Sam Taylor

@staylorish.bsky.social

953 Followers 1256 Following

Runs @theseislands.bsky.social. “cannot stand the awesome reality of Scotland’s energy wealth” - Alex Salmond. Posting in a personal capacity.

Just three key examples of the punishment Scotland faces total around £16bn in lost investment: • The 2GW West of Orkney wind farm has been paused with developers warning that excessive transmission costs has made the project uncompetitive. The 125-turbine wind farm would have had enough power for two million homes with £6.4bn investment lost. • Arven South wind farm was cancelled by Ocean Winds who blamed "the current impact of the current Transmission Charging Regime" ruining £1.4bn worth of investment. • Shell walked away from the Campion wind project with around £7bn lost in investment with transmission charges said to have been a key factor. Commenting, the SNP Westminster Leader and candidate for Aberdeen Deeside & North Kincardine, Stephen Flynn said: "The Labour Government is hammering our energy sector with crippling transmission charges uniquely applied to Scottish projects while equivalent sites in England are subsidised.
Explainer: Voluntary long-term fixed contracts A Contract for Difference (CfD) is a long-term contract between the government and an electricity generator that guarantees a stable, fixed price for the electricity they produce. A Wholesale Contract for Difference (WCfD) would offer existing eligible generators, who aren't already contracted under a CfD, the option to accept a fixed price for the electricity they generate. This would mean that both they and consumers are no longer exposed to volatile gas-linked electricity prices. A WCD would see eligible generators give up their current forward wholesale revenues in exchange for a fixed power price achieved via a CfD. Under this proposal it is envisaged that generators accredited under the Renewables Obligation (RO) would continue to receive support via the RO in the way they do currently - with only their wholesale revenues being exchanged for a fixed price CfD. The WCD will be a voluntary offer to eligible electricity generators, and will be subject to consultation in due course. Government will only offer contracts to electricity generators where it represents clear value for money for consumers. Further details will be set out in due course, with plans to consult later this year.
Moreover, while renewables' marginal costs are low, wind and solar farms require a lot of upfront investment to build. New projects in Britain tend to secure a contract with the government guaranteeing them a fixed price regardless of the wholesale price, to make sure they can earn back their upfront costs. This guarantee is funded by a levy on consumer bills, meaning that the wholesale price is not what consumers end up paying for those generators' output. In the most recent auction round of these contracts, offshore wind farms secured guaranteed prices of about £91 per megawatt-hour, higher than current power prices, and which will rise with inflation for 20 years.
The Sunday National: The Liz Truss-led Conservative government in the UK in 2022 lasted for just 49 days. The narrative about why her government fell apart is because it announced a big plan to increase the deficit, the so-called "bond vigilantes" responded negatively, there was a run on the pound and the Bank of England had to step in to stop big UK pension funds from collapsing. What would be your response to that? Mosler: "Truss's government could have controlled that situation very easily. A piece of cake. If the Treasury had stopped issuing any more bonds that would have been fine, because the government isn't depending on the bond markets for funding: remember, they are spending first. The other thing the Treasury could have done is buy their own bonds back. "The problem is that Truss didn't understand monetary operations. You need people in power who understand how monetary and fiscal policy actually works, but none of the politicians do."
Officials stated that making apartments available for hire may encourage tourists to travel long distances to Scotland, with further claims, branded "absurd", that washing the bedsheets and the extra cleaning involved could also add to the country's carbon footprint. The decision is linked to 2023 planning rules introduced by SNP ministers that state: "When considering all development proposals, significant weight will be given to the global climate and nature crises."
There is little genuine attempt to persuade the previously unpersuaded, instead simple fantasy is asked to do a job better reserved for flinty realism. Everything will be better after independence: energy bills will be lower, pensions higher and there will be no downside or difficulty in anything, anywhere. The laziness of this certainly insults those people who do not much care for the SNP, but it should also embarrass — and insult — those who do.
The finding that rate of additionality is less than a third is supported by other evidence. That average income, LTV and LTI ratios of FHF buyers are similar to those of the average first-time buyer across Scotland, and the average price of a property purchased through the FHF is greater than the average price of a property purchased by all first-time buyers across Scotland, suggests that marginal first-time buyers struggling to access home ownership do not form the majority of FHF buyers. This is consistent with the finding that a majority (63.9%) of FHF buyers reported that the scheme had enabled them to buy a larger property, and that a majority (58.1%) also reported that the scheme had enabled them to use less of their savings for their deposit.