BLUEMOMENT

With the Lewis Islanders continuing their obstinate objections to the Lewis wind farm (despite the eye-watering bribes) and with the Scottish Executive "minded to refuse" it, is Alex Salmon's nuclear-free vision for Scotland a prime example of the centuries old tradition of Scottish politicians getting themselves elected by offering the unaffordable and unattainable to the most gullible, parochial, small minded and self-interested electorate in the UK?

Its worth mentioning that the Lewis Labour MSP lost his seat last May to the SNP candidate who opposed the farm.

I listened to the Scottish energy minister, Jim Mather, trying to argue that wind farm "productivity" of 55% was better than the 70% "productivity" of nuclear because the "eggs (turbines) are not in one basket and new technology has improved (things)". I think he means that it might not be blowing in Lewis but will be elsewhere which flies in the face of the experience of UK wind farms which is that weather systems are much larger than the UK so power production from wind farms tends to be consistently good or bad throughout the UK at the same time.

Bringing up the rear comes the Crown Estates report of a £5bn submarine cable with "clever bits" at either end to connect the disparate wind farms to the national grid just at the same time as one of the three undersea cables on the East coast, which bring power onshore from offshore wind farms, has "sprung a leak" reducing capacity by a third. The Crown own the sea bed upon which the cable would rest along with all our moorings ...

Whilst not wishing to extract any steam nor reduce the profound levels of gravitas thus far established, I was bemused to see the Eigg alternative re-whateveritis power plant story make the National news headlines last week.
It put me in mind of a conversation I had with one of the Islanders whilst the RoRo slip was being constructed.
He did leave me wondering at the sanity of a decision to construct this amazing and expensive facility when for a fraction of the cost, a submarine cable could have been laid which would have given the Islanders mains power - which I believe is what they really wanted. As no-one who is not an Islander can take a vehicle onto Eigg, this does seem to lack a certain degree of common sense.
Anyway - the place will be bristling with turbines and no doubt the reflection of the sun on the myriad collection of solar panels will make the island glisten like a tanner up a black guy's airse in no time at all.