CShetland383

The population of shetland is ~22000. North sea oil production is currently around 2.5mbpd, although how much of this would lie inside a sovereign shetland's territorial waters is a matter of debate. At the current spot price ($125.34 at the time of writing) this equates to £80.16, making the value of oil extraction from the north sea £200,400,000 per day, or £73.146 billion per year. http://www.acorn-ps.com/web/page/oilgas/nsfields/nnsmap.htm ^Looking at the map above, it seems a safe assumption that a sovereign shetland would control at least 20-25% of this production, so I'll use the low end of that assumption here. This gives us an estimated contribution of £14.63bn per year from the oil industry alone (and obviously gas production at shetland is increasing substantially too). This would give the islands a GDP/capita of £663000, more than 25 times higher than the UK average, and higher than any country in the world, indeed, more than 6 times higher than monaco. This ignores the contribution of natural gas production and the natural competitive advantages that low-regulation, low-tax sovereign states have. In addition to this, as a sovereign nation shetland could leave the EU and thus be free of the common agricultural policy that has killed our fishing industry, from which we would derive further benefit. The islands have had so much opportunity to build something truly magnificent, to create such a wonderful bright future for all who reside there, and given the scottish independence debate, there is a rare opportunity to do it. The window of opportunity is closing very rapidly. Currently, it is still possible to use Shetland's natural resources to create a vibrant state with an economy diverse enough to survive the inevitable loss of the fossil fuel industry that awaits the next generation. Soon, this will no longer be possible. A lack of competitive enterprise, and a lack of the important fishing industry (~£250m/year), both arguably a result of the over-regulation of the UK & EU government, will make shetland increasingly dependent on a dwindling oil industry. This is not a bright future. We are approaching a crossroads. Which way will you go? I wonder.

I have a question. Disregarding the CO2 issue entirely (to me, it's not important) and focusing on the economic one, how does anyone here suppose shetland would be able to maintain present living standards unless we invest in something like this to bring in new jobs as the oil and gas being brought ashore at sullom voe slowly dwindles? At a local level, two of the biggest employers are the oil industry and the council (a part-owned subsiduary of the oil industry). What would you propose, rather than investing in clean energy, to bring jobs to shetland in the future?

What I find amusing about this whole thing is the tremendous scale of the spending compared to the number of people on whalsay (and none of this rubbish about not enough housing space being available please, if there's one thing shetland has a lot of it's empty land, and large swathes of lerwick and the surrounding area would be under development, were there actually the demand there to support it. Assuming everyone on whalsay (around 1000 people I believe) used the tunnel every day, then it could pay for itself over the course of 10 years by charging a mere £15.20 per person for passage through the tunnel, assuming that all maintenance work and operating work was carried out by oompa loompas working for free, and that volunteers continuously held charity walks to pay for materials, lighting and other operating costs It would be cheaper, in fact, to buy every family on the island a helicopter. There are literally thousands of ways this money could be better spent, I can't fathom why anyone would support such a ludicrous waste of council money.