Wednesday, June 25, 2008
WINDMILL DISCUSSION -RADIO SCOTLAND
Radio Scotland ran a on a report from the Centre for Policy Studies that windmills are unreliable & expensive. Possibly tomorrow they will cover a report that Queen Anne has died. Nonetheless it is unusual for the BBC to report on anything against eco-nutery though the only guest they chose to discuss with this was from the Sustainable Development Commission. Anyway it went on to a phone in & rang & got on air. I hung my remarks on the comparison with the previous item they had done - a report from Mumbai on how it is industrialising but how intermittent electricity supplies are & how a Scottish firm is helping in their long term plan to increase India's generating capacity from 120 GW to 1,000 GW.
I said that we are playing around with windmills, only 3% of our electricity, as Scotland moves towards losing half our power. While seeing India industrialising we de-industrialise & in time they will pass us. In answer to a question from Garry I said we should go for as much nuclear as required, at 1.3p a unit & that nuclear at 2 deaths since Chernobyl was far safer than coal at 150,000 a year.
I didn't get as much time as Maf Smith from the SDC but I think I got my point across. The BBC constantly invites guests only from the Luddite side & of course, only ever ask them supportive questions. This is scandalous in what is supposed to be an impartial news service but I suppose we get used to it. Phoners seemed fairly evenly divided on nuclear & generally unsupportive of wind which is an improvement on previous programmes.
I said that we are playing around with windmills, only 3% of our electricity, as Scotland moves towards losing half our power. While seeing India industrialising we de-industrialise & in time they will pass us. In answer to a question from Garry I said we should go for as much nuclear as required, at 1.3p a unit & that nuclear at 2 deaths since Chernobyl was far safer than coal at 150,000 a year.
I didn't get as much time as Maf Smith from the SDC but I think I got my point across. The BBC constantly invites guests only from the Luddite side & of course, only ever ask them supportive questions. This is scandalous in what is supposed to be an impartial news service but I suppose we get used to it. Phoners seemed fairly evenly divided on nuclear & generally unsupportive of wind which is an improvement on previous programmes.
