Scottish Greens

[G51]

3 minutes ago, GordonS said:

It's a Disney technology. It disney work.

Ah seriously, you have to think at some point they'll crack it, but we've been waiting a surprisingly long time.

The technology is working fine for Meygen, the difficulty is bringing it in line with the cost of other forms of renewables.

Those turbines are as tough as hell though. If they can survive in the Pentland Firth (which they have done so far), then they'll survive anywhere. That's just about the most violent stretch of water you'll get.

[Dawson Park Boy]

Thanks everyone for the information.

Learnt a lot.

Good to see the big drop in fossil fuels over the years.

With the introduction of electric cars surely demand for electricity is going to increase?

Surprised at the level of imports but are there times when we export?

Im not looking at this from a constitutional perspective but what’s good for the UK and Scotland.

Dont know why China and India keep building coal power stations?

Anyway, what about ownership and where the jobs are.

All very well having all those resources but are we, UK/Scotland taking advantage of it through home grown companies or is it all controlled by foreign companies with manufacturing overseas?

 

[renton]

8 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Thanks everyone for the information.

Learnt a lot.

Good to see the big drop in fossil fuels over the years.

With the introduction of electric cars surely demand for electricity is going to increase?

Surprised at the level of imports but are there times when we export?

Im not looking at this from a constitutional perspective but what’s good for the UK and Scotland.

Dont know why China and India keep building coal power stations?

Anyway, what about ownership and where the jobs are.

All very well having all those resources but are we, UK/Scotland taking advantage of it through home grown companies or is it all controlled by foreign companies with manufacturing overseas?

 

It's dirt cheap to run and regulate and they have rapidly expanding industrial bases.

[LongTimeLurker]

16 minutes ago, G51 said:

...That's just about the most violent stretch of water you'll get.

Da Roost off Sumburgh Head can't be too far behind. Big problems convincing the environ-mentalists will be all the pylons needed to get the power to the central belt and lots of moaning about the effect of new pump-storage hydro in or near the Great Glen that would be needed for storage and delivery at times of peak demand given the tides won't always coincide properly with that. Hopefully at some point they will grasp that biomass  = Amazonian wood chips and hence not something to be encouraged just because it has a less visible impact on the UK's landscape than that.

[G51]

7 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Da Roost off Sumburgh Head can't be too far behind. Big problems convincing the environ-mentalists will be all the pylons needed to get the power to the central belt and lots of moaning about the effect of new pump-storage hydro in or near the Great Glen that would be needed for storage and delivery at times of peak demand given the tides won't always coincide properly with that. Hopefully at some point they will grasp that biomass  = Amazonian wood chips and hence not something to be encouraged just because it has a less visible impact on the UK's landscape than that.

All of the water around the Orkneys and Shetland is the same - they have extremely fast currents, though less so the further north towards the Shetlands you go. Reason being that it's the only place where the Atlantic Ocean can fill the North Sea, and vice versa.

The infrastructure for exporting renewable energy from the Far North to the Central Belt has already been built. The Denny-Beauly and Beauly-Dounreay upgrade took care of a large chunk of that, in addition to the new HVDC cabling they've laid between Noss Head and Peterhead (I think - can't remember exactly where it lands in the south but it's somewhere like that). Shetland is going to get it's own HVDC link to Noss Head, last I heard SSE were tendering that out at the tail end of last year. You don't need pylons for subsea cables.

[GordonS]

2 hours ago, renton said:

It's dirt cheap to run and regulate and they have rapidly expanding industrial bases.

China are also the world's biggest installers of solar, wind and hydro too. 

[Caledonian1]

4 hours ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

As you work in this industry I’d be interested to know just how much of the industry is owned and controlled by Scottish or even UK companies. Do we manufacture the turbines or are they made abroad?

We keep hearing about all the jobs created but how many of them are here and how many are overseas.

Fair comment.  Very little is owned and to a lesser degree controlled byb Scottish and UK companies.  However, that really is changing.  UK content currently sits at around 46% for offshore wind and there is an ambition to increase this to at least 60% by 2030 - it may not sound it but that really is a significant increase.  Bear in mind that the actual turbines (the nacelle at the top of the tower) are currently manufactured by three of the worlds biggest heavy engineering companies (GE, MHI Vestas (Mitsubishi) and Siemens Gamesa) it is extremely unlikely that any UK company will start up and break into that side of ther market. 

However towers, jackets, floating foundations (both concrete and steel) can all be built here and Developers will currently be writing up their Local Content Supply Chain plans for their bids into the ScotWind licencing round.  I have had several discussions with Developers and they are serious about using local content (finished a meeting about an hour ago with a Developer looking at significant plans for one of two scottish ports.) There are ambitious plans at the likes of Cromarty Ports, Nigg, Kishorn and the Energy Transition Zone at Aberdeen - not to mention the recent acquisition of the BiFab yards by the company who recently acquired Harland and Wolf. 

Operations and maintenance (O&M) makes up a large part of the current 46% and will continue to do so - operations for Moray East will be out of Frserburgh and Seagreen (one of worlds largest windfarms at planning stage) will be out of Montrose.

I am really positive about the future for Scotland in offshore renewables (as much about the potential for hydrogen as anything else)  It will not happen overnight - it will be a few years before the jobs arrive in big numbers but I am sure they will.  There is also fantastic potential for export opportunitie - especially in floating wind where many compaqnies currently in oil and gas have the experience and technologies in areas such as dynamic cables and moorings systems - which will be very similar for floating turbines.

[sophia]

Imagine bring a small northern european country that had the good sense to invest in wind turbine production a quarter of a century ago.

Denmark has reaped the rewards and whilst it is too late to look back at the loss of manufacturing opportunity, there are loads of jobs across many areas that are associated with building and operating renewables facilities.

[Moomintroll]

7 minutes ago, sophia said:

Imagine bring a small northern european country that had the good sense to invest in wind turbine production a quarter of a century ago.

Denmark has reaped the rewards and whilst it is too late to look back at the loss of manufacturing opportunity, there are loads of jobs across many areas that are associated with building and operating renewables facilities.

Siemens Gamesa have a huge factory in Hull that they are looking to expand even further. The tech involved in turbines today are night and day to whete they were even a decade ago so it isn't too late even now.

[Dawson Park Boy]

22 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

Fair comment.  Very little is owned and to a lesser degree controlled byb Scottish and UK companies.  However, that really is changing.  UK content currently sits at around 46% for offshore wind and there is an ambition to increase this to at least 60% by 2030 - it may not sound it but that really is a significant increase.  Bear in mind that the actual turbines (the nacelle at the top of the tower) are currently manufactured by three of the worlds biggest heavy engineering companies (GE, MHI Vestas (Mitsubishi) and Siemens Gamesa) it is extremely unlikely that any UK company will start up and break into that side of ther market. 

However towers, jackets, floating foundations (both concrete and steel) can all be built here and Developers will currently be writing up their Local Content Supply Chain plans for their bids into the ScotWind licencing round.  I have had several discussions with Developers and they are serious about using local content (finished a meeting about an hour ago with a Developer looking at significant plans for one of two scottish ports.) There are ambitious plans at the likes of Cromarty Ports, Nigg, Kishorn and the Energy Transition Zone at Aberdeen - not to mention the recent acquisition of the BiFab yards by the company who recently acquired Harland and Wolf. 

Operations and maintenance (O&M) makes up a large part of the current 46% and will continue to do so - operations for Moray East will be out of Frserburgh and Seagreen (one of worlds largest windfarms at planning stage) will be out of Montrose.

I am really positive about the future for Scotland in offshore renewables (as much about the potential for hydrogen as anything else)  It will not happen overnight - it will be a few years before the jobs arrive in big numbers but I am sure they will.  There is also fantastic potential for export opportunitie - especially in floating wind where many compaqnies currently in oil and gas have the experience and technologies in areas such as dynamic cables and moorings systems - which will be very similar for floating turbines.

Thanks for that.

Very interesting indeed.

[GordonS]

FWIW, Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Greens and second on the Lothian list, is a renewables engineer by trade and used to be a mechanical engineer at Scotrenewables Tidal Power.

[SandyCromarty]

6 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Da Roost off Sumburgh Head can't be too far behind. Big problems convincing the environ-mentalists will be all the pylons needed to get the power to the central belt and lots of moaning about the effect of new pump-storage hydro in or near the Great Glen that would be needed for storage and delivery at times of peak demand given the tides won't always coincide properly with that. Hopefully at some point they will grasp that biomass  = Amazonian wood chips and hence not something to be encouraged just because it has a less visible impact on the UK's landscape than that.

There was a major project  back in 2010 - 2013 of installing anew transmission line from Beauly to Denny in the central belt which involved installing hundreds of large pylons to carry electricity from windfarms and renewable energy schemes in North to central belt consumers in the south.

It went operational in 2013.

[SandyCromarty]

3 hours ago, Caledonian1 said:

Fair comment.  Very little is owned and to a lesser degree controlled byb Scottish and UK companies.  However, that really is changing.  UK content currently sits at around 46% for offshore wind and there is an ambition to increase this to at least 60% by 2030 - it may not sound it but that really is a significant increase.  Bear in mind that the actual turbines (the nacelle at the top of the tower) are currently manufactured by three of the worlds biggest heavy engineering companies (GE, MHI Vestas (Mitsubishi) and Siemens Gamesa) it is extremely unlikely that any UK company will start up and break into that side of ther market. 

 

Good post.

The Danish company Vestas had a Turbine manufacturing plant at Macrihanish airport for years and then closed it down, I think it was because the subsidies were reduced, are they still operating in the uk?

[GordonS]

6 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Da Roost off Sumburgh Head can't be too far behind. Big problems convincing the environ-mentalists will be all the pylons needed to get the power to the central belt and lots of moaning about the effect of new pump-storage hydro in or near the Great Glen that would be needed for storage and delivery at times of peak demand given the tides won't always coincide properly with that. Hopefully at some point they will grasp that biomass  = Amazonian wood chips and hence not something to be encouraged just because it has a less visible impact on the UK's landscape than that.

Environmentalists didn't oppose Beauly-Denny, they just wanted some of it re-routed and buried in places.

Friends of the Earth Scotland supports Coire Glas.

None of the biomass in the UK comes from the Amazon, it's mostly from the USA, Canada and the Baltic states. The imported chips are supposed to be residues and thinnings but there have been allegations that the "thinnings" are being diverted from other uses, and even that it includes small roundwood. 

Environmentalists are the biggest critics of Drax.

I don't know much about this subject either, but at least I'm not pretending I do.

Edited April 13, 2021 by GordonS

[Caledonian1]

1 minute ago, SandyCromarty said:

Good post.

The Danish company Vestas had a Turbine manufacturing plant at Macrihanish airport for years and then closed it down, I think it was because the subsidies were reduced, are they still operating in the uk?

They were producing towers there.  Not an ideal location and think that the industry overtook their capabilities.  ten years ago 2.5MW turbines were fine but now we are seeing 8.8MW (Aberdeen Bay) and 9.5mW turbines at Kincardine.  Vestas sold that facility to Wind Towers and it was under the name CS Wind when finally closed last year.

Vestas still have offices and some operations in UK - including blade manufacture at Isle of Wight.  Think they are back to being simply Vestas again in last few weeks - previously MHI Vestas

Incidentally last week GE announced a new blade factory for Teeside. We are having loads of discussions on potential floating foundation manufacture in Scotland - however, lots dependent on the Developers winning scotWind licences

[SandyCromarty]

3 hours ago, sophia said:

Imagine bring a small northern european country that had the good sense to invest in wind turbine production a quarter of a century ago.

Denmark has reaped the rewards and whilst it is too late to look back at the loss of manufacturing opportunity, there are loads of jobs across many areas that are associated with building and operating renewables facilities.

Denmark's Vestas is one of the largest turbine manufacturer and installer in the world, but you need to go back 75 years to when the company was founded.

[Ginaro]

47 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

There was a major project  back in 2010 - 2013 of installing anew transmission line from Beauly to Denny in the central belt which involved installing hundreds of large pylons to carry electricity from windfarms and renewable energy schemes in North to central belt consumers in the south.

It went operational in 2013.

https://openinframap.org/#7.84/56.656/-4.248

The (400kV) purple line up the middle of that map in case anyone is wondering where it goes.

[Ginaro]

Oh and at least the Scottish Greens aren't silly enough oppose high speed rail (i.e. HS2), unlike their entirely separate Green Party down south, who seem to support high speed rail on the continent, but not HS2.

 

[jamamafegan]

Oh and at least the Scottish Greens aren't silly enough oppose high speed rail (i.e. HS2), unlike their entirely separate Green Party down south, who seem to support high speed rail on the continent, but not HS2.
 

This isn’t correct - they oppose the construction of a new high speed line but they don’t oppose, as far as I’m aware, the improvement of already existing lines. Which is fair enough.

[renton]

Greens manifesto is launched today. One of the things I noted is that it appears they are no longer wanting to replace council tax with a LVT, but rather a "residential property tax" based on "actual value" which seems to me like just council tax with fully modernised bands?

Also calling for a one off pandemic windfall tax on those large corporations that have benefited from the fucked up market in the last year. 

In terms of spending, they are talking about 7.5 Billion spending over 5 years to create 100,000 green jobs, including 3 Billion on stage 1 of what they are calling Rail for All so presumably a much larger rail network than currently.

Some nice stuff about setting criteria for Scottish content in supply chains for contracts through stuff like the renewable licensing structure.

Support the transition to a 4 day week with no loss of pay.

Trying to establish smaller, more decentralised councils with power over relief on non domestic rates.

Get more teachers in, smaller class sizes and no standardised testing in P1-P3 (that makes a lot of sense to me) as well as free school meals and universal breakfast clubs. Raise the primary school age to 7 and less homework for primary school as well, which again I think makes sense. In high schools they want to expand the role of continuous assessment and reduce but not remove the role of exams.

Interesting stuff on colleges about getting parity of funding for students in college vs University.

A national care service. This will be in the SNP and Labour manifesto as well I guess. Free access to sport and physical activities for kids.

Also trying to fund pilot schemes for UBI.

Edited April 14, 2021 by renton