Letters: Tough times for Sturgeon as she faces the SNP conference without the luxury of party unity

The grassroots rebellion

I WRITE to complain about your coverage of the Edinburgh End Fuel Poverty Coalition's demonstration outside Queen Elizabeth House last Saturday ("Extinction Rebellion protest in Edinburgh, October 2). Indeed, your readers would be forgiven for being unaware such an event had even occurred, given your coverage focused entirely on Extinction Rebellion's protest before the demo itself.

While XR is undoubtedly an important movement with an urgent message and a dramatic, even spectacular style of protest, it was but one relatively small part of Saturday's event. Under the broad banner of the Edinburgh End Fuel Poverty Coalition, this event united political parties (Scottish Socialist Party, Alba), trade unions (RMT, CWU, Unison), and activists (Living Rent, Revolutionary Students Edinburgh), to say nothing of the hundreds of working people in attendance, whose chants and home-made placards arguably spoke more eloquently to the social and humanitarian catastrophe of fuel poverty than did XR's admittedly striking theatrics.

Since it appears your readers cannot rely on you for coverage of grassroots organising around perhaps the single most pressing issue of the day, I would urge them to get directly involved in this burgeoning popular movement of resistance to the Tories' wanton disaster capitalism.
Ian Macbeth, Scottish Socialist Party, Lothians Branch, Edinburgh

Gross lack of planning on energy

MARTIN Williams' report of payments to switch off turbines (“Wind farm switch-offs cost bill-payers £1bn over the past five years”, October 2) reminded me about the old fable concerning the inventor of an acid which could eat through any mineral, plastic or fabric. His problem was that he could not find a container for its storage. Likewise we seem to have invented a renewable resource which cannot be saved, but this time we forgot to design and construct its storage or its ready connection to the main grid.

Surely the turbines should never be switched off except for maintenance. When there is insufficient wind, the scaled-down solid fuel generators can be powered up to supply our needs. This would be a greener solution to the present one.

There seems to have been a gross lack of thought and planning to the principles of renewable energy and its transmission by past governments – or does the status quo suit the power-generating companies' incomes?
JB Drummond, Kilmarnock

Green hydrogen must be the future

MARTIN Williams’ exposé of the absurdity of wind farm operators, many foreign-owned, being paid £200 million a year, increasing to £500 million, to switch off electricity generation during output peaks demonstrates just how crazy UK energy policy has become. Not only is this a waste of precious green power generation, but a scandalous waste of public funds.

As the article explains, the problem is exacerbated by lack of grid capacity to handle peak demand and an inability to store the excess power generated. Surely the answer, as I have argued now for a quarter of a century, is to use the otherwise unwanted and essentially-free excess peak generation to produce hydrogen by electrolyzing water. Hydrogen produced in this way is after all widely regarded as the green fuel of the future. When converted back into electricity, the only emission is water vapour, which ends up in the sea from whence it came.

With Scotland’s huge renewable energy potential, we should become a world leader not only in green hydrogen production, but in its employment for home heating and as a fuel for cars, trains and ships. The Norwegians are already building hydrogen-powered ferries for their Lofoten service. We should do likewise with our transport networks. The challenge for the Scottish Government is to find and hire competent and visionary management to make it happen in the most cost-effective way.
Roy Pedersen, Inverness

The truth about tidal

GEOFF Moore (Letters, October 2) has evidently misread my letter of September 24.

For tidal stream turbines to work optimally, the tidal flow needs to be above a certain threshold average velocity – currently reckoned at 2.5 m/s at springs. With further development more efficient tidal turbines ought to be able to reduce this threshold, so opening up a wider range of suitable sites for capture of tidal stream energy.

Tidal stream turbines use kinetic energy from the actual ebbing and flowing of the tides in real time. Tidal barrages may use both the actual kinetic energy of the tidal flood, but can also regulate outflows from the dammed area, to optimise energy capture during the ebb cycle.

Faster tidal streams are found in different geographical locations to the estuaries capable of being dammed with barrages, the Severn being a possible exception.

They tend to be located off headlands or island races, ideally with constrictions that accelerate tidal stream velocities, such as in the Pentland Firth. Sites suitable for tidal stream turbines are not often suitable for barrages. It is unlikely there will be a barrage built across the Sound of Islay, or across the Pentland Firth.

Conversely, tidal barrages are preferable in estuarine locations with high tidal ranges, such as the Severn and Mersey, which may or may not have sufficiently fast tidal streams.

So those sites with lower tidal stream velocities but high tidal ranges are suitable for barrages, but are not then suitable for tidal stream turbines.

Mr Moore then seeks to use false equivalence to sustain his naysaying. Both turbines and barrages capture tidal energy. Combine both types of sites – estuaries and off headlands – and you have a wider range of choice for integrated electricity generation from tidal energy.

As it is, both tidal stream turbines and barrages extract tidal energy and are eminently suitable for generating renewables baseload, the tides being predictable, howsoever that energy is captured.

It is about time the levels of funding to really kickstart this technology were made. Strategically we need renewables baseload. The shortcomings in UK resource appraisal that have constrained this development go back several decades.

Anti-renewables campaigners, and especially the pro-nuclear lobby, often complain there is no way for renewables to generate baseload. This is a falsehood.
Tony Philpin, Isle of Gigha

Jags concern on neonatal deaths

THE Scottish Government is to review the increase in neonatal deaths between April 2021 and March 2022 ("Neonatal death increase sparks review", October 2). The elephant in the room here was that on April 16, 2021 JCVI recommended the Covid vaccine for pregnant women.

An American study lead-authored by Tom Shimabukuro was published on April 21 2021 titled “Preliminary Findings of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons”. The conclusion to this study claims that the vaccine is safe. However, a number of academics expressed concern about what was in the small print, namely “a total of 96 of 104 spontaneous abortions (92.3%) occurred before 13 weeks of gestation”.

Indeed, no fewer than two subsequent studies scrutinised Shimabukuro's data. A New Zealand study under Aleisha Brock says that its re-analysis of the data shows “a cumulative incidence of spontaneous abortion ranging from 82% to 91%, 7-8 times higher than the original authors' results”. A Belgian study under Serge Stroobandt says something similar, including the 82% figure.

The Scottish Government review must include these findings and not just dismiss them.
Geoff Moore, Alness

Bring back Mock the Week

LORD David Frost, on learning the mini-Budget had been criticised by the IMF, countered: "What do they know?" It makes me inclined to believe Dara Ó Briain was correct. Mock The Week could not be funnier than the News.

This wonderful satirical programme, pulling in its two million audience on BBC2 for 21 series from 2005, had been under relentless attack from the English Tory press in recent years. The Spectator helpfully pointed out why. It had condemned Brexit,(which is going swimmingly), unfairly. It had introduced female comedians, like Angela Barnes and Ellie Taylor, and gone all woke (presumably with Romesh Ranganathan and Nish Kumar).

The BBC has never explained why it pulled the plug, but did say it hoped to have a funnier programme and attract new comedians, yet this programme had provided a conveyor belt. In the early days we were introduced to Andy Parsons, Chris Addison, Frankie Boyle and David Mitchell, Michael McIntyre and more recently, Hugh Dennis, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones, Maisie Adams, Rhys James and more. My worry is this is the corporation which did not recommission My Family and today foists Ghosts on us.

The BBC is very sensitive to the TV licence being up for renewal in 2027, but should not be unduly concerned as the UK Conservative Government enters its twilight days. The new Culture Secretary, Michelle Donellan, understands how the BBC and Channel 4 are funded, unlike Nadine Dorries. The public is well aware no streaming service could have matched the BBC coverage of the Queen's State Funeral nor funded the Ukrainian department of the World Service.

The point is there was not a cheep out of the Tory print media as the programme mocked the Labour governments of Blair and Brown, nor any criticism of the jokes regarding Scottish independence.The comedians fell foul when they attacked Brexit and the Daily Mail. With thousands signing the petition to stop this, I trust the production company, Angst, will place it with another channel.
John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Letters should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit submissions.