THERE’S a funny clip on YouTube of Donald Trump’s appearance on the David Letterman show on American television when he talks about owning “thousands of acres of Scotland” and his plans to make the dunes “even more beautiful than they are now”.
Letterman says he’s imagining how beautiful the dunes must be “on the west coast of Scotland – is that right?” to which Trump replies: “Yes, more or less. There’s so much of them.”
East, west, more or less? Who cares?
Even given his geographic uncertainty, it might have been prudent for The Donald to do more thorough research before committing to his golf resort project some miles up the coast from Aberdeen.
In particular, someone should have advised him that Aberdeen is the energy capital of Europe, and that an offshore wind project of at least as much economic significance as his own was already significantly advanced when he appeared on the north-east scene.
Mr Trump’s views are well known. He does not want the Aberdeen wind project, more correctly known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), to go ahead on its long-ago-chosen location, a couple of miles or so south-ish of his golf resort project.
The point which should not be lost sight of before this develops further into a destructive stand-off is that the two projects are entirely compatible and it is creating an undesirable false dichotomy to suggest that the Scottish Government has to choose between them.
I take no satisfaction from the dilemma which First Minister Alex Salmond is supposedly confronted with. I don’t think there needs to be a dilemma. Each project should continue to be considered on its merits, without excessive cross-reference. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that golfers and offshore wind turbines are incompatible.
This approach should, I hope, appeal to Mr Salmond because the EOWDC offers one of his best hopes of retaining credibility for his insistence that Scotland will generate the equivalent of our entire energy needs from renewables by around 2020.
Take a quick run through the renewables card. Essentially, onshore wind is still the only game in town or indeed countryside. Technically, it is a no-brainer and economically, it makes excellent sense for investors. The problem is that an awful lot of people – irrationally in my view – do not like the look of wind turbines and that movement is growing in Scotland rather than receding. And local authorities are responding to that perceived mood. More projects are being refused than approved. Whereas the current outcry is in response to a few hundred mooted turbines, the need will be for thousands, if onshore wind is to carry the lion’s share of Scotland’s renewables drive.
Meanwhile, harvesting wave and tidal energy is years behind wind and I am in favour of persisting with experimentation. But that is not an energy policy. It is a research and development policy and nothing wrong with that – just so long as we do not get the two confused.
Incidentally, I was reminded of how little has been delivered in the past decade by the anniversary of 9/11. Where was I on that terrible day? The answer is that I was on Islay as the then energy minister, visiting the world’s only commercial wavepower station at Portnahaven. I never dreamt then that, 10 years on, it would not have been joined by a single megawatt of output from other marine renewable developments in spite of all the investment poured in.
So that leaves offshore wind and explains why Scotland needs the EOWDC at this hour. There is not going to be any short-term Scottish bonanza in offshore wind because we do not have many near-to-shore sites.
But if we are ever going to move into deeper waters in order to harness these fabled resources in the North Atlantic, we first need to develop the means for building and maintaining these facilities through the multi-role European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, the original vision for which belongs to the private-public partnership, Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group.
The reason a coalition of public bodies, including Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils, have remained so commendably loyal to the AREG vision over the past decade is not just that they want a windfarm off their coast.
They understand that this project is crucial in achieving the key aspiration of transferring oil and gas North Sea skills into the renewables industry for deep waters – long talked about and now gradually coming to fruition.
That is the huge prize that can come from the EOWDC and really begin to give some substance to the claims about what renewables are going to do for Scotland.
At the same time, the good people of Aberdeenshire and their political representatives have indicated strong support for the Trump project. They need to channel some of that into persuading him not to get hung up on creating an imaginary show-stopper.
Both projects are needed.
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