Alex Salmond's Plan To Turn Scotland Into 'World's First Hydro-Economy'

The Guardian:

The state-owned utility Scottish Water is to be given new powers to build windfarms, hydro schemes and "green" power stations in partnership and competition with established energy companies.

The company, one of the country's last remaining state-owned firms, could generate £300m or more in extra revenues by using its 80,000 acres of land and vast pipe network for renewable energy projects.

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[The last sane American]

06:04 PM on 09/11/2010

Damming the lochs will damn the salmon.

[BannedNBoston]

02:54 PM on 09/10/2010

Hi SethDayal,
Thank you for informing me of the true cost of the BC project. I stand corrected. I will educate myself do have any links on the BC project and other things related to Canada?

[lightningbolt]

04:01 PM on 09/09/2010

Clean renewable energy is the ONLY type of energy that can sustain our economy and environment indefinitely, cleanly and profitably.  All other sources of energy will run out and leave the planet in ruins.  We must change our entire energy system to clean renewable energy as soon as possible, before ecological and economic collapse destroy the world.

[sethdayal]

05:58 PM on 09/09/2010

Wrong Hydro is dirtier than coal

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7046-hydroelectric-powers-dirty-secret-revealed.html

A look at balancing wind solar and biomass to power all of Australian was found to be impossibly expensive, utterly impractical, and an order of magnitude more costly than nuclear.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

Three million folks die from coal air pollution every year, deniers can delay the coal to nuclear conversion and the billions who will die when their irresponsibility leads to the end of civilization in a climate/peak oil holocaust.

[research]

09:09 PM on 09/09/2010

Nothing is worse than Nuclear with it's 30 Dollar per KWH waste costs.....

Your article suggests that hydro turbines can gain additional energy, by burning the Methane,

great idea, thanks.

Nuclear power and weapons cause the death of 65M people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nuclear-weapons-and-pollution-linked-to-65-million-deaths-609008.html

[lightningbolt]

08:03 AM on 09/10/2010

Your article on hydro only applies to dams built in areas with plants.  Dams built on deserts, like the Hoover dam, do not have this problem.  Even in areas with plants, the plants could be removed and replanted somewhere else before the flood to avoid this problem.  Hydro is still a clean source of energy if done properly.

I have actually made the calculations for solar solar panels (I'm an electrical engineer) and solar panels pay for themselves after about 10-15 years of use.  They last about 20-30 years.  Wind power is by far the cheapest, since there are no special components.  My sister made her own wind mill in her house and it is powering her entire garage.  This was extremely cheap.  The sites you are linking to are pure misinformation.

Clean renewable energy is the ONLY type of energy that can sustain our economy and environment indefinitely, cleanly and profitably.  All other sources will run out and leave the planet in ruins.  Nuclear power is simply not worth the risk.  It only takes ONE meltdown to kill thousands of people and make an entire area uninhabitable for decades.

[BannedNBoston]

12:26 PM on 09/09/2010

What about Canada? They are the biggest hydro economy!

They will have a west coast hydro that will deliver 1/2 the power of the Hoover Dam in 4 years.
The snow in the mountains will melt and the lake store the water. Then as needed it go down through a long pen-stock and generate electricity.

[sethdayal]

06:05 PM on 09/09/2010

Wrong

New Hydro development in BC, was done for one reason - to stuff the pockets of a corrupt fascist government and its henchman in the stockbroker industry.

In four years, it doubles ratepayers bills, produces enormous amounts of GHG's as above, as it rapes ten of thousand of sq miles or lakes,rivers,forests and streams, producing less power than a single nuke plant occupying a tenth of a square mile at an existing thermal plant site.

Cost is ten times that of nuclear power.

[research]

09:10 PM on 09/09/2010

I live in the NW, Hydro gives us the cheapest electricity in the country: 7 cents.

WRONG AGAIN SETH!

[Blow In]

12:04 PM on 09/09/2010

I don't understand exactly what is going on, but the article and the comments seem to imply that this is an attempt to privatize Scotlands public assets. If big business wants in on this scheme it must mean that there is money to be made in "green" technologies.

The comments were the usual dividing lines. I am siding with the folks that don't want to privatize. For sure government is inefficient and provides a home for slackers, but big business is inefficient and provides a home for slackers as well. Super greedy slackers with lawyers.

[Matthew Harrold]

09:33 AM on 09/09/2010

Does no one think of the Haggis and it's natural habitat?!

[Telemachus]

04:51 PM on 09/09/2010

There will be Haggis ladders.