Niall Stuart, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables responds to Civitas wind power report.
“There are so many fundamental mistakes and flawed assumptions in this jaundiced report it’s hard not to see this as blatant prejudice masquerading as economics. Ruth Lea’s frequent asides show that she doesn’t believe in climate change or the need to tackle pollution from our power sector, both of which fly in the face of increasingly definitive scientific research. Her conclusions are completely at odds with the latest thinking of the independent regulator Ofgem, the system operator National Grid, government here in Scotland and the UK, and international bodies such as the UN.
“On costs, Ruth Lea takes the worst assumptions for wind power (adds a little bit on for good measure) and then compares these to the most ultra-positive predictions for nuclear. Nowhere does she mention the fact that gas prices are responsible for the big increases in bills this winter and that further rises seem inevitable or that there is great uncertainty about the costs associated with new nuclear.
“She herself alludes to the variability of output from nuclear but doesn’t bother to add in the cost of any back up plant to their costs, only for wind. Nor does she once mention the £50bn bill to decommission our existing fleet of nuclear power stations. And there is no mention of new and developing storage options or of the benefits of greater inter-connection with other parts of Europe.
“Nor is there any discussion of the falling costs and lowering financial support for renewables, and evidence such as that published recently by Bloomberg Energy Finance predicting that onshore wind would soon be generating at a cost competitive with gas.
“All of these omissions mean that we cannot treat this as a serious contribution to the incredibly important and difficult debate on how we best cut carbon emissions and maximise the economic, social and environmental benefits of renewables.”
[mappress]
Offshore WIND staff, January 11, 2012;