Sign of a bright energy future – but for whom?

The National

5 hours ago

I saw John Swinney visiting Eyemouth last week and singing the praises of the Neart na Gaoithe wind farm in the Firth of Forth.
For sure, the First Minister was right, it is a wonder of engineering and a sign of a bright energy future. But for whom? Almost all the benefits are passing Scotland by, just as they did in the first great energy bounty, when oil was discovered in the North Sea. Oil's still there and still being drilled for, though not as much as it should be, and it's only weeks since the Grangemouth oil refinery closed.
Of course, there's a nice shiny new office block on Eyemouth pier for NnG, as it is referred to. The jobs there are few but welcome all the same. But where's the real work going – and, more importantly, who owns and profits?
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NnG might lie between Lothians and Fife but ownership lies abroad and a clue's in the name. Neart na Gaoithe is Gaelic but the Irish version, the reason being that the wind farm is owned not just by EDF, the state energy company of France but also ESB, the Republic of Ireland's state electricity company.
The Irish consul general told me it is the single biggest investment ESB has ever made outwith the island of Ireland.
All this means that profits from the wonder Swinney saw are going to Paris and Dublin and not to Edinburgh. But it's far worse than that: not one turbine for it is being manufactured in Scotland, despite Methil being visible from it, never mind other ports and yards in Scotland being available which are crying out for work.
Even if the excuse is a lack of capacity here in turbine manufacturing – which itself is lamentable and indicative of a shameful lack of an industrial strategy – what about other works such as subsea cabling, the laying of pipeline and the assembly of the units, along with the ship contracts?
As with ownership, they've gone abroad, with firms from Italy, Belgium and far beyond winning out and Scotland languishing without. Even the jobs that are coming to Scotland are limited. Beyond the smaller vessels at Eyemouth, there was hope for work for maritime crews providing for the major construction and cabling work from Montrose.
So thought a former constituent of mine who left the deep-sea tankers for a job closer to home.
Within a few days he and the rest of the UK crew had been laid off and replaced by South Asian labour. When you're working beyond territorial waters – and that's where NnG lies – UK employment law doesn't apply. What a rip-off. And the NnG tragedy won't be alone as it's not the only Scottish offshore wind farm owned by foreign state companies; China, Norway, Sweden and the UAE also have sites.
There's a double whammy here, and not just in the work and contracts being frittered away.
When the ScotWind auction took place – under the auspices and control of the Scottish not UK Government – offshore sites were sold off for a song.
The £800 million raised was trumpeted as a triumph by the then first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Yet within a matter of weeks that was shown to be a paltry sum.
Less than 25% of what had been auctioned off in Scotland was sold in the US by New York State for a site off Long Island and for somewhere in the region of $4.3 billion. And believe me, the European energy market, of which Scotland is a critical part, is larger than the US's.
But we were told all's well as we'd be getting the supply jobs. Well, where are they? A few jobs at Eyemouth and a few ribs going out of that port aren't what we were led to believe we'd get, and are probably less that Ireland will have from just NnG alone. What a waste and what a letdown.
The Scottish tragedy is being repeated but when it was oil and gas we had no Parliament. Now we have Holyrood and, shamefully, it is being complicit as well as supine. Yes, energy is largely reserved but the ScotWind sell-off was wholly down to [[Holyrood]].
This is our great opportunity, as the First Minister said, but it has to actually happen, not just be empty rhetoric.
While Swinney was at Eyemouth harbour, I was at the funeral of an independence stalwart and was reminded by the eulogy of his role in the anti-poll tax campaign. Back then, he and his compadre, who sat next to me in the chapel, painted 'Pay No Poll Tax' on the bridges along the M8. No easy task but much appreciated by many.
Things should be better and easier for us now, but as well as failures there's been a dampening of the spirit. Radicalism, let alone political actions, have been decried, as shown over the genocide in Palestine. We need some competency in our Government, but we also require some fire back in our movement.