ArabiaTerra

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-18322606

And the counter to that is that any investment made has been amply paid back by now many times over, so that argument is irrelevant. More importantly, I think it's the principle that is at stake as regards future investment. If Westminster manages to wangle a per capita share of oil revenue, then they could potentially demand a share of revenue from future developments, even of offshore renewables,... and that's just not on. If the waters are Scottish, then whatever is extracted from them is Scottish, be it oil, gas, fish or renewable power. Indeed.

According to the Government link MuckleJoannie posted above, if the oil is divided up along geographical lines, Scotland gets around 90%. I don't see any other way it can be divided up so "nearly all of the oil revenue" sounds about right. It is, after all, in Scottish waters.

Over the first 10 years of operation they managed 52% efficiency. And on of the turbines achieved 57% one year. However many hours that works out at, it makes it the most efficient windfarm on the planet.

The Maryfield has always been good, though I haven't been for a couple of years now.

Thanks for that, MuckleJoannie. Lies, damned lies and statistics. I wouldn't trust any figures coming from Westminster's pro-unionist government, but, on the other hand, I'm a bit sceptical of the more overblown claims of the NATS. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Having said that, I still think an independent Scotland has a brighter future than staying with the UK. And there's not just the financial aspect to consider. Being independent would mean no longer getting dragged into London's illegal wars against our will, and being ruled by Tories when no-one North of the border voted for them. Also, Scotland is one of the few countries in the world with environmental policies that actually go far enough to begin tackling the threat of climate change. The longer everyone else delays this, the more it's going to cost them. Being ahead of the curve here should have real, tangible advantages in the decades to come.

If it's only 30Gb then one of these might be the cheapest and easiest forms of backup media: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Integral-Courier-Speed-Flash-Drive/dp/B003JRVXHA/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1338748768&sr=1-6 I've used this brand for a couple of years now and never had a problem.

I'd like to see a source for this please, along with sources for all your other unbacked-up allegations. And again, I'd like to see some sources to back-up this claim.

The original power station at Sullom only has excess power capacity because so much of the original plant has been decommissioned, and the turbines are 35 years old and have had a hard life. It's debatable whether they could be refurbished to a reliable enough standard especially as , as far as I'm aware, the original manufacturer (John Browne Engineering) no longer exists. If they are building a new station as part of the Total development, this will be tailored to suit the needs of that development. Edit: John Browne Engineering does still exist.

Most of the time at Sullom, there is only enough gas being flared to act as a "pilot light" on the flare stack. It has to be burning 24/7 so that they have somewhere safe to divert the gas in case of an emergency shutdown of the terminal such as a total power outage or such like. Designing something which could extract energy from the "pilot light" during normal operation while also being able to stand up to having the total output of the terminal flared through it would be quite a challenge. Also it would need to continue to function when the rest of the terminal was completely blacked out. I'm sure it would be possible, but I doubt it would be practical or economical.

Yes it is. The Charitable Trust will own 50%, unless the NIMBY's manage to sabotage that. The anti's keep saying this, yet have produced not a shred of evidence that this will be the case You read wrong, the rise in to support renewable energy will be nothing like this. 25% is a lie, just more ignorant scare-mongering from the anti windfarm brigade. The rises we have seen in recent years have been caused by rising international gas prices, the share of the rise due to renewable subsidies is less then the rounding error in comparison. Fuel bills and food prices are rising because the oil is running out, and climate change is starting to impact some of the food producing areas of the world. Both these things will only get worse in the coming decades. More renewable energy will lessen the impact of these factors, not make them worse. And this is the problem I have with anti-VE people - You don't listen. VE have stated that the assumed charges they used to make their financial projections were almost double what the actual charges under the new regime will be. So the charges have been reduced considerably, unless you don't consider 50% to be considerable?

I just noticed this, which I meant to respond to when it was posted, but I got distracted by the windfarm approval, and then the council election, so if you don't mind... Insurance claims is a terrible way to assess the effects of climate change. Since 1960, the population of the world has more than doubled (3 billion to 7 billion) and the GDP per capita has increased nearly fourfold (just over $2000 per capita to almost $8000 per capita). That means twice as many people, with four times as much stuff each, to be insured. With that much more insurance, there is going to be a corresponding rise in claims, so you've got to filter out the rise from population, then the rise in stuff insured, before you can even begin to look for the signal from climate change, if any. It's no wonder they haven't been able to filter out the the effects of climate change. A once in 100 year flood causes a huge amount of damage. Did the size of the damage reflect climate change? Or that there were just more people living in the path of the flood? Or were the people just a lot richer than they used to be? Most likely it's a combination of these factors. How do you separate them out? [Edit] And then you've got to factor in the political changes since 1960. Back then half the industrialised world was communist. Did they even have the concept of insurance under communism? Yes.

Err, no they didn't. They said that they couldn't absolutely prove that such events were caused by global warming, but nothing about whether such events, which might have happened anyway, were made worse by global warming. Anyway, that report is already out of date. This is a selection of science published after the cut-off point for the IPCC report: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/SSD%20Trenberth%202nd%20proof.pdf http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/27/355639/noaa-climate-change-mediterranean-droughts/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/01/06/399350/hansen-extreme-heat-waves-texas-oklahoma-moscow-were-caused-by-global-warming/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/10/20/206899/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warming-a-review/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/26/451605/nature-strong-evidence-manmade-unprecedented-heat-rainfall-extremes-causing-intense-human-suffering/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/24/351770/study-russia-2010-july-heat-record-climate-warming/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/NASA-climate-denialist-letter.html Says it all, really. A bunch of people who know nothing about climate science say nothing relevant about climate science.

This is an excellent talk about what needs to be done:

The grasscutting budget was cut by around £20,000 this season, which cost two people their jobs. This is why the grass is no longer being picked up from many of the Council areas.

At the risk of quoting quotes beyond the point of tedium, if you read my post properly you will see that it was in response to a specific term - 'stable climate.' At no point did I deny man-made climate change. You call me ignorant for the comments I made. In that case I would have to say that I have as much right to be 'ignorant' as you do to display your arrogance. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, however it is perceived by others. I'm very sorry that my lowly intelligence is no match for yours, I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself if they don't meet your strict criteria. As a wise man once said, 'A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.' On reflection, I do realise I went overboard in my previous post, I'm sorry.

The Ofgem decision does not affect the "viability" of Viking Energy, but it will surely affect them. A viable business is a business that makes a year on year profit. A profit can be anything, just so long as it is positive. The question is, is it enough?... how much will the expected £900m profits have to be revised down, 30%?, 50%? It depends on whether predictions were based on best or worse case scenarios. VE referred to £23 per kwh as an example of a worse case in their older press releases. The new charges are less than those used for the financial projections, so the projected return will be better.

POPCORN, reality called, it was wondering how long you planned to be away?

Wrong again, PJ. It's a good thing that all the financial predictions for VE were based on the charges remaining the same. A 50% reduction will mean a significant upward revision to the predicted returns.

Well, I'm reasonably happy with the result. My first and third choices got in and the other person elected would have been my fourth choice.

I have to agree with this. I think the windfarm is, by far, the most important long-term issue facing Shetland at the moment. There are pro and anti windfarm candidates standing in every ward and the results will give us perhaps the clearest indication of where the majority of the Shetland public stand on this issue. I don't think it is selfish for the candidates and press to have concentrated on this issue. As far as the issue of cuts goes, everyone seems to agree that cuts are needed, so the only issue is the squabbling over which cuts, where. And that's just normal politics.

I have been using AVG Free for about 10 years now and have no complaints, though I do have a new, powerful computer, so I can't comment on how much of a resource hog it is. It's free so I would recommend trying it for a couple of months to see. http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage

I agree with the very last part of that statement, but I have to question the phrase 'overwhelming scientific evidence is that burning fossil fuels is going to result in the end of a stable climate.' I think almost all scientists would concur that the climate has never been anywhere near stable at any time. It is constantly changing. There have been various heating and cooling periods to greater or lesser degrees for eons, long before any mass industrial activity by man. And here we go again. Someone else who doesn't understand the science behind man-made climate change and yet seems to think their ignorance entitles them to draw conclusions. There is only one point we know of in the entire geological history of the Earth when the climate has changed as fast as it is changing now. That is the K-T asteroid impact which wiped out the dinosaurs. The fifth great mass extinction. The change we are expecting under a business as usual scenario, just for this century, is six degrees centigrade. This is approximately the same size as the change from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), to the interglacial we are in today. This change took FIVE THOUSAND YEARS. We are causing such a change in TWO HUNDRED YEARS. And it won't stop at 6 degrees. If you don't understand the difference between 5000 and 200 then I respectfully suggest you start listening to the scientists who do, all of whom say, this will be catastrophic for the Earth's biosphere and human civilisation. Hmm, I'm never very comfortable with the word 'free' when it comes to anything. In the case of large corporations and governments it is a word which is used to hoodwink somebody, a nice word to paper over the cracks of having to get money out of pockets by some other round about way. There always seems to be a catch. Oh yes, here it is - £685million (estimate from VE website) to harness this 'free' energy. It's a bit like people who say that they have a phone contract for £40 a month, but they get 600 free texts and 400 free minutes. No you don't, you pay £40 for it. £685 million, to build the windfarm. How much nuclear station do you think you'll get for £685 million? Or hydro plant? Or tidal generation? A damn sight less than we'll get building windmills. This is just complete bollox. The windfarm will be built. It's got planning permission. What remains is whether we own part of it or not. If we don't, then we can expect to see a return of around £100,000,000 (generous estimate) over the 25 year lifespan from community payouts and disturbance costs/rents etc. If we own half of it the returns jump by a factor of nearly ten, to £900,000,000. The math is simple.

No, Ghostrider, many people have claimed that the ST poll was unrepresentative. Nobody has actually laid out why this should be, anywhere.