Tuesday 14 March 2006

Wave generators

<![CDATA[ The red things on the quayside next to the ship is the wave generator. Awoke this morning to the sight of a large ship (no, this is not Boats-3) alongside the Arnish Fabrication Yard, ready to take the three wave generators away that have been manufactured for Portugal. According to Radio Scotland, the Portuguese have an option on another 30 or so.

These things are a darn sight less intrusive than those 234 windturbines they have been threatening us with, out here in Lewis. They just float in the water, and the movement of the joints between the elements generates electricity. Now, I have a local advocate of the windfarms on record as saying that they should have gone for wave and tidal energy when the various causeways were put in. I assume he is referring to the dams linking Eriskay to South Uist and Berneray to North Uist. That's all fine and dandy, but where is the electricity going to go?

The entire idea behind turning the Western and Northern Isles into a breeding ground for renewable energy contraptions is to generate power for the Scottish Central Belt and other industrial areas within the UK. In order to do so we need an interconnector. That is a heavy-duty powercable, for the un-initiated in gobbledegook. This is supposed to go from Lewis to Ullapool, from where an overhead powerline will traverse the 200 miles to Stirling. All to the detriment of the countryside. There was also talk of an interconnector all the way down to Hunterston in Ayrshire. If we're talking un-intrusive energy supplies, why don't we tap into AMEC's colossal profits and let them cough up the

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