Whether it\u2019s an effort to appease the far-right, or succumbing to the misplaced idea that opening up the North Sea will help reduce bills, the energy policy and system in Britain is a complete shambles.<\/p>\n
Take, for example, the vast Machair Wind farm proposed for south of Iona, which will be visible from Iona, Mull, Staffa, Islay, Jura and Colonsay. It\u2019s difficult to convey the sheer scale of the development. Imagine 144 giant structures as tall as the Eiffel Tower scattered across the seascape.<\/p>\n
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It will be an enormous industrial process to construct, and will destroy the tranquility of some of Scotland\u2019s most beautiful and revered places, and, after decommissioning the concrete platforms will remain on the seabed forever. The National Trust for Scotland, which owns Staffa and Iona will be objecting. They issued a statement saying: \u201cThe National Trust for Scotland supports the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, needed to both address climate change and to help restore nature. However, we are concerned that the location and scale of the proposed Machair Wind development will cause unacceptable environmental damage. In particular we are concerned by the anticipated impact on marine life, bird life, and on landscapes and seascapes. Given these concerns, we intend to object to the proposed development.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re quite right. It would be an irreversible change to one of Europe\u2019s most celebrated Atlantic seascapes. But who benefits and how does it work?<\/p>\n
The Crown Estate Scotland leases the seabed. Iberdrola builds the turbines. The electricity goes south.<\/p>\n
As for who benefits, it\u2019s slim pickings. Fiona Brunton from Calgary, Mull has written: \u201cScottish Power Renewables (SPR)\u00a0 has confirmed it will not commit to community benefit before consent is granted. Current indications include potential for grants of up to \u00a3500, and five apprenticeships across the whole of Argyll and Bute.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the avoidance of any doubt that is shocking and derisory.\u00a0 Residents are being asked to give up their cultural heritage, their marine biodiversity, their dark skies, and their visitor economy, in return for pennies.<\/p>\n
The whole debacle exposes the grim farce that is UK energy policy as played out in Scotland. We have the double-whammy of losing key assets such as Mossmorran and Grangemouth without any say, and having projects like Machair Wind imposed on us. Scotland is therefore simultaneously deindustrialised and inappropriately reindustrialised. This is about a fundamental lack of energy sovereignty.<\/p>\n
Ecosystem Collapse and National Security<\/p>\n
Such a development comes in the very same week as ITV published extracts of the report the government didn\u2019t want you to see.<\/p>\n
The contents were so shocking the government tried to bury it.<\/p>\n
In January, the government published a report \u2013 Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse and National Security \u2013 on the security and economic threats resulting from nature collapse. The findings were so dark that the government tried to suppress it.<\/p>\n
George Monbiot has written\u00a0[The UK government didn\u2019t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I\u2019m not surprised<\/a>]:<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important document published by the UK government since the general election emerged last week only through a freedom of information request. The\u00a0national security assessment<\/a>\u00a0on biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse was supposed to have been published in\u00a0October 2025<\/a>, but the apparatchiks in Downing Street sought to make it disappear. Apparently there were\u00a0two reasons<\/a>: because its conclusions were \u201ctoo negative\u201d, and because it would draw attention to the government\u2019s failure to act.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s conclusions are devastating: \u201cIf current rates of\u00a0biodiversity\u00a0loss\u00a0continue, every critical\u00a0ecosystem\u00a0is\u00a0on\u00a0a pathway to\u00a0collapse.\u201d\u00a0In any sane world would be front-page news everywhere and the moment for decisive, unprecedented action. Instead, we\u2019ve been listening to nutters rave about efforts to\u00a0green urban spaces<\/a>, or swivel-eyed loons rant against Net Zero.<\/p>\n The report was compiled\u00a0by the joint intelligence committee<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 which includes the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t FOE.<\/p>\n Monbiot lays out some of the consequences revealed by the report:<\/p>\n \u201cIt tells us that \u201cecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse (irreversible loss of function beyond repair).\u201d This presents a threat to \u201cUK national security and prosperity\u201d. It says \u201cthe world is already experiencing impacts including crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks. Threats will increase with degradation and intensify with collapse.\u201d The results will include geopolitical and economic instability, increased conflict and competition for resources. \u201cIt is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.\u201d It also warns that \u201cconflict and military escalation will become more likely, both within and between states, as groups compete for arable land and food and water resources\u201d.<\/p>\n You can read the full, accessible version of the assessment on the UK Government Publications<\/a> site.<\/p>\n It\u2019s in this context that we have to consider projects like the Machair Wind farm. When is anyone going to wake up to the fact that the relentless assault on the natural world has consequences for us all. That endless rapacious extractivism is undermining everything?<\/p>\n Dysfunction and Cost<\/p>\n So far, so grim.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t need to produce more energy. We already generate the equivalent of 100% of electricity consumption from renewables. But we can\u2019t distribute it. We already pay \u2018constraint payments\u2019 to energy companies to NOT produce energy when the grid can\u2019t handle it.<\/p>\n Now even energy companies are asking the same question: why are we building more wind farms?<\/p>\n Pete Miller from Octopus Energy has said: \u201cIt\u2019s crazy to build wind farms where there\u2019s no grid, then pay them to sit idle, and then pay the most expensive fossil fuel plants to generate the power instead.\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s exactly what we currently do.<\/p>\n Simone Rossi from EDF Energy said: \u201cWe should stop building wind farms. As a country, we don\u2019t need more electricity generation capacity. We need to use the generation capacity we\u2019ve already got.\u201d<\/p>\n To be 100% clear, I am 100% in favour of renewable energy, and have advocated for it for thirty years or so. But this is not about energy it is about power.<\/p>\n Scotland is in the midst of an onshore renewable energy revolution. It\u2019s a revolution that could produce clean energy, thousands of good jobs, a reliable source of income for rural communities, and conquer fuel poverty. But it does none of these things. It is creating uproar and outrage by communities swamped by wind-farm proposals and the accompanying infrastructure, and shocked by the industrialisation of the Highlands and Islands, with little benefit to see for it. Many communities experience renewable energy as something done to them, rather than something for them or by them.<\/p>\n The energy system that the mass of renewable energy feeds into is a complete shambles. The renewable energy sector is huge and growing. According to\u00a0Equitable Energy Research<\/a> the combined capacity of operational onshore and offshore wind projects in the Highlands and Islands is around 5 GW. If all projects currently in the pipeline were to be built, the total capacity could exceed 25 GW. But it is supplying energy to a supply system that can\u2019t cope, hence the aforementioned \u2018constraint payments\u2019.<\/p>\n If you wanted a metaphor for everything that is wrong with Late Britain, here it is. Endemic fuel poverty sits alongside enormous corporate profit, while a moratorium on onshore wind in England, maintained by the Conservatives for fourteen years, is in stark contrast to a Gold Rush for renewables in Scotland. We have a crisis of over-abundance of supply alongside people in the coldest parts of the UK unable to adequately heat their homes.<\/p>\n If we stand back from this crisis, we see that the problem is one of gigantism, an addiction to growth, and an inability to stand up to corporate power. The onshore renewables industry is vast \u2013 frequently foreign-owned \u2013 and far from the demand it is supposed to supply, leading to massive costs of distribution.<\/p>\n In a sense, the energy\/democracy crisis is Scotland in microcosm.<\/p>\n Liberate Technology<\/p>\n Scotland\u2019s whole economy is dominated by models which are extractive, and a vision for an independent Scotland needs to be one which changes those models at a fundamental level.<\/p>\n The problem of being imprisoned within our current, failing mindsets is neither unique to energy nor confined to Scotland. We can easily look to other near neighbours for examples of better practice: to the Faroes, where fuel poverty is a thing of the past, or to Denmark across the North Sea where community-owned wind is at 52%. In Scotland, it is 0.2%.<\/p>\n The tragedy of living in an energy-abundant country, suffering endemic fuel poverty, while exporting vast amounts of energy for consumers hundreds of miles away is clear to everyone.<\/p>\n So what to do?<\/p>\n One idea is really to change the way we are viewing energy itself. The challenge is to imagine a different kind of energy system altogether based on addressing energy as a human need, not a commodity, and for the energy system to be decentralised and put in the hands of public ownership. This could take different forms: micro-renewables owned by community trusts and larger-scale projects owned by national bodies.<\/p>\n As it stands, the renewables revolution offers the opportunity to revitalise the Highlands and Islands and provide an income stream for sustainable housing and improved infrastructure. Instead, we are industrialising the highlands for the benefit of private corporations.<\/p>\n We really need to explore what the new technologies can do for energy democracy and environmental justice. At the moment we have a singular model, not just of gigantism but of a National Grid which is never really been questioned.<\/p>\n \u2018The Grid\u2019 stands like a figment of an\u00a0Iain M Banks novel<\/a>, a gigantic piece of technology that is woven into the fabric of everyone\u2019s lives and is considered an unquestionable good whilst being unable to fulfil even its most basic purpose. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of this entity: landscape, ecosystems, serenity, peatlands, birdlife and wildlife.<\/p>\n