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For Scotland, energy is our best argument for independence

,,,,,,,,,,, the Government’s obsession with nuclear power – the most expensive method ever devised for generating electricity. The Government claims nuclear is renewable. It isn’t. At current rates, there is maybe 90 years’ supply of uranium left – less if we use more. The Government claims it is clean. It isn’t. The toxic radioactive waste needs to be isolated from living things, including us, for centuries. The Government claims it provides energy security. It doesn’t. The UK has no uranium. Yet the UK Government, supported by its Labour opposition, is preparing to rapidly expand nuclear power at vast expense to the taxpayer.

The National, By Tommy Sheppard, 6th August 23

SOMETIMES I wonder what it’s going to take to make the UK Government take climate change seriously. We’ve spent this miserable, sodden Scottish summer watching holiday destinations in the Mediterranean combust. The news is full of floods and typhoons. Records are broken every day. Across the world people are drowning and burning.

All of this is going to get worse. Beyond the headlines, a catastrophe unfolds as the ice melts and sea levels rise. Famine and more mass migration result. The climate emergency is here now.

……………………………….We have created the climate crisis. And we can fix it, but only if our political leaders are prepared to take hard decisions and apply a degree of honesty and common sense which has so far escaped them.

……………….. We need to stop burning oil and gas……………..

Let’s start with new oil and gas exploitation. Of all the utter bollocks talked by Sunak’s government, this takes the biscuit. Despite committing to a policy of reducing oil and gas, we’re told it’s okay to massively increase drilling and extraction in the North Sea. This is an affront to common sense. The dogs in the street know you cannot reduce something by having more of it.

To be clear, what is now being considered is massive. Bigger than before…………………………

And then we’re told that if the UK does not allow this, some other country will, so it’s futile not doing it. This counsel of despair has been rejected by – among others – the Tory chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben,……………………….

Let’s be clear, the best way to capture carbon is to plant trees. Photosynthesis is how CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere. And one of the factors in rising CO2 levels is that these islands, like most of the world, have lost half the tree cover they used to have.

CARBON capture can never replace nature in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. …………………………………………………………………………………

We can’t have a conversation about the deceitfulness of UK energy policy without discussing the Government’s obsession with nuclear power – the most expensive method ever devised for generating electricity. The Government claims nuclear is renewable. It isn’t. At current rates, there is maybe 90 years’ supply of uranium left – less if we use more. The Government claims it is clean. It isn’t. The toxic radioactive waste needs to be isolated from living things, including us, for centuries. The Government claims it provides energy security. It doesn’t. The UK has no uranium. Yet the UK Government, supported by its Labour opposition, is preparing to rapidly expand nuclear power at vast expense to the taxpayer.

……………………………………………. More than most countries, Scotland is blessed with renewable energy sources in abundance. We just need the political and financial commitment to develop them at a scale never before seen. That commitment won’t come from this UK Government, nor it seems the next one.

So, perhaps more than any other area of policy, the need for Scotland to have control over its energy production makes a compelling case for our political independence.  https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23703825.tommy-sheppard-energy-best-argument-independence/

August 8, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ENERGY, UK