The energy companies wanted to vary the tariff. Less nearer the source Westminster would not let them. £1Billion was promised for CCS project, at Longannet. The Tories reneged. They reneged on gas CCS project at Peterhead. Thatcher tried to get the Oil pipe line south. It ended outside Edinburgh.
The Tories force an EU Ref claiming democracy. They refuse an IndyRef. Anti democratic.
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There is, in England 1000’s of miles of oil pipeline underground it’s been there since WW2.
Watch. he says it’s ‘across Britain’ but that means England, far as I know, but, who knows, maybe it does go underground, or sea, from Aberdeen to Kent!
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Having watched FMQs today I found the distortion by Reporting Scotland tonight disgraceful.
” Nicola Sturgeon was FORCED to DEFEND her position on the vaccine rollout ”
Not what I seen and heard.
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Funny you should say this. I was asked to participate in a survey about the Beeb only yesterday. Obviously, I marked trust etc at 1 (0 = no opinion) and they wanted to know why I thought that. Well…
The survey site was awful – I lost what I was writing 3 times – and the word allocation wasn’t that high to start with. In the end, I settled for:
“I watch BBC culture documentaries etc and, in fairness, they are good.
BUT I’m English-born, living in Scotland and am DEEPLY disappointed that the BBC has gone so far downhill. News/politics-related reporting is no longer trustworthy, so I only listen to FMQ/CV19 updates now. Reporting of these is, at best, inaccurate and poorly edited and, at worst, comes across as little more than UKGov/Tory propaganda. eg BBC Scotland has been politicising and personalising the Coronavirus situation in a shameful (or should that be shameLESS?) way, editing speeches and responses to make them mean something different. This is aimed at those who haven’t listened to the whole thing like I have – so they don’t know this.
Remember BBC doesn’t control world news. If I want impartiality these days, I ‘ll probably listen to Aljazeera.”
Not as pithy as my original but, as I said, I’d lost what I originally wrote 3 times and by that stage was losing patience too!
I made similar comments in about 3 different places in the survey – including the fact that they have the opposition parties commenting on the briefings without a ScotGov rep to correct statements. And brought up Question Time too. (Lost both of those that at least once too!)
Of course, it won’t make any difference, but right is right and they can’t claim they don’t know. I’d’ve said I’m a peaceable person in the normal way. I’m getting quite bolshie in my old age :D!
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I have been describing this disgrace on doorsteps and stalls since 2012.
“If you have a windfarm here in Scotland you are charged to supply to the UK distribution grid. If you have cousin who has a windfarm in the SE of England your cousin is paid a premium to supply to the grid. Why? Well because the UK Gov’t can and do encourage/endorses such unfair strategies.And remember, power transmission is simply little electrons running down a cable, generating some marginal heat losses through their activity – and a few hundred miles is of no import to efficient transmission.
Now consider the time delay and cost of loading your North Sea fresh fish catch onto a truck in NE Scotland to be driven past Prestwick airport all the way to Dover. Where is the sense in that? Even closer is Aberdeen airport! Leuchers would be handy too.
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Off topic but the BeeB has outdone itself…
Headline:
Covid in Scotland: Peacetime excess deaths highest since 1891
Now that is an interesting conflation of a pandemic verses outbreaks like scarlet fever. But don’t let that get in the way of a headline!
On the subject of not letting a mere fact get in the way of a headline I noticed that they list all sorts of outbreaks. They have produced lovely charts and graphics for “all”, the major outbreaks.
So I looked to see the excess deaths in Scotland for the only comparable pandemic… Spanish flu 1918-19. Yet seemingly it was not worth a mention and was excluded from all their graphs. It killed about a quarter of a million in the UK. So pro rata about 25,000 Scots. I also doubt these figures include those who died abroad or in the trenches.
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Aye, thanks for pointing that out @donnywho, my initial take was they were trying to bury their failed age grouped Covid vaccination graph which had so many up in arms at it’s inept attempt to twist the conversation, yet here we are at another “squirrel”.
What makes this all the more intriguing is the excess deaths focus, something HMS Sarah Smith and Churchill Johnson were at great pains to avoid discussing even when the FT first highlighted this over Covid back in the Spring, which begs the question why now?
I’ve a sneaking suspicion they are advancing the excess deaths in Scotland argument because they got wind of a media outfit outwith their mafia running a story demonstrating the UK’s horrific excess deaths record, note again the absence of focus on Scotland with ZERO comparison to England.
Any who have followed this Excess/ Covid/Other Death discussion noted a huge blip in England on what seems to have been accepted as the “first phase”, only Euromomo as I understand followed this through
Will look tomorrow which european media is focussing on it, but my guess would be Scotland the squirrel courtesy of the #10 Spin Factory, yet again.
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