Scotland to Run Off 100% Renewable Energy by 2025

Scotland to Run Off 100% Renewable Energy by 2025
posted by: Jasmine Greene 13 hours ago

While many countries are complaining about the Copenhagen requirements, other countries are striving to go above and beyond the call of duty. Last week Northern Ireland stated that they were hoping to have 40 percent of the country running off renewable energy. This week, new First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond went even further, stating that the country could be running off of 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.

This ambitious goal happened a week after the SNP administration upped Scotland's renewable energy goal from 50 percent to 80 percent by 2020. Salmond announced the 100 percent goal in front of the Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference citing new Offshore Wind "Route Map" that would focus first on key areas to achieve immediate results:

Investment in infrastructure;
Appropriate supply chain;
Ongoing innovation of technologies and practices;
Regulation of and access to the electricity grid;
Managing the marine environment;
Necessary and available skills;
Finance [Source: NewEnergy]

and also cited priority recommendations to give Scotland the best chance at securing the best-case scenario route map which includes increasing supply and demand of renewable energy, up-skilling or re-skilling of workforces, bringing in large investments and providing incentives to harbor and port owners for offshore wind farms. For the project to be successful, over £200 billion would be needed by 2020 for any chance of success. While this number may sound large, Salmond is confident that they will receive the funding and states, "Investment on this scale established today's North Sea oil and gas industry. Scotland's second wave of offshore energy offers unique investment opportunities..." [Source: STV news].

Salmond's confidence that Scotland could run off of 100 percent renewable energy is also not unfounded. Scotland currently has under 3 GW of renewable energy capacity, mostly from onshore wind turbines, but it has the potential to generate up to 63 GW of low-carbon electricity, under six times more than the current model of fossil fuels and renewable energy. Scotland's major source of energy would come from offshore windfarms and tidal stream power, with hyrdopower, biomass and geothermal making up a small fraction of the total power [Source: Treehugger]. Scotland has already tapped into tidal power after creating the world's largest tidal power plant unveiled at the beginning of September 2010. This power plant generates enough power for 1,000 homes (around 1 MW of energy) [Source: Wired]. The coasts of Scotland could potentially harness around a quarter of Europe's potential offshore wind and tidal capacity and a tenth of its wave resource. Besides being better for the environment, creating alternate power generators would also lead to 60,000 more jobs with 28,000 directly servicing domestic and international wind markets [Source: Business 7].

While Scotland would be weening the country off of fossil fuels, it will continue to maintain some coal and nuclear power plants to supply surplus energy to other countries, most notably the UK. This will actually mean that Scotland produces only 63 percent of its energy from renewable sources. Still, the aim is much higher than the baseline 20 percent standard for the rest of the EU nations and certainly higher than the US.

Read more: environment & wildlife, scotland renewable energy

quick pollvote now! thanks for voting! Loading poll...

no! leaning no leaning yes yes! no! leaning no leaning yes yes! 0 votes see results take this poll
comments66 comments add your comment

Robert B. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:31 AM
The US could do this too.We must eventually do it before it's too late. IF the greedy corporate owned right will either get out of the way or help, not constantly hinder the present administration. We have the resources, what we need is sane rational political will!

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Jennifer Griffith says
Sep 30, 2010 7:28 AM
If more countries would just stop whining & get to work, I'd bet that at least a dozen countries could reach this same goal. It's like the kid putting off doing homework: It has to be done, but whining & procrastinating is just making it worse. Quit whining, sit down, shut up & "git 'er done!"

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Robert B. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:25 AM
Dear "Barry O'Bama"
You seem to be another one of those no-profile frauds who have either been hired to sign up on Care2 to be a pain or you're just doing it on your own. If you can't be constructive , DON'T BOTHER!

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

neil a. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:19 AM
Scottish engineers are known(but often forgotten world wide) they built or designed so many engineering projects all over the world & so many went to USA, Andrew Carnegie & so many others. Scotland can do it but should concentrate on perfecting wave power which could be 24/7 & not depend on wind or Sun, looks as if California is getting going. I am Scots & various other nationalities. here in Spain we are hydro, wind, photovoltaic & solar turbine so totally sustainable, if anything is??

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Jo C. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:18 AM
I meant 'throughout' this area. Sorry.

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Martin P. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:11 AM
This is a great step, but i think Scotland could do it! And all the other industrial states of the northern hemisphere should learn a lesson from Scotland!!!

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Donald Jensen says
Sep 30, 2010 7:04 AM
Gene W. Said... "This sounds so great until you look at the statistics, the population of Scotland is 5.1 million people"
It doesn't matter if there are 5 million or 500 million. The US can do this just as easily if we CHOOSE to but as long as the "Climate Skeptic Sheep" continue to support greedy energy, coal and oil production goals, we will live in this filthy environment. And Chris W. said the "Climate Change Gravy Train" Really? Who stands to lose and who stands to profit here? Tax payers or Big Energy? It's big energy that has created the climate controversy for their own greedy interest, not us conscious Americans who are working to save our way of life by preserving the things that sustain us and keep us alive.

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

kathie f. says
Sep 30, 2010 7:04 AM
truly commendable and inspiring! instead of whining about having to change and submitting to the proposed standards, scotland is embracing them with their "we can do this and we can do more" attitude; the united states should pay attention instead of listening to big oil lobbyists and continuing to rape the environment and jeopardize the oceans and, in fact, entire ecosystems and ultimately, the planet, with their greed and "more offshore drilling". california, we have a chance in november to make a small difference and start pointing ourselves in the right direction; in 2006 or 2007 voters rejected an initiative that would have required big oil and other other energy monopolies to start exploring renewable energy sources, and, by letting them win that election, we have been paying the price! remember that those who do not learn from past mistakes tend to repeat them. we have so many more resources and so much more funding than scotland, we should be certainly be trying to at least stay in the race to use alternative renewable energy for ourselves!

send green star

why is this inappropriate?
submit cancel Submitting...
Your report of abuse has been received and will be reviewed.
The response report you have submitted was unable to transmit. Please try your submission again or contact support.

Jo C. says
Sep 30, 2010 6:59 AM
I live in West Lothian in Scotland and there are small wind farms being created throught this area. So far, they have placed them in the fields so, no trees have been cut down. They haven't had a detrimental effect on the surrounding areas at all and although they are not the prettiest sight, I'm happy to see them. We all know politicians are great at telling us what we want to hear, but in this case, they're actually getting on with the job.