Renewable Energy and Scotland

Scotland definately has a proud engineering heritage. See an incomplete wiki list here. The future of energy is increasingly political with 'peak oil' a very real and imminent danger and the highly controversial carbon trading exchange issue.

I came across this article:

Gold mining magnate donates £1.3m to Edinburgh university
Robert M Buchan, who hails from Rosyth, has donated the money for research into sustainable energy.

and naturally think that Scotland could well be a hub for renewable technologies. As the philanthropist is quoted:

The money will fund a top-level post in sustainable energy engineering, with a view to keeping Scotland at the forefront of the field.

And this month we will see a visit from the Spanish company Gamesa. A fact-finding mission who NewsNetScotland quotes as stating:

Gamesa will play a leading role in offshore wind energy's progress and wants to be at the centre of the development process. Therefore, the visit to Scotland will help in our decision making about potential investments in the UK, which we recognise is becoming a renewable energy hub with significant wind projects and a promising future for offshore.

With renewable energy projects all over the world up and running and a massive volume of projects in the pipeline in Asia, Europe and North America can we say that it is all a big scam like one commentor on Scotland Unspun, RMcGeddon argues?

As many thinking voters know in Scotland, there is no end to propaganda when the subject of oil comes up. Energy is vital to the our economies and modern society in general and so there's no doubt that we are subjected to lies, damned lies and statistics on the matter.

Certainly, on my blog many posts only slightly related to energy is turned into a debate on windmills and climate change scams etc.

Let's see then if we can have as informed a debate as possible on the subject. A debate where posters can up the game and give SOUND cases for and against renewables being a valid energy source or just another scam.

Can we do that?