John Tulloch

Let's see, we're going to; 1. Install vast renewable energy installations, wrecking the environment of the Highlands and Islands, subsidised to two and three times the price of convention power stations? 2. Subsidise the building of new coal and gas power stations to stand idle as backup for when the wind doesn't blow and/or the sun doesn't shine on top of that? 3. Build and subsidise pumped storage hydro stations at huge cost to pump water back up to reservoirs using renewable energy at twice and three times the price of 'normal' energy, adding 25 percent to the cost due to wasted energy pumping, on top of that? 4. Pay a higher rate (plus approx 25 percent) for onshore wind energy from islands, even, than the 100 percent subsidy available on mainland UK, on top of that? 5. Extend the transmission grid with long pylon lines, vast substations and direct current submarine cable links costing billions, on top of that? As a bill-paying electricity consumer I'd have to say this doesn't sound like something I want to hear from governments and utilities who are supposed to be looking after my interests as a taxpayer and customer, respectively.

Electricity does work the same as BT, that's why you have a flat, 'standing charge' on your electricity bill, assuming you have an electricity bill.

Unlinked, John Tulloch is a climate change denier who has been promoting the lies of the denier industry in the Shetland News for years. It doesn't matter how often you point out his mistakes, he learns nothing. He's ideologically opposed to renewable energy and, here, is just stirring the sh*t for the sake of it.The integrated UK grid he mentions is actually being expanded and there are plans in progress to build an integrated European Supergrid possibly extending as far as Iceland. The idea that England would cut the cables at the border if Scotland voted for Independence is nonsense. Well, it all comes down to consumer cost in the end anyway, doesn't it? If you get your power from SSE for instance, then any charges SSE pay to the National Grid for use of their network will be incorporated into your bill. It's the way those charges are imposed on the generating companies that we're discussingThe costs of maintaining BT's communications network will vary wildly across the network ranging from cheap in city centres to very expensive for isolated rural areas.It's the same for the Electricity grid.Yet BT's network works fine with a flat charge made to all users. Why can't the same principle work for the power grid?

Climate change, and the need to do something about it, was on Mrs Thatcher and the tories radar decades ago.http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/09/3732680.htmSurely it makes sense to locate conventional power stations as close to the load as is possible? I don't understand why the generators would need an incentive to locate closer to the cities? Can you expand a bit more on this, I have no idea what the transmission charging system is, but to my way of thinking the further away from the load the generator is located the higher the transmission costs are going to be and, consequently, the higher the transmission charge needs to be. Is this not, very roughly, the basis of the present charging system?

@Arabia Terra, #6154 17th, May, 2013. 1. I didn't say the cables will be cut at the Scottish/English border, actually, I'll be surprised if that happens. I said that ED DAVEY TOLD THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT that the integrated UK grid would not survive independence. 2. The world's climate has been changing continuously, often, often in spectacular fashion, from ice sheets over England to alligators in Spitzbergen, for about five billion years. I have never denied that in my life and I expect the climate to continue changing for a very long time into the future. Nor, for the record, do I deny that humans have some impact on climate, especially, at local level. It is the scale and impact of that effect which is being grossly exaggerated - no, then where is the evidence of impending catastrophic climate change? 3. Those who imagine and assert, with quasi-religious fervour, that humans have the power manipulate global temperature by using atmospheric carbon dioxide level as a kind of 'thermostat' are the true "deniers" of the power of unstoppable natural climate change.

Edited out repeat.

Edited out repeat entered by mistake