Scotland could be fossil-fuel free by 2030

A study backed by WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) has tested the viability of the Scottish government’s current policy goal to de-carbonise the country’s electricity generation by 2030. Their target is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour from 271g to 50g. The policy assumes that new technology to capture and store carbon will be available to use at scale but WWF have considered it risky as there are currently no commercial carbon capture and storage operations in the UK.

However, this new technology is not necessarily needed to decarbonise Scotland’s electricity sector and the report concludes that “a renewables-based, efficient, flexible, electricity system is perfectly feasible by 2030” especially considering Scotland’s abundance of wind and wave energy resources and strong tradition of engineering innovation.

Even though electricity production accounts for around a third of Scotland’s emissions, renewables are already the country’s biggest electricity generator and in November 2014 wind turbines alone produced more than 100% of the country’s domestic electricity needs.

The report calculates the cost of meeting the 2030 goal with a renewables-based system is £663million a year – substantially cheaper than the £1.85billion price tag of the new carbon capture and storage technology.

This is definitely a step in the right direction especially considering that 2014 was the UK’s hottest year on record (Met office), and the story is the same on the other side of the world as Australia had its 3rd hottest year on record in 2014.

Source: Guardian online Jan 2015