Stuart Hill (Captain Calamity) Forvik

[whalsa]

Don't forget that the defence costs for the Falklands amount to £65 million a year or thereabouts.

Paid for by the UK not by them. Plus this is due to the fact that they have a belligerent neighbour who invaded them a few decades ago, not to mention being at the opposite end of the planet. Hardly the same situation here. 

[tooney1]

The point I was making was obviously lost on engineer21 and tooney1 but I see from the responses it was not lost on you three others. 

 

 

I'm not against self interest but I like facts. Why don't you publish what comes into Shetland for a more balanced discussion and demonstrate there would be no deficit?

 

"Turnover is Vanity – Profit is Sanity"

[Suffererof1crankymofo]

 

Don't forget that the defence costs for the Falklands amount to £65 million a year or thereabouts.

Paid for by the UK not by them. Plus this is due to the fact that they have a belligerent neighbour who invaded them a few decades ago, not to mention being at the opposite end of the planet. Hardly the same situation here. 

 

Replace decades with centuries?

[whalsa]

 

The point I was making was obviously lost on engineer21 and tooney1 but I see from the responses it was not lost on you three others. 

 

 

I'm not against self interest but I like facts. Why don't you publish what comes into Shetland for a more balanced discussion and demonstrate there would be no deficit?

 

"Turnover is Vanity – Profit is Sanity"

 

I have given you facts - facts obtained by myself and a colleague via Freedom of Information requests. 

 

In terms of what comes in, in 2010-11 there was an "Input/Output Study" commissioned by the Council. Unfortunately this is the most recent in-depth analysis of the Shetland economy as a whole but even then Shetland provided an "Exchequer Balance" of +£82million - the Exchequer Balance is the difference between total government revenue raised in Shetland against total government expenditure.

 

We also had a positive trade balance of £131million. 

Source:

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/coins/viewDoc.asp?c=e%97%9Dc%94n%80%87

 

Also of interest is the SSQC report from 2015 on Shetland's booming Seafood sector which concluded the sector is worth a staggering £584 million to the Shetland economy. 

 

These are all indicators of the vast potential we are sitting on. I would like to see a new Input/Output study carried out, followed by a feasibility study analysing the various options for autonomy and self determination. 

 

[Colin]

Bottom line to this argument is that, despite "cherry picking" by "outsiders",  Shetland makes a healthy profit(?) for the UK. 

 

With control of our own resources, we could make sure that the bulk of the profit(?) stays here.

[Ghostrider]

In 1900 the population of Vegas was 25, in a handful of huts beside a rail line and a relatively small kinda swampy bit in the middle of the Mojave Desert, that only esisted on account of being the lowest point of that desert plain so it was where the run off from mountains that totally surrounded it finally settled.

 

If you've been paying attention, you know the rest.

 

"Turnover is Vanity – Profit is Sanity" is a good argument, but neither is going to exist without vision and ambition.

 

Before anyone starts, I'm not advocating we build a replica of Caesar's Palace next to the clay pigeon range in the Black Gaet, and open a line of strip joints and knocking shops down the Kames, the above is intended as an illustrative example only. Its the principle of creating a highly profitable earner, whatever that may be, from virtually nothing that is paramount.

 

Our existing industries can only thrive and be more profitable to us when released from external control and their leeching off of the cream, that's a no brainer.

 

At the turn of the 20th C. the Yanks were ripe for a gambling town, and Vegas stepped up to the plate. We just need to identify what service western europe isn't providing adequately to satisfy the population's demand, that we can, and we're printing money. Obviously, nothing is ever an overnight sensation, but everything has to start somewhere, and what that thing is is only restricted by how flexible folk are willing to be in their moral, ethical and faith boundaries. Everybody has a price, gambling wasn't paticularly palatable until the State of Nevada began to count the $$$'s, then it took on a whole new sunnier complection, that same rule applies to everything and everybody.

[CrashBox]

I've mentioned on another thread that Orkney produces its entire energy needs through renewables, and actually over-produces by around 20%, which it exports to mainland UK via the National Grid. There's talk of connecting Shetland to the NG so the rest of the UK benefits from the wind turbines we'll be having installed in a few years time. If Shetland had control of its own finances, which also includes revenue from the wind farms, I can't see the islands being poor at all. We could also all benefit from cheap electricity if it was done in the right way. On those rare Shetland days where the wind doesn't blow, we can also install batteries which can be charged during low consumption periods of days with wind, to provide power 24/7. 

[Colin]

Er..  Shetland has never had "control" of it's own finances..  Throwing money around like water is more like it..

 

As for connecting to the NG..  That's part of what VE was set up to do..  Unfortunately, spending that kind of our own money so a bunch of "carpetbaggers" could exploit it is a little "against the grain" to me.

 

As for cheap(?) lecky..  Dream on..

 

We will always be "poor" and will remain so until we can get control,

[Ghostrider]

I've mentioned on another thread that Orkney produces its entire energy needs through renewables, and actually over-produces by around 20%, which it exports to mainland UK via the National Grid. There's talk of connecting Shetland to the NG so the rest of the UK benefits from the wind turbines we'll be having installed in a few years time. If Shetland had control of its own finances, which also includes revenue from the wind farms, I can't see the islands being poor at all. We could also all benefit from cheap electricity if it was done in the right way. On those rare Shetland days where the wind doesn't blow, we can also install batteries which can be charged during low consumption periods of days with wind, to provide power 24/7.

 

When did the plan shift from everything VE produced being sent directly south, leaving us dragging it back via a second line and paying national rates for everything we used? As for profits to spend, as anyone with a basic grip of mathematics can see, actual profits are still years away even after all of VE is completed and commissioned, and then heavily relies on subsidies to turn them in. Counting chickens and all that.... especially as nobody has signed a cheque for any cable yet, which is make or break in more ways than one. Although given the current state of what's left of the SCT, there's a high probability they'd be big enough numpties to be wildly enthusiastic to be the first to jump up waving that cheque.

[CrashBox]

Er..  Shetland has never had "control" of it's own finances..  Throwing money around like water is more like it..

 

As for connecting to the NG..  That's part of what VE was set up to do..  Unfortunately, spending that kind of our own money so a bunch of "carpetbaggers" could exploit it is a little "against the grain" to me.

 

As for cheap(?) lecky..  Dream on..

 

We will always be "poor" and will remain so until we can get control,

I thought part of the discussion was about the feasibility of Shetland taking control of its finances, like Man and the Channel Islands, so I wasn't saying we had control in the past or have control today. I was just putting across another option for a self-governing Shetland to make money in the long run. It would obviously require funding for investment, but that's always the case. You have to spend money to make money.

 

As regards to your point about cheap electricity, it's down to how the infrastructure is paid for upfront. If the 'government' of an independent Shetland used tax payers money to invest in the project, then I see it as we, the tax payers, are share holders, so we should benefit from the profits by having our bills subsidised. I'm not saying any of this is remotely possible because it's highly unlikely Shetland's governance will change anytime soon. But what I'm trying to get across is that it's doable. Hell, Man, Jersey and Guernsey have been managing well enough, so why not Shetland? 

 

Edit:-  Just reread the first bit of your post and realised you were taking the micky out of SIC rather than my previous post. I think.  

Edited July 24, 2017 by CrashBox

[CrashBox]

 

I've mentioned on another thread that Orkney produces its entire energy needs through renewables, and actually over-produces by around 20%, which it exports to mainland UK via the National Grid. There's talk of connecting Shetland to the NG so the rest of the UK benefits from the wind turbines we'll be having installed in a few years time. If Shetland had control of its own finances, which also includes revenue from the wind farms, I can't see the islands being poor at all. We could also all benefit from cheap electricity if it was done in the right way. On those rare Shetland days where the wind doesn't blow, we can also install batteries which can be charged during low consumption periods of days with wind, to provide power 24/7.

When did the plan shift from everything VE produced being sent directly south, leaving us dragging it back via a second line and paying national rates for everything we used? As for profits to spend, as anyone with a basic grip of mathematics can see, actual profits are still years away even after all of VE is completed and commissioned, and then heavily relies on subsidies to turn them in. Counting chickens and all that.... especially as nobody has signed a cheque for any cable yet, which is make or break in more ways than one. Although given the current state of what's left of the SCT, there's a high probability they'd be big enough numpties to be wildly enthusiastic to be the first to jump up waving that cheque.

 

That's the trouble with Shetland oil, is it not? Gets sent south for refining, then returned to Shetland at a big increase in cost to us. Anyway, it's late and I'm in work in the morning. I'll try and find a YouTube video about renewables in Orkney (actually, I think I posted it over on the EV thread) where turbines have paid for themselves within the first year.

 

I will say that I had no real interest in so called green energy this time last year. But I saw something pop up on YouTube from watching a video on Tesla's autopilot system and I've been following the subject quite closely ever since. I certainly wouldn't have considered an EV 12 months ago. 

[Ghostrider]

^ YouTube tends to suffer from the same malady as Wiki, any numpty can post anything they like and there's virtually no checks and balances to ensure the veracity of most of it - I prefer slightly more critically scrutinised evidence before I give it much credence.

 

Yeah, we've heard the Burradale numbers repeated ad nauseum. we've heard a number or two from Orkney, all with more positive spin behind them than is seen at Lords for a whole summer. There little argument both have done "well", but that was them, and that was then, VE is some future time and another place, maybe, and it would be foolishly naive to simply directly translate the story of another place and time on to any other site any oher time without factoring in the differences in location, terrain, political climate, market conditions etc, etc, and thats where VE rapidly sinks in to a mire.

 

And yes, shipping Shetland's oil out, and then paying well over the odds to bring it back after processing is a problem, and one that should be persuading us not to make the same mistake with any other sort of energy production, and not just accepting 'that's how it is'.

[Colin]

 

Edit:-  Just reread the first bit of your post and realised you were taking the micky out of SIC rather than my previous post. I think.  

 

 

Thanks..  I TRY not to get personal if I can avoid it.

 

As for everything being "doable".  Agreed BUT, there has to be a "collective will" in the local population to make these things happen.  Unfortunately, most seem to be comfortable with / resigned(?) to "doing as they are told" and are unwilling to take any kind of risk.

 

Anyway, whilst "right idea, wrong man" is busy generating so much bad publicity for "the cause", little is likely to change simply because he lacks so much credibility. 

 

PS..  I sometimes wonder if he is a deliberate "plant" sent here to destroy any legitimate claims we might have.

[MuckleJoannie]

One of several videos on you tube about renewable energy in Orkney.

 

 

 

[Colin]

Another tilt at the windmill..  Maybe a little better thought(?) out this time..

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15432195.Shetland_independence_supporter_reports_PM_to_police_for_election_fraud/?ref%3Drss