Talk:Renewable energy in Scotland/Archive 1

Archive 1 Archive 2

Comments

Interesting article. There were some clear problems and slight naivity with the biogas section which I have expanded. A waste-to-energy plant in this contect is an incinerator. It still produces CO2 through the combustion of the biological material. In addition to this it combusts plastic (originating from fossil fuels). Recent EU reports (Working Group on Waste Prevention and Recycling ENV/EPOC/WGWPR(2005)4/FINAL 02.02.07) have highlighted an incineration facility has a similar carbon footprint to leaving biological waste to degrade in landfill, once the overall carbon costs of construction have been taken into consideration.

The facility on Lerwick is better than most on some counts as it recovers heat for a district heating scheme, off setting other energy costs, however the bigger picture must be considered.Alex 15:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for this. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Renewables?

Congratulations to Ben and others on the high quality of this article. However, I've never seen Carbon sequestration, "Clean coal" technology, and Nuclear fusion discussed in a renewables article before. They just don't seem to fit in and I believe that this discussion should be removed. Including material which is outside the scope of the title is not a neutral thing to do. -- Johnfos 01:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that its a tricky issue, but on balance I think they should stay. Nuclear has to be mentioned as a case is made for fission's status as renewable, even if it is a weak one. Fusion has, in my view a much better claim to this status, and should surely then be mentioned, but there is nowhere offering a specifically Scottish perspective to point to as an alternative place to find information. Because so much of the debate is now couched in terms of 'renewables + climate change & carbon emissions' and because there are interesting things going on in Scotland in relation to carbon sequestration, and "clean coal," again it seems to me helpfully comprehensive to mention them. There isn't an 'Energy in Scotland' page to move them to. However I take your point and will create a revised set of headings that will hopefully address the issue more clearly. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
PS Incidentally I note that Bord na Mona in Ireland managed to get peat classified as a renewable!
It seems that this is quite common. Lurker (said · done) 10:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. Johnfos - this is precisely the sort of issue that is clouding the renewables debate in Scotland.Ireland/Europe. I will however restrain myself from adding 'peat' to the list of non-renewables in the article. Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Now attempted. Another issue is that carbon sequestration is (or perhaps was now that Alistair Darling has made such a mess of the process involved) a crucial aspect of the hydrogen plant proposed for Peterhead, so it has to be included and explained somewhere. Thanks for raising this so timeously - I was on the brink of offering the article up for FA status - it would be good to get this sorted first. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I find myself agreeing with most of what you've said above, and think the inclusion of the "Non-renewables" heading will help readers quite a bit. Nuclear fusion is one point where we probably have different views, and I will try to collect my thoughts and write something here tomorrow on that. Otherwise, I may just try to improve the wording a little in a few places, for clarification. Would like to offer every support in your bid for FA status. -- Johnfos 10:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That's great - thanks. Ben MacDui (Talk) 11:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


Peat

I'm interested why 'peat as renewable' is mentioned with surprise above and not at all in the live page ? With a view to not-that-distant history, I would certainly have thought it deserved a mention : The Highlands & Islands were largely peat-powered until a century ago ! I would regard it as notable that an experimental peat-fired power-station used to exist in Caithness circa 1970 ! I remember the old building being pointed out to me, but can't remember exactly where. I understand it was never very successful, due to being a 'dirty' fuel - soot & tar built up in or around the boiler tubes. I don't know where one would find info - does Dounreay still have a visitor centre ? Thurso Library ? Best of luck to the Irish : are they farming peat intensively ? I think Caithness & Sutherland's peat bogs are very much Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Peat#In_Finland has interesting mentions of commercial exploitation. I think other forms of Biomass are regarded as renewable : the distinction between renewables and fossil fuel is just the rate of renewal - maybe one has to draw the line if the Energy crop takes more than a year to re-grow ? 195.137.93.171 22:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I am interested to hear about the peat-fired power-station in Caithness. However, although I believe there is a good case for encouraging the traditional small-scale use of peat, the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories do not classify peat as biofuel and treat it as fossil carbon. See International Mire Conservation Group. I therefore can't think of a reason to include it in the article except to say that it isn't renewable (except, apparently, in Ireland). Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

A little Googling pin-pointed the peat-fired power-station in Caithness to Braehour Farm, 1 mile south of Scotscalder Station. It was set up in 1954 by the Scottish Hydro-Electric Board and closed in 1960, but immortalised in poetry ! Peats- But No Power! --195.137.93.171 01:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well found! I have added it to List of power stations in Scotland. Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding off-topic tag

It's clear that a lot of good work has gone into this article, but there are two related problems. Firstly, the article talks too much about non-renewables such as carbon sequestration, clean coal, and nuclear power. These are clearly off the topic of the article. Secondly, the article is not comprehensive in its discussion of renewables. There is just so much more that could be said about the actual deployment of technologies such as hydroelectricity and wind power in particular. I couldn't find the answer to basic questions such as: What are the ten largest hydro installations in Scotland, in terms of installed capacity? What are the ten largest wind farms in Scotland?

In terms of other renewable energy articles which are GAs, Renewable energy in Iceland, Renewable energy commercialization and Renewable energy commercialization in Australia, there are none which discuss carbon sequestration, clean coal, and nuclear power. And the world's single most authoritative source on the matter, the International Energy Agency, does not classify these as renewable.[1][2] There is a skewed emphasis in this article, and so much that could be said about what is happening with renewables in Scotland just isn't being said.

I can't believe that there is only one paragraph on hydro. The carbon sequestration section is longer than the hydro section. How can this possibly make sense? -- Johnfos 08:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Well first of all, you are absolutely right about the short section on Hydro. It remains the second largest producer. Its contemporary visibility is very low as the growth potential is extremely limited but that is no excuse. More now added. It seems surprising there is not an article on the topic, but so it goes.
Arguably the sequestration sub-section does go on a bit and I have removed part of it that simply provides more data. I don’t know the Icelandic scene at all well, although they and Governor Schwarzenegger seem to be leading the field in hydrogen promotion. I imagine their article does not mention sequestration because the have no oil fields and therefore no-one is seriously talking about the road to renewables being paved via this method. (Likewise Australia?) Let me be quite clear, I am not either attempting to argue that it is renewable, or that it is desirable. I am however making the point (apparently not very well) that the issue already is, and is likely to continue to be a major factor in the ongoing and very high profile debate that is happening in Scotland. I am more than happy to continue to dialogue about its tenor, size, focus etc. but in an environment where there is intense competition for political and commercial support for technologies which address climate change, and which in the public’s mind tend to be lumped together, I can’t imagine an article that failed to mention the subject at all making any sense.
With nuclear, all I have done is make the point that it is not a renewable fuel, although some try to argue that it is. I don’t think that is ‘off-topic’.
With clean coal, again this is a huge issue that surely needs mentioning. Possibly because to the best of my knowledge there is no article about the Scottish response to climate change generally it goes on a bit, (a la sequestration) and again I have cut it back.
Perhaps this dialogue is question of our starting points - you may be looking at it from the point of view of someone who is deeply concerned about renewable energy and don't want the issue muddied by extraneous information. That's fair enough, but I am also trying to look at it from the point of view of someone interested in Scotland, who wants to know what the renewable scene is all about, not just in its purest sense, but in its specific political and commercial context.
Finally, in a more general response to the above I have renamed the section headers to make the ‘challenges and opportunities’ issue that these and other technologies offer to renewables more explicit. 'May all beings be happy'. Ben MacDui (Talk) 16:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC) PS have you wiki-visited Samye Ling? Must get round to improving it (the article I mean) one day.

Many thanks, MacDui, for those changes. The issue is resolved now as far as I am concerned and I hope you get FA... In terms of where I am coming from, I simply wanted to make sure that basic information should be included and more speculative info not given undue weight. And thanks for mentioning Samye Ling. regards, Johnfos 04:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Incomplete citations

The citations are incomplete on this article; pls see WP:WIAFA regarding consistent formatting of footnotes, and examples here. All sources need a publisher, websources need a last accessdate, and sources need a date and author where given.

In process.

Also, there should not be an imbedded link in References (Scottish Renewables Forum. Market and Planning Report (various).[12] Pls repair;

Done.

I'll check back in at a later date, but would not want to have to make these repairs myself before any possible main page appearance. Also, per WP:LAYOUT, portals belong in See also; I moved them.

Done.

Pls see WP:MOS#Quotations; "The author of a quote of a full sentence or more is named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote."

Done. Ben MacDui (Talk) 15:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry no one seems to have reviewed for MOS issues at FAC, but these things should be attended to quickly so a cleanup tag isn't needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice work, Ben; it's too bad no one pointed these out during FAC. Good luck on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmmmmm

"Whisky distilleries have a role to play in keeping Scots warm." Am I really the only one that noticed the humor in that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.230.144.239 (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I hope not! Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Lead paragraphs

My preference would be to remove at least most of the citations and use the lead as a summary of what is in the article, and as such have the citations appear later in the article where each topic is addressed. 199.125.109.77 07:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The first line "The production of renewable energy in Scotland is an issue that has come to the fore [my italics] in technical, economic and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century" seems problematic as an introduction to the whole topic. It implies that renewable energy in Scotland did not receive high levels of attention (in technical, economic and political terms) in the 20th century - that is to say that it was in the background. The history of HEP alone would make me doubt this. Greenshed 09:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue was not 'to the fore' for most of the twentieth century. A conference on the subject in the early eighties lamented the fact that the government spent more on military brass bands than on research into renewables - and this in the aftermath of the oil crisis of the seventies. Ten years later wind turbine proposals were regarded as eccentric. The mid to late nineties was the beginning of serious investment (outside of hydro, which was a fairly brief and localised phenomenon from a construction perspective). Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fit

This is a fascinating and impressive article, but how does it fit into the Wikipedia project? Does Ben MacDui envisage a series of articles on Renewable energy in England, Renewable energy in Russia, Renewable energy in Thailand &c? If not, are the title and focus right? Deipnosophista 11:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

  • First a point of information: Renewable energy in Iceland is a Good Article, as is Renewable energy commercialization in Australia. Second, I am not sure I understand your complaint. Just because an editor or group of editors gets an article to featured status does not obligate them to write every other possible article on a topic. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 12:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Why not? "topic in place" style articles can be encyclopedic and cover information of historic importance. Slavery in the United States, Education in France, Transportation in India etc. (I just guessed all those titles, and indeed the articles existed) If you look at a lot of specialized print encyclopedias, such as an encyclopedia about a specific country, it will have entries called just "Education", "Transportation", etc. Wikipedia has unlimited space for encyclopedic material, so we can have entries like that for every country. The main barrier is whether someone feels like writing them. --W.marsh 14:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
      • No one is saying that there cannot be articles on Renewable energy in England, Renewable energy in Russia, Renewable energy in Thailand etc, just that by writing this one, the contributing editors are under no obligation to write others. If W.marsh wants to see such articles, he is more than welcome to start them. Greenshed 23:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
        • I think that Deipnosophista was asking for such articles, if anyone was. I read W.marsh's reply as a defense of this article's place in Wikipedia (which I also tried to do, just not as well). In any case, this is a great article and improves the enyclopedia and I am glad for it. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
          • Quite concur with Ruhrfisch. As the article itself perhaps hints, we may need more than more encyclopedia coverage of Renewable energy in England etc. Serious debate that might make such topics highly relevant everywhere would be welcome. Indeed if there are not such articles over the next few years, I would urge the Wikipedia project to ensure its facilities are moved out of Florida and into a state that is less likely to suffer from rising sea levels. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
            • This very fine article is a credit to Wikipedia in a difficult and contentious subject area. And check here [1] for suitable locations in Scotland for the Wikimedia servers! (Thincat 09:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
              • Thank-you indeed. I myself am of course untroubled by a few extra metres of sea water, although I fear the weather experienced at Corrour Bothy might prove challenging for those used to more balmy climes. Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Fusion power

This is the one remaining area, of those recently mentioned, where some further discussion here may be helpful.

The comment regarding fusion power, that "commercial applications are still twenty years or more away[82]", surprised me as it is the most optimistic assessment I've ever seen, and the reference cited didn't seem to mention this.

This is what the Fusion power article says:

A fusion reactor will heat plasma to temperatures which are ten times those in the core of the sun. Harnessing such extremes in an engineered "bottle" will take many decades, and ultimately may not be practical. An editorial in New Scientist magazine explained that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."[3]

On this basis to be talking about whether fusion power is renewable, etc., is entirely hypothetical and mere speculation, and so the article would probably benefit if the fusion paragraph was removed. -- Johnfos 00:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

OK - I understand what your saying and I'll look into it further asap - hopefully this week! Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The reference quoted in the footnote states "Thermonuclear fusion also bodes well for the future and could take over the reins from some existing energy sources towards the middle of the century" on this subpage. Realistically this suggests that "commercial applications are still thirty years or more away" although clearly all these dates are just speculation. The other sources I looked at are all in the 40-100 year range. Given that there are proponents of the idea that fission is renewable, I still think its useful to mention the fusion option and it's possibly renewable designation, although I'll amend the text to state "commercial applications are still distant." Ben MacDui (Talk) 15:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that you didn't want to reference the New Scientist article; it's quite a reputable, third-party, source. In terms of what has been said there is just too much speculation:

Unlike existing nuclear fission technology, fusion power offers the potential for signficant power production without the dangers inherent in fission plants.
Conceivably a fusion plant could be considered 'renewable' as the hydrogen fuel source is vast.
... commercial applications are still distant.[4]

The main point which is omitted in the above sentences is that we don't know whether fusion power is going to work or not. It is simply too early to tell. And this is why discussion of fusion as a commercial power source should not be included in this article. So I'm removing it. -- Johnfos 22:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm not going to make an issue out of it. I think there is case for mentioning the subject in the context of renewable energy, if only because it gets such huge sums of money thrown at it. It's certainly unlikely to be directly relevant in the Scottish context for the foreseebale future. Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


IMO I believe that Ben was perfectly right to include mention of fusion as a renewable energy particularly as the ITER project ITER Project will soon enter the construction phase in France. This 500MW fusion facility will bring the commercialisation of the technology that much closer to the 20-30 year mark. As to the argument on its claim to being a renewable energy source may I remind the nay sayers that that most renewable sources owe their driving force to the output of our Sun i.e. they are all powered by nuclear fusion.Peter-Paul O 13:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Potential energy - per time?

In the "Summary of Scotland's resource potential" section, there is a table of technology / capacity / potential capacity / potential energy. Potential energy has units of TWh, and the note says "is a measure of output over a period of time". But over what period of time? I'm assuming its TWh per year, but could someone clarify this, and correct the article. Its a bit meaningless without this. --Vclaw (talk) 13:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You are quite right, the 'per annum' is AWOL from the table header. I've corrected this, but don't have the source to hand. I'll check that it doesn't say anything more complicated at the weekend. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 15:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Manorlane

I've removed references to this company. The mention at SFHCA makes the combination of biogas and hydrogen look interesting but I can't see any obvious non-commercial corroboration. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 18:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If it seems to be spam, you could leave a {{uw-spam}} at the IP address that added it. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I dropped him/her a note asking them to stop and pointing out the existence of WP:SPAM. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 18:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good - WP:COI/N may help if this is a persistent problem (or I could too). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - there were various other articles affected but it seems to have stopped for now at any rate. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 08:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Micro Generation

The Micro Systems section says "The Energy Savings Trust estimate that micro-generation could provide 30–40% of the UK's electricity demand by 2050". This is perhaps a bit misleading. Much of the micro generation proposed at this level of penetration would not be renewable. Much of it would be micro CHP burning fossil fuel, or fuel cells which may use non-renewable fuel. See slide 9: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/uploads/documents/aboutest/Microgeneration%20in%20the%20UK%20-%20final%20report%20REVISED_executive%20summary1.pdf

Micro-generation does not equate to micro-renewables. It would be better to explain this or leave it out.

194.81.29.206 (talk) 15:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC) Colin

Thanks for pointing this out - I've amended the text and used the above reference. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 17:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism?

"Whisky distilleries have a role to play in keeping Scots warm." Altonbr (talk) 21:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

See sub-section "Hmmmmm" above. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 07:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Notes on creation of page

As Monbiot (2006) points out, a major problem with this subject matter is that apparently prestigious sources regularly provide well-researched information that blatantly contradicts the findings of similar organisations. Some for example, believe that tidal power's contribution to energy production is likely to be trivial.

I have attempted to provide as coherent a picture as possible in the circumstances by, for example, sticking mostly to predictions of maximum output in GW. Using energy productions in TWh might be more useful in some ways but would tend to obscure the underlying assumptions unless every reference included a measure for maximum output, capacity factor and assumed production, which might prove cumbersome.

There seems little doubt that the subject matter will continue to attract public attention for some years to come, and best guesses and assumptions will be replaced with something more akin to hard facts. I can only hope that future editors will attempt to maintain the coherence of the article rather than simply alter numbers using a variety of different measures as new publications come to light. Ben MacDui (Talk) 15:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

We have similar problems on the American side of the pond, with estimates of renewable energy potentials varying by orders of magnitude. It is probably a mistake to report such estimates with more than one digit of precision, and I refer to the exponent. A similar problem applies to estimates of energy payback on biofuels - people seem to assume there will be one number that applies to, say, every single liter of ethanol from maize, when in fact every field and batch is different. --Teratornis (talk) 07:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Garbled units in the Road Energy System description

This excerpt from Renewable energy in Scotland/Archive 1#Solar energy doesn't make sense:

  • An area of tarmac measuring 10 x 40 square metres can generate 108 MW of energy per annum.

Megawatt is a unit of power, not of energy. I tried looking at sources, and those I found suffer from the same garbling. For example:

  • “We can extract about 270 kilowatts per square meter a year, about half that of a solar panel on a roof,” says Henk Verweijmerem, technical director at IHS. “But the cost is about a twelfth that of a solar panel, and there are a lot more square meters of tarmac available. If all the motorways in Holland were covered, we could create more power than all the power stations in Holland. People don’t realize how much power the sun has.”
  • That's from: "Heat from the Street". Allianz Knowledge Partnersite. Retrieved 2008-11-10.

"270 kilowatts per square meter a year" makes no sense. Does kilowatt really mean kWh? We could probably tell by comparing it to the annual energy yield from the solar panel that Henk Verweijmerem refers to. Solar energy says:

  • Insolation for most people is from 150 to 300 W/m^2 or 3.5 to 7.0 kWh/m^2/day.

If a solar panel is 20% efficient, taking the lower figure for insolation gives: 3.5 * 365 * 0.20 = 255 kWh/year, which is within striking range of Henk Verweijmerem's figure if we take "kilowatts" to mean kWh. --Teratornis (talk) 08:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You are right of course. The whole section is much too long as well. I'll have a detailed look at it later today. Ben MacDui 09:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Error above removed - it even says 108mW in the text! Ben MacDui 09:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Update needed

A new report is now available which would help to update this article: Making Scotland a leader in Green Energy: Draft framework for the development and deployment of renewables in Scotland Johnfos (talk) 00:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. New totals data now included. Ben MacDui 17:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Update tag

Renewable energy is a very fast-moving area and, as someone who works on a lot of renewable energy articles, I am aware how difficult it can be to keep an article up to date. But this is an FA and it should be leading the way in providing up-to-date information about renewables in Scotland. Instead it is lagging behind quite badly, and this is illustrated by the "Main references" list which contains no recent sources. The "Recent events" section does not really help as the material there is not integrated into the article.

So I'm adding an Update tag to the top of the article in the hope that recent material may be integrated into relevant sections of the article, and more recent sources, especially recent reports, can be used to update the article. Johnfos (talk) 03:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The 'recent events' is deliberately not integrated so that, from time to time I can come along and remove things that seemed interesting at the time but have been superceded, and place genuinely important new information into the main text. I am aware that there are daily media reports, but we are an encyclopedia not a news outlet and I see no need to incorporate every new claim plan, proposal and commissioning. By all means add new and valuable information if you have it or suggest something specific that could be added. I count about a dozen citations from 2008. I'm afraid I find these aspecific tags unhelpful so I will remove it. Ben MacDui 09:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems that one editor owns this article

Sorry for the delay in getting back here... I've have been on WP for quite a while, and have never said this before about an article, but in this case I believe Wikipedia:Ownership of articles is a big issue. I find that despite constructive suggestions and a helpful tagging, the creator of this article has just decided how things are to be done (see above paragraph) and that is that.

I don't understand why the Update tag has been removed from the top of this article. Having the tag in place would help to alert other editors to the fact that some work needs to be done on this article, and alert readers (many of whom will not read through to the "recent events" section) to the fact that the body of the article needs updating.

In these circumstances, where one editor seems to have ownership of the article, I don't see much point in trying to contribute further. Johnfos (talk) 00:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

References

This article needs updating.

Ottre 07:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

You are quite right, in the sense that there are weekly if not daily reports that might conceivably be included. You will note that all the above refer to future rather than actual production. The above ideas are all referred to in the article already and I tend to do significant updates every few months. Ben MacDui 14:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

True, it's not very informative to give progress reports after each new device is launched. I think you should divide production figures up into months for 2010 and 2011, then into 24-month periods until 2020, to give the reader some idea of how much progress was made. Would you kindly leave me a message on my talk page when you do the next update? I have access to the digital versions of the above newspapers and wish to indicate to the reader whether the switch over to wave energy was front-page news. I was surprised to find this launch was buried on page 10 of The Scotsman and didn't rate a mention in The Guardian. Ottre 14:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean by "switch over to wave energy" nothing is imminent to the best of my knowledge. Ben MacDui 15:48, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Moved from the article to here for discussion on inclusion

I just removed this addition by Spottiswoodestreet from the article and moved it here for discussion. The grammar and formatting leave much to be desired ("for the Scotland"??) but the content may be worth including. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up the grammar and formatting. There are still several issues. One is that the references are not formatted consistently with the rest of the article (web refs should have URL, title, publisher, author and date if known, and access date - {{cite web}} may be useful). The name of the EEC should not be in bold per WP:ITALIC. My major concern though is notability and relevance to this article. All of the refs used here are primary sources - are there any news reports on it and its programs? I note there is a new article on the European Energy Centre (EEC) which has already been proposed for deletion on notability grounds. I also worry that looking at the three refs, there is relatively little material on Scotland in them. Finally, there is a WP:WEIGHT issue - I can see including a sentence or two on the EEC, but a whole section seems to me to be too much coverage in a broad article. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 17:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
No-one is going to pretend that training isn't important for a significant industry, but the "UNEP launch of the Green New Deal" ref (no 7) does not seem to mention Scotland at all and there is no mention that I can see of "5000 technicians". I'd be happy to be better informed but to me it looks more like a puff for the conference than a genuine addition to the article. Ben MacDui 18:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Training Scotland on Renewable Energy

As the Scottish government has a strong commitment to growing the renewable energy sector, training has now become of vital importance for Scotland. The organization European Energy Centre[5] is launching with a conference at Heriot-Watt University, the beginning of 2011, the Green New Deal in Scotland with the United Nations Environment Programme and the intergovernmental Institute IIR. The European Energy Centre is also publishing with the United Nations - UNEP a special issue of its magazine I&F [6] [7]to inform Scottish businesses of this urgent need to embrace green technologies and train technicians to help grow the renewable energy sector. The Scottish Government has shown strong interest for the activities of the European Energy Centre and UNEP

SeaGen

Re the query about this reference, either I misread it or it has been changed since moving to the new address. Evidence in favour of the latter is provided by the SeaGen article that quotes 3 references supporting the statement "world's first large scale commercial tidal stream generator". However 2 of the links are dead and the third I have no access to. There are various blog references to the Indie article on-line. I've changed the text to fit the existing ref - and thanks for pointing this out. Ben MacDui 14:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

That's great, ta. DrKiernan (talk) 17:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Solway Barrage

I have rewritten the short link to a BBC news item about investigations into a Tidal Electric power scheme involving the construction of a Solway Barrage south of Annan,Dumfries and Galloway. I cited the link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8496758.stm The previous addition was removed,possibly vandalism. User:Frglee 08:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC) frglee 08:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk of this kind is frequent and not particularly notable. Announcements that a project has started, or better still been completed are far more useful. The edit is also poorly formatted. I will have a look at it asap. Ben MacDui 09:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Done. A consultants' report concluded that the plans "would be expensive and environmentally sensitive." One wonders how much cash was spent to come to this stunningly obvious conclusion. Ben MacDui 10:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The re edit is fine. At least it is mentioned and linked to regardless of whether or not it is feasible or possible and makes an interesting addition to the article. I note the BBC article says "Their preliminary conclusion is that significant energy reserves are theoretically available but cannot be captured without significant environmental impacts.Any way forward, they say, would have to balance technical, financial and environmental factors and significant additional feasibility work is required." It doesn't say it has been dismissed out of hand. You are of course welcome to your opinions about the waste of cash being used to come to a 'stunningly obvious opinion',but others might not agree with you on this matter. frglee 11:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frglee (talkcontribs)

Solar power

I have reverted two edits. Both were interesting but:

  • the sunshine hours graph was uncited
  • the installed PV capacity was cited but I could see noting in the citation that referred specifically to Scotland. It's possible the data was collated from postcodes?

Arguably the latter was too detailed anyway but a stat would certainly be useful in the "Summary of Scotland's resource potential" if I can find one. Ben MacDui 08:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The sun hours was cited - in the paragraph of text next to "sunshine hours". I can duplicate the reference but that is tacky. The spreadsheet just came out on April 10, 2012 - all the entries other than photovoltaics were removed and it was sorted by country (England, Scotland, and Wales) and date to present the totals. There are 248,000 entries in the table, and slightly less than 245,000 of them are photovoltaic. Some were installed as early as 1998 (in Scotland, 1995 in England). There are some that are listed as unknown in the country column (less than 5000 entries, many of them larger systems that are not likely in Scotland - none of the large systems list location, other than the 1.26 MW system in Chard, England), but erring on the low side is better than on the high side. Interestingly exactly 1.0000057 GW has been installed in the UK through 3/31/2012. The largest system in Scotland is slightly less than 50 kW. There are 11 that range from 49.35 kW to 49.84 kW, in the following postal codes: EH23 DG8 TD4 EH41 AB33 G64 KA26 TD5 KY16 AB30 DD11, mostly in southern Scotland. The photo that makes you have to squint to see the panels is less than useless. I have no problem waiting for some news source to publish the data and use that as a source instead (secondary source instead of primary source). Apteva (talk) 19:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Response to "Fit"

I think you may want to think of this article on Scotland as a test bed for discussions on the future viability of renewables in ALL countries. If, for example, Scotland cannot make unsubsidised wind power work with its abundance of wind energy, who can? It also serves as an important springboard to information on, in my view, the visionary work in the 1950s to bring hydro power to Scotland. Finally, there are 2mm English-language articles in Wikipedia. No doubt there will be other articles on renewable energy in other countries. I would certainly be interested in reading about them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.152.47 (talkcontribs)

Who can? I'd guess someone with similarly abundant wind, and fewer whisky distilleries. Perhaps the Chinese. But don't worry, peak oil will see to the unsubsidized profitability of wind power soon enough. --Teratornis (talk) 07:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
You may be surprised to find that part of the problem in Scotland is that feed in charges for connecting to the National Grid, for some reason are much more expensive. Couple that to subsidies given to the nuclear industry, and for some reason, renewable energy sources do look a bit uncompetative. Also, bear in mind that a lot of the research, even with wind power is still in relatively early stages compared to fossil and nuclear fired power stations which have a rather large head start.86.14.187.220 (talk) 21:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)Lance Tyrell

I would justify the 'reads like advertising' tag I placed on this article -and which I feel was removed without any due consideration to its validity- with the following points:

The article 'reads like an advertisement' in using an overly positive, almost ecstatic style of presentation.

All but a very few references are links to vendors, trade organisations or government departments whose role is to promote these products. Where performance data is quoted, it is invariably from such sources. Independently verifiable performance data is notable by its absence, in spite of its being fairly readily available, for example from National Grid energy reports.

I should not need to remind any editor that facts presented within a Wikipedia article should wherever possible be taken from independently verifiable sources. Where a commercial product is being described, advertising copy from the manufacturer, vendor, trade organisation or promoter should be presented as 'Such-and-such CLAIMS this level of performance from the product..' rather than stating that it IS the case. This article violates that principle in too many places to even count.

Likewise, several new and untried technologies are presented as if they had achieved stable production status, whereas in fact the would-be vendors' projections are what is being quoted, the product never having been deployed on a commercial scale.

The article also seeks to play down the negative attributes of these products as reported by pressure-groups opposed to their deployment. Birdstrikes, pollution involved in equipment manufacture, noise, strobing, effect on property prices, damage to tourism and outdoor sports, to name but a few. -And yes, these are REPORTED detractions which might not in some cases be verifiable, but then so are the vendors' claims for the products. An impartial and objective article MUST state both without predjudice.

There are also a fair number of non sequitur arguments, for example, "It is clear that if carbon emissions are to be reduced, a combination of increased production from renewables ... will be required." -This is not necessarily true, because a switch from coal to gas would on its own substantially reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile an admirably skilful piece of out-of-context quoting in, 'The John Muir Trust has also stated that, "the best renewable energy options around wild land are small-scale.."' totally misrepresents the conclusions of that report, which are principally that the low capacity factor and high intermittency of large-scale wind are problematic when applied to Grid baseload deployment.

I would therefore present my case that this article not only violates Wikipedia's injunction on material which reads as an advertisement, but that it also fails to satisfy the criterion of impartiality. --Anteaus (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

In terms of renewable energy deployment, this article actually understates the situation because it is based on data which is a few years old, and doesn’t discuss new projects and innovations. So recent growth of renewable energy use is not included.
The public and political debate about some of the more well-developed renewables is clearly flagged at the end of the lead, and in several subsequent sections of the article. This is discussed in detail in several sub-articles, which are linked.
New and developing technologies are clearly flagged as such. For example, the article clearly says tidal power technology “is in its infancy”, and wave power has “various systems [which] are under development”. In terms of ethanol, the article says, “due to the relatively short growing season for sugar producing crops, ethanol is not commercially produced as a fuel in Scotland at present”. All of this helps to present a realistic and balanced assessment.
In terms of sourcing, some recent academic sources would be very helpful [2].
So, far from promoting renewables, I would say that this article presents a fairly realistic, and sometimes conservative, assessment of renewable energy in Scotland. No advertisement tag is needed, but a good update is. Johnfos (talk) 02:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Essentially I agree with Johnfos. One of the difficulties with an article like this is that there is a fair amount of effort involved in both keeping up with new developments, which are reported weekly in the press, and then in attempting to decide which are simply press releases about hoped-for outcomes, which are announcements about genuinely important breakthroughs and in striking a balance between the purely technical and the more political aspects. The potential amount of new information is very large and some of the technologies are still very much emergent. I suspect the RHI is going to increase the focus on biomass for a while at least with a variety of new projects being announced. The timing of the comment about the article being an advert is interesting in that it may be that the very recent SSE price rise announcement is starting to have an impact on public opinion, which I'd say until now has been very positive about these developments. Critiques have, more often than not, been offered by NIMBY pressure groups, few of whom provide information that would pass a WP:RS test. The recent Royal Society study of the Pentland Firth is another interesting development - I suspect we will see more information of this kind, talking down the potential in the next 12 months or so. Nonetheless, renewables remain an essentially popular development in Scotland and the potential is extraordinary. I see no reason to avoid saying so. New, updated and improved sources are always extremely welcome of course. Ben MacDui 08:23, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

'Summary of Scotland's resource potential' table out of date

The table has many figures which are not referenced, or are very out of date. Struggling to find any updated figures for a lot of the specific sources of energy. I'm wondering if it might be best to use the headings, as given here: http://www.scottishrenewables.com/scottish-renewable-energy-statistics-glance/ rather than looking for wave, separate from tidal; or wood seperate from other biomass? Would make table neater, and more up to date. Arossmorrison (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

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