My Scotland accused of deliberately producing far more electricity than UK can cope with! post, earlier today, triggered comments on renewable energy and ducks, well worthy of reposting for maximum attention.

Here they are:

Anonymous

Around 1964/65 when I was at school, preparing for my Higher Grade Physics and Chemistry, we used to get lectures once a fortnight from academics about current issues. One of the lectures was based on the recently devised, “Salter’s Ducks”, which were a way of extracting energy from waves and converting it to electricity.

The thesis was that a long array of these anchored between Barra Head and somewhere west of Kintyre would generate huge amounts of electricity and rather than transfer the electricity ashore the electricity would be used in situ to electrolyse sea water to produce hydrogen, which would be pumped into gas container ships anchored at the offshore electrolysis rigs and these would bring the gas ashore at ports on the west coast and put into the existing gas pipelines.

The science was ‘watertight’ (pun intended!) and with offshore oil and gas exploration getting underway, the still existing shipyard labour force on the Clyde could be retrained to build and maintain the ‘ducks’, rigs, and container ships and Scotland could have a clean ‘hydrogen economy’.

Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.

Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.

Bob Lamont

I’d still been in Primary at the time, but do remember those “Salter’s Ducks” being featured on BBC Scotland news pieces, the days when black and white journalism in colour ruled, long before the Dishonourable Sarah Smith changed the broadcaster’s remit to “Nicola ate my hamster” mode in puce, and the non-existent email reader took over hoping everyone had forgotten – We didn’t James !
The news where you are, tough shit.

Despite “Salter’s Ducks” being dumped for commercial (and probably technical) reasons, it stimulated further research into how best to harness wave energy at the cusp of the oil boom, and survived even if it was in academia – No mean feat considering the vested generation interests feeling their monopoly under threat and governments obsessing over revenues rather than the public good.

The other striking aspect of the 1960s was the demise of nationally funded energy conservation strategies, again spurred by HMG greed over prospective revenues, but this is a HUGE hobby horse of mine, why waste energy ?

Today with a wholly manufactured energy crisis by “the markets” (copyright Tories) where are we today, 60 odd years later ?
– “There’s nothing we can do, that’s just global markets” – Despite the UK being the most energy productive nation on the planet, and Scotland in particular ?
Contrast-
– Even with only 5cm external insulation and double glazing to my home in Romania at down to to -16c last year (and this) and an actual war going on in Ukraine 100m away and a dependency in parts of the EU on Russian gas, my TOTAL energy bill for 2021-22 was less than 900 quid with government interventions to stabilise household bills – Even were that intervention to cease and it were to double to 1,800 quid a year, just where the hell does this “£3,280 for a dual fuel household paying by direct debit based on typical consumption” even come from ?
A Tent?

Anonymous

A long array of “Salter’s Ducks” anchored between Barra Head and somewhere west of Kintyre would generate huge amounts of electricity and rather than transfer the electricity ashore the electricity would be used in situ to electrolyse sea water to produce hydrogen, which would be pumped into gas container ships anchored at the offshore electrolysis rigs and these would bring the gas ashore at ports on the west coast and put into the existing gas pipelines.

The science was ‘watertight’ (pun intended!) and with offshore oil and gas exploration getting underway, the still existing shipyard labour force on the Clyde could be retrained to build and maintain the ‘ducks’, rigs, and container ships and Scotland could have a clean ‘hydrogen economy’.

We were told all this in around 1964/65 when I was at school and preparing for my Higher Grade Physics and Chemistry, when we used to get lectures once a fortnight from academics about current issues. Strathclyde University was very close and they could nip across quite easily. One of the lectures was based on “Salter’s Ducks”, which were a way of extracting energy from waves and converting it to electricity.

Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.

Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.

Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.

Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.