to the annoyance of some locals, as they see it as losing productive farmland, ignoring the fact that not all farmland can produce high quality food crops,
Also that, if you live in a capitalist economy, the utilization of resources is determined by the profitability. If a solar farm pays more than growing food, a capitalist should welcome the solar farm.
You do realize that little / none of the generation is owned by “Scotland” or “The UK”.
I do, but you seem confused how ecconomies work. Scotland (the country) don’t own any distilleries, Germany (the country) don’t own any car factories, etc - it’s still very important to their economies that (a) there is work; (b) there is export opportunity.
my post was not meant to be taken any more seriously than the original suggestion it was being stolen!
And if for a moment we think of it the other way where somehow the rUK and iScotland become socialists utopias and nationalized all their generation. Scotland would be ******. It might produce more renewable energy than it uses on a longer term average. But renewables are cheap, and if Scotland was selling that energy to England, it would likely be at a time when England also had lots of wind, so wouldn’t want it, so the price would be low. Then because Scotland has vetoed Nuclear in it’s own backyard, it’s going to be reliant on some very expensive energy from England on windless days.
just as well Scotland has been investing in hydro for decades, including pumped storage and finally signs that tidal might be viable on the same sort of vague maybe one day timeline of Indy!
All that’s moot and hypothetical though, because neither side actually own the infrastructure.
its like roads, rail etc - owning the infrastructure isn’t the important thing - having the ability to move your “product” to your “customer” is essential. Throughout civilisation economic success has been achieved in areas with highly interconnected networks (whether roads, ports, trains, water or telecoms). Power is no different. Regardless of whether you care more about a uk or Scottish economy this is a good thing. That bit of wire actually has ripples way beyond Scotland too - it makes the uk marginally less dependent on Russia and the Middle East. Thats good for almost everyone!
Just because you had the toaster and the digital watch while we were still painting ourselves blue is no reason to have a "us and them" attitude these days. If you don't want us using "your" electricity, put up a giant windbreak along the west coast.
I'm not even sure why the scotch are complaining, isn't England using their surplus supporting their industry?
