Sir, This week National Grid reported that we risk power blackouts because some of the UK’s biggest electricity generators are out of service.
Referendum debates have concentrated on oil but paid little attention to other energy supplies, particularly electricity, in an independent Scotland.
In 2013 Scotland generated 46% of its electricity demand from renewable sources and much of it was exported to England. This was possible because our remaining nuclear and coal or gas-fuelled power stations were available to provide the “baseload” power supply.
Scottish Government policy is to phase out nuclear and coal-fired power stations. Without the constant back-up from conventional power stations, Scotland may need to import electricity from England at a time when spare capacity throughout the UK is falling.
The current Scotland – England interconnector capacity is limited, around 5.5 GW, which amounts to some 40% of Scottish peak demand.
There are huge uncertainties about the future energy market in an independent Scotland.
How will the costs of electricity generation and distribution be shared between Scotland and rUK? Could rUK buy its electricity from France or The Netherlands? Will the single and integrated GB energy market continue as it is now?
If not, will Scottish consumers have to pay the full costs for renewable energy schemes and investment in the transmission network?
The only conclusion I reach is that it’s going to cost us more.
Dr J A T Woodford. Bankfoot Cottage, Lomond View, Kinnaird, by Inchture, Perthshire.
We all deserve better than this
Sir, I spoke to a colleague the other day and asked if he had decided which way he was going to vote on September 18.
He said that he was voting “yes” and when I asked him his reasons, his response was: “Because I hate the English.” No other explanation.
Given that the Yes side seems to have expended a great deal of effort to ensure that those of us who have never voted before in any elections do so this time, I wonder how many more will be heading for the polling stations just because they hate those south of the border and for no other reason?
When I asked how much of the debate he had watched on TV, his answer was: “None, I know nothing about politics.”
I worry that the entire future of the union could be decided by those who want independence based purely on how they feel towards the English.
The country deserves better than this.
Ian Todd. 3 Hopefield Place, Kinross.
Many wounds to be healed
Sir, It concerns me that with the referendum approaching there is great division in the country not only with political leaders but within ordinary families.
Husbands and wives are divided, children and parents and friendships are being sorely tested and some even severed beyond repair by the debate.
Whatever happens on September 18 there are going to be many wounds emotionally that will be needing healed and many relationships that will need to be restored.
J K Rowling, who experienced much hostility for her support of the Better Together campaign, said in one of her books: “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
Gordon Kennedy. 117 Simpson Square, Perth.
Not Bank of Great Britain
Sir, As the bank of England owns all the debt for what is the UK I would have thought it perfectly reasonable to assume that if no currency union was forthcoming then the Bank of England would be responsible for the said debt. After all it is called the Bank of England, not the bank of Great Britain.
Bryan Auchterlonie. Bluebell Cottage, Ardargie.
Stay united, stay strong
Sir, As the day approaches for the referendum on Scottish independence, I wish to add my voice, remote as it is, to those who are calling on the people of Scotland not to break up the United Kingdom.
Frankly, from my experience, independence has been a dismal failure and a mirage. There is no “brave new world” out there toward which Scotland will set sail as an independent sate.
The United Kingdom remains one of the foremost nations on the Earth today and Scotland is a big part of that. The prestige inherent in the very term “United Kingdom” may not be seen by people who live within it, but it does exist.
Many people who are Scottish, also have English, Irish and Welsh ancestors so you really are one people in every sense of the word on a wider “national level”. The four parts of the United Kingdom are inextricably mixed and it would be a shame and a great loss to the world if this union were dissolved.
Stay within the UK Scotland. Begin the work to make the changes you wish to see in how parliamentary representation is carried out in London if you must, but please do not diminish the great heritage that is your United Kingdom.
Dominic Ganteaume. Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies.
The dictionary says it all…
Sir, Our First Minister is clearly regarded by many, as something of a visionary. I looked up the word “vision” in the dictionary and found: “ a vivid mental image, especially a fanciful one of the future.”
Excellent dictionary.
Peter Dickinson. 13 South Street, Arbroath.
Need to wake up to reality
Sir, Watching pictures in the media of Alex Salmond making his “presidential” way through the streets of Scottish cities surrounded by glassy-eyed admirers recently, I was reminded of nothing so much as The Pied Piper of Hamelin leading his followers, trance-like, to who knows where.
This trance-like state is the only reason I can think of for so many people accepting, without question, Mr Salmond’s fantasyland picture of life in an independent Scotland that doesn’t need to defend itself because, magically, all its enemies will have disappeared overnight.
This same Scotland will be so powerful that it can walk into Europe and demand its own terms and renege on its debts without any disadvantage to the long-suffering Scottish public.
I just wish that some of the glassy-eyed ones had “come round” long enough to ask their dear leader why, if the NHS is so safe in his hands, his government has recently after all his scare stories of health service privatisation just awarded a contract to American firm, Weight Watchers, to tackle obesity in the West of Scotland?
Also, why, under his watch, have 20,000 operations been cancelled in the last few months?
Time for people to wake up and study all Mr Salmond’s guarantees with a clear head and open eyes.
John R Nicoll. 7C Queen Street, Broughty Ferry, Dundee.
Either way, it’s a leap of faith
Sir, In response to “Why would we sign up to that?” (Friday’s letters), where J Stormonth-Darling compared a “yes” vote to a bit like being invited onto the inaugural flight of a new, untested airliner, surely a “no” vote is a bit like being invited onto a flight on an old, not-fit-for-purpose, biplane being piloted by Nigel Farage and heading out into the mid-Atlantic.
To join the flight you must first use 19th century rail links to the English Midlands before using the new mega-billion pound high speed rail link to London, and then transferring to the new mega-billion pound Boris Johnson international estuary airport.
There are no certainties. A vote either way requires a leap of faith.
Dr D Hamp-Hamilton. 31 Dalhousie Road, Broughty Ferry, Dundee.