LETTERS: SSE ‘evasive’ over hydrogen hub plan at Gordonbush Wind Farm
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When representatives of SSE sat in my kitchen they promised me “openness and transparency” about their planned hydrogen plant at Gordonbush. What I am getting instead is evasion and public relations spin, writes Christina Perera.
I could pull apart all of SSE’s parroted responses. Like their nonsensical claim that tankers will not pass through Brora if they travel south down the A9; and the fact that their “18 tankers a day” adds up to 4,992 additional potentially explosive, large vehicles, operating six days a week, all year round.
I have asked SSE repeatedly for information about the blast zones and debris fields if there was a catastrophic event at the site, or if a “tube tanker” was damaged whilst passing through Brora, Golspie or Helmsdale.
SSE’s response is a bland, non-specific answer about safety being core to what they do. Why do they refuse to put in writing such vitally important safety information?
SSE dangle future “community benefits” of jobs and road improvements as incentives to us hosting an industrial plant and almost 5,000 road tanker movements a year.
Of course, there will be local jobs during the construction phase, but once opened the plant won’t have any staff on site. It will be operated remotely through computers in Perth, Edinburgh, or even Denmark.
Specialist drivers are needed for the tankers, but SSE will be recruiting fully qualified and experienced people from outwith the area. Why aren’t they more transparent about there being no long-term jobs for Brora?
SSE say they will “improve” the Strath Brora road. The road surface does need repairing – but only because SSE damaged it with their oversized wind farm transports 18 months ago.
So will road “improvement” in the future be purely because SSE needs it to accommodate nearly 5,000 enormous tanker movements a year?
I am not against progress, or genuinely sustainable, renewable energy; and I do recognise that something must be done about the climate crisis. But SSE’s development by stealth is completely inappropriate here. SSE clearly views Brora as a commodity to be exploited and that we can easily be fobbed off by their evasion and half truths.
Christina Perera
Ascoile
Brora
Gordonbush too distant from markets for hydrogen hub
The response by SSE to the issues raised in the article about a planned hydrogen production hub at Gordonbush Wind Farm (Northern Times, April 29) does not feel reassuring, writes Muriel Mowat.
The fact that they need to apply for “Hazardous Substance Consent” and submit notification for Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) to obtain a COMAH license must surely raise questions about the wisdom of constructing such a plant in Strath Brora.
The plan would involve up to 10 tube tankers containing highly volatile, explosive material, negotiating eight miles of single-track road six days a week.
That is before considering the ongoing transportation along the busy A9 going through a number of villages such as Brora, Golspie and Helmsdale.
One also thinks about the number of accidents, some really serious, closing the road, and resulting in fatalities, which occur regularly on the A9.
The main market in Scotland for hydrogen is heavy industry and Angus Robertson MSP has been reported as saying: “Scotland has an enormous opportunity to become a global leader in renewable hydrogen production.
“There is a huge demand in Germany for hydrogen imports. We will work closely with German Federal and Länder governments to deliver the renewable energy needs of the future.”
That being the case, it does not make sense to produce hydrogen so far from where it will be distributed to the main market and for export. Also, The proposed site for this plant is next to designated wildland.
It has been suggested that such production is to be fuelled by excess electricity generated by wind turbines.
I do question why it is not possible simply to transport this electricity along the power lines to a plant site that is not next to designated wildland, and would not require potentially dangerous transportation along single-track roads and the main road already used by all transport heading north and south from the Pentland Firth to the central belt.
This is untried and untested technology in the UK. I find it astonishing that SSE feel Strath Brora is a suitable site for such experimental technology.
I note that SSE makes reference in their response to “community benefit”. Will any community benefit outweigh the impact on people, house values, and tourism along the strath and this section of the NC500 resulting from such a development?
Muriel Mowat
Ascoile
Strath Brora
