Scotland warned of blackouts from energy ‘imbalance’ – Daily Business

Kathryn Porter: Scotland’s energy system is fragile (pic: Terry Murden / DB Media Services)

Scotland is failing to build a stable and balanced energy sector, leaving it vulnerable to blackouts and security risks, according to an industry consultant.

Kathryn Porter, a physicist and opponent of net zero, said government policy had to change to ensure energy was affordable and free from reliance on imports.

Ms Porter, an in-demand speaker on the industry, told an invited audience at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh that “turning our backs on oil and gas is pretty foolish.

“Today the [North Sea] basin is being described as if it is finished. That is not true. Being mature doesn’t mean being at death’s door.”

Commenting on the just transition she said it was really “managed decline” and there was nothing just about telling oil and gas workers in Aberdeen “to accept the destruction of their industry on the basis that something will turn up later”.

She said it was vital to keep the grid in balance or risk the system becoming unstable, which was behind last year’s blackouts in Spain and Portugal.

Suggesting blackouts could also hit the UK, she said: “Scotland is one of the most technically fragile parts of the UK grid.”

This was the consequence of an energy policy based on intermittent wind and solar power and no viable plan to replace the remaining power plants at Torness and Peterhead.

Ms Porter said it drove her “crazy” when she heard people say that breaking the link with gas would bring down electricity prices. “That myth needs to be dealt with,” she said.

The solution to pricing and security would be found in fixing the tax regime, scrapping the energy profits levy, resetting the regulatory framework and focusing environmental regulation on “actual harm”, rather than have it delay projects.

“Energy policy must deal with the world as it is, rather than the way we wish it to be,” she said.

She criticised the damage done in the extraction of minerals to feed batteries and other alternative energy sources, saying: “The environmental credentials of these technologies are nothing like as green as people say they are.”

On the impact of the war in Iran, she said the UK government was “mishandling” the situation, particularly in defence of UK interests in Qatar and neighbouring states.

Reform UK Scotland leader Malcolm Offord told the audience that as countries declared themselves either friendly or unfriendly the UK had to ensure it did not get “caught on the wrong side as energy resources became more scarce”.

Mr Offord repeated his party’s claim that Net Zero is “stupid” and said “let’s cut the crap on this”. He called on the engineers to “come out and start talking about it.”

Malcolm Offord: ‘let’s cut the crap’ (pic: Terry Murden / DB Media Services)

He added: “They say [renewables] are the future, so why do they need 50 years of subsidy?”

Fellow panelist, the Shadow Scotland Secretary Andrew Bowie, said: “Increasing our reliance on imports is not the way to ensure energy security.”

He accused Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband of being a “zealot focused on becoming the Energy Secretary who saw the end of North Sea oil and gas”.

He added: “Even Jueurgen Maier [chairman of Labour-backed GB Energy] is against the running down of oil and gas.

Mr Bowie accused the SNP government of adopting a Luddite approach to nuclear energy and offering no solution to how current output would be replaced.

“I am not a conspiracy theorist but we are facing blackouts by the end of the decade unless something changes quickly,” he said.

Net Zero Watch invited the SNP and Labour to speak at the event but both declined.

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