Unlocking Scotland's Energy Powerhouse

Рет қаралды 557

3 ай бұрын

With special guest Dr Craig Dalzell, Policy Director of Commonweal, this month's episode of the Mibbes Aye show looks at the barriers and possible solutions to a publicly owned energy company for Scotland. We asked Craig 10 questions, which are:
00:00:41 Welcome, introduction and background
00:02:58 Q1: How has Wales managed to set up an energy company?
00:06:39 Q2: Could Wales set up a public company for Scotland?
00:08:08 Q3: Do we have other options?
00:10:41 Q4: So what energy company CAN Scotland set up?
00:17:50 Q5: Who makes money out of Scotland's resources?
00:19:21 Q6: Is the EU's new zero strategy an opportunity for us?
00:21:57 Q7: How can Scotland benefit?
00:25:33 Q8: How else can Scotland get a fair return on our assets?
00:31:16 Q9: How do we store our energy?
00:36:52 Q10: What should Scotland do now?
Links to some of the resources mentioned in our discussion are:
National public energy agency: www.gov.scot/policies/energy-efficiency/the-national-public-energy-agency
Commonweal policy papers:
www.commonweal.scot/setup-energy-company/
www.commonweal.scot/policies/powering-our-ambitions
Support for community energy projects:
www.localenergy.scot/hub/community-owned
The Scottish Independence Podcasts team produce a NEW podcast episode every Friday search for Scottish Independence Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to like and subscribe!
Contact Us: indypodcasters@gmail.com
Visit our website scottishindypod.scot for blogposts, newsletter signup and more episodes
Subscribe to our KZbin channel @scottishindypodExtra for more of our video footage and clips
Music:
Inspired by Kevin MacLeod

Пікірлер: 18

@Mike-zx1kx Ай бұрын

Dane here. It are hard for me to comment on the circumstances regarding ownership since that looks like it needs politically negotiated solutions. However what I maybe can provide are some inspiration. As it seems most know Denmark are farther than most in transitioning to an emission free energy production and a large part of that are based on windmills. Last years the number of onshore windmills in Denmark have been constant meaning that if onshore windmills have reached their expire date they most often are replaced with higher yielding ones but no new sites are really being set up. Instead we are going offshore. The establishing cost/investment for an offshore windmill park are typically higher than onshore but it also comes with a higher and more stable output. An onshore windmill typically have 8-12% downtime due to to little wind whereas the same percentage for offshore are 3-5% As the gentleman above described he sometimes had high electricity costs and sometimes even negative costs. There are nothing wrong with fluctuations in prices for endusers to even out peak demand times but the component, that I were a bit baffled were not mentioned at all in above conversations, were green hydrogen production. When we sleep the wind still blows and when there are high winds the prices often are very low. So instead of shutting mills down for the night or having negative prices green hydrogen can be made instead. Hydrogen are made of electricity and water via electrolysis. First result you get by doing that are hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas are optimal to use for central heating/cooling, can be used in hydrogen gas based cars that often works in conjunction with batteries and it can be used for cooking stoves in private homes, often mixed with natural gas. If you convert hydrogen gas to a hydrogen liquid a whole new range of very useful options becomes available. Basically liquid hydrogen can replace practically all needs today solved by gasoline and diesel! The energy content in hydrogen gas are lower than gasoline and diesel but the energy content of hydrogen liquid are significantly higher than both. The volume, space, needed to store liquid hydrogen are significant less than if in gas form. If you have offshore windmill parks then making offshore hydrogen production and storage becomes a logical step in the transition away from fossil fuels. When converting hydrogen gas to hydrogen liquid you need to cool and pressurise the gas. Waters can reduce that conversion cost and storage cost. The produced liquid can either be transported via pipelines or stored underwater and transferred to ships, just as LNG now are, except one shipload of liquid hydrogen gas will represent a much higher value and energy content than an equal LNG load. So by basically "overdimension" the offshore electricity production in relation to national need overall, a constant flexible fuel production can be extracted from the wind that blows anyway. Makes little sense to most to have negative end user prices for energy, that are not sustainable investment policies. But if you incorporate, by simply doing the maths, that you have liquid hydrogen storage facilities to facilitate energy need for the winter season and to constantly supply the nations cars, trucks, trains and planes, a total winner situation are created. When hydrogen are burned it only emits water! Thus the global emission crisis largely are solved in relation to the battle to reach net zero. Lets talk about electric cars and geopolitics for a second here. The weight of a battery based car are around half the cars weight. Thus every kilometre you drive means that you basically are transporting a lot of weight around and that cost around half of the energy in itself. That are incredible inefficient. The batteries contain many different metals/rare earth minerals and when it comes to rare earth minerals China now controls 90% of the world market sales. Ever since the world in silence accepted that old peaceful nation of Tibet were stolen by China they have increased their illegal wars and human rights abusing behaviour. By simply looking locally in our region we all should have taken the clear lesson of what Germany´s Nordstream deal resulted in. If POOtin had not had the hard currency income from Germany they would not have been able to wage their illegal war and colonisation attempt against Ukraine, that now are costing more than "just" money. When WE are by buying electric cars we basically, no matter what brand, are supporting an oppressing and illegal war faring state that makes little effort to hide their future illegal aggressive plans. I personally drive and old banger and wont buy a new car before someone can offer me a car with an engine based on the 4 stroke principle running on liquid hydrogen. I expect that to be in around 8 years from now when the large amounts of green hydrogen from the worlds largest transition project, the North Sea Summit Agreement, begins to flow. Another holistic aspect of battery based cars, besides the geopolitical, are the recycling part. A EV battery are energy intensive and difficult to recycle and even if you do it, you still need to add new rare earth materials to make a new car battery from the old. 10 years ago Elon Musk were considered by many as an almost hippie like entrepreneur. Anyone listening to Musk lately might hear much more sinister and dark things coming out. Musk are dependent on the rare earth materials coming from China. One should consider if that are related....Musk, a private entrepreneur and his starlink satellite network suddenly became the deciding factor in the Russian/Ukrainian "conflict" when he were able to decide whom had access to secure communication on the battlefield. Russians now have been successful in acquiring starlink material through middlemen. US intelligence not long ago announced a pattern of targeted missile attacks related to when certain satellites had had been flying over the areas. Do we want to see a China becoming capable of same if a global conflict/stand off should come? A wind turbine and generator and a 4 stroke hydrogen engine, popular speaking, can be thrown in the oven, locally, and a new turbine/generator/hydrogen engine can be built from the old. Thus this conceptually fits perfectly into a circular economy where the value adding in the production are related to technological insights rather than access to a constant flow of energy intensive processes dependent on exploiting an ever increasing part of the land and now also ocean floors!

@sn4rff 3 ай бұрын

plenty to think about, thanks for this.

@woofpet 3 ай бұрын

Thank you. This was great.

@haraldtheyounger5504 2 ай бұрын

After the past decade especially, any thinking person should be in favour of Independence. The Scottish government are a mere Adminstration, not an actual Government. That is the problem with Devolution, Westminster still holds power, Westminster still controls our finances (and with further cuts to the Scottish Budget, how can we hope for improvements). Only Independence can give us our own Nationalised Energy Provider. That alone would make such an obvious impact on all our lives; in the home and for businesses.

@therealrobertbirchall 2 ай бұрын

Sand batteries and heating water during times of surplus to store energy without nasty minerals and chemicals. Building new buildings over sand batteries will also capture any latent heat rising from the batteries.

@therealrobertbirchall 2 ай бұрын

Lerwick in Shetland has a district heating system powered by incinerating rubbish.