Rob Edwards

Simon Pepper 1947-2018

Simon Pepper, who has died aged 70, played a major role in shaping environmental campaigning and policy in Scotland. He made WWF Scotland into one of the country’s most influential pressure groups, forged dozens of different organisations into a powerful alliance and was a key advisor to successive governments.

In 1985 Simon was WWF Scotland’s only employee, working from his study under the stairs at home near Aberfeldy. Over the course of the next 20 years under his leadership it grew to be an effective force for environmental good, with up to 20 staff.

With skilled behind-the-scenes negotiating, he helped stop a destructive plan to gouge a superquarry into a mountain on the isle of Harris. The French multinational behind the plan, Lafarge, sponsored WWF International to the tune of £3.5 million and admitted that internal pressure from WWF Scotland helped persuade it to abandon the superquarry in 2004.

Simon also was key in getting Scottish ministers to establish two national parks at Loch Lomond and the Cairngorms in 2002 and 2003. He fought plans for a funicular railway up Cairngorm, which turned out to be a financial and environmental disaster, and campaigned against fish farms and tax breaks for commercial forestry.

Simon knew that more progress could be achieved if Scotland’s disparate conservation groups learnt to work better together. That’s why he devoted much energy to founding Scottish Environment Link in 1987, which now includes more than 35 organisations representing half a million people.

The Millennium Forest for Scotland was Simon’s brainchild, and he helped run it from 1995 to 2001. That resulted in £27 million being spent restoring 22,000 hectares of woodland.

He served on the boards of eight government agencies, offering ministers advice on forestry, deer, wildlife conservation, sustainable development, climate change and lottery funding. He was elected rector of St Andrews University from 2005 to 2008 and - to his embarrassment - was awarded an OBE.

Buccleuch accused of “breathtaking arrogance” over huge wind farm plan

from Sunday Herald, 14 June 2015

Buccleuch's North Sanquhar Moor wind farm

The Duke of Buccleuch lobbied the Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, and government officials behind closed doors to fast-track a £1 billion plan for one of Scotland’s biggest-ever wind farms, according to internal documents obtained by the Sunday Herald.

In a “private and confidential” presentation last November, Buccleuch’s chief executive, John Glen, urged Ewing to “debottleneck” the approval process for building 140 wind turbines across a large swathe of moorland east of Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway. He also named the senior civil servant whom he thought should assist with the project.

If it goes ahead, the wind farm will reap multi-million pound profits for Buccleuch, the UK’s largest private landowner. But critics fear that it could damage the prospects for popular, smaller schemes that could bring more community benefits.

The Buccleuch estate has been attacked by politicians, community and environmental groups for using “insider influence” to try and get its way behind the scenes.

Joan McAlpine, the SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, accused Buccleuch of “breathtaking arrogance” and of acting covertly to avoid public scrutiny. “I have serious concerns about the secretive way in which Buccleuch operates,” she said.

“The Sunday Herald’s exposure of such behaviour by Buccleuch will anger many SNP members and supporters who want to see powerful landlords brought to heel.”

Glen denied being secretive and insisted that the estate had “acted in good faith and with the utmost propriety” to promote rural development.

Sturgeon urged: investigate your Energy Minister's decisions for UK's largest private landowner

from Sunday Herald, 01 March 2015

The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is being asked to investigate the conduct of her own Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, after he was accused of blocking one windfarm to pave the way for another backed by the Duke of Buccleuch, Britain's largest private landowner.

The accusations – which are denied by the Scottish Government and Buccleuch – have been prompted by Ewing’s shock decision on 18 February to reject a popular plan to erect 30 wind turbines at Sandy Knowe at Kirkconnel in Dumfries and Galloway. The planning application attracted 81 representations of support, and only two objections.

The Buccleuch estate had originally objected to the application, but withdrew its submission in March 2014. On 12 February 2015 a company involving Buccleuch gave formal notice that it would be applying for planning permission for eight wind turbines at nearby Glenmuckloch, an old opencast coal mine.

One of the reasons given by Ewing for rejecting Sandy Knowe was that the landscape could be damaged by a "coalescence between potential clusters” of wind turbines. He was concerned that the cumulative visual impact of multiple developments could turn the area into a “windfarm landscape”.

This has led political opponents to accuse Ewing of rejecting Sandy Knowe so that Glenmuckloch would have a clear run. They question whether his behaviour complies with the Scottish Government’s code on ministerial conduct.

Scottish government accused of giving up on wave power

from The Guardian, 09 December 2014

The Scottish government has been accused of abandoning wave power after one leading company has been forced into administration and another has had to shed most of its staff. 

Pelamis, developers of a floating offshore wave energy converter that looks like a large red sea snake, collapsed suddenly into administration on 21 November, with the subsequent loss of 40 jobs. Aquamarine, which is behind a yellow near-shore device known as Oyster, is making about 30 staff redundant.

The deadline for offers to buy Pelamis, which is based at Leith in Edinburgh, passed at 10.30 this morning. The administrator, KPMG, said there had been interest, but won’t be giving further details for “some time”.

Both wave companies have complained about the difficulties of acquiring adequate funding. The job losses were “a consequence of the considerable financial, regulatory and technical challenges faced by the ocean energy sector as a whole,” according to Aquamarine’s chief executive, John Malcolm.

But now the Scottish Green Party has put the blame squarely on Scottish National Party ministers, whom they backed during the independence referendum. Ministers have previously been lauded for their commitment to renewable energy. 

Demand for ban on propellers that slice hundreds of seals to death

from Sunday Herald, 02 November 2014

New evidence that hundreds of seals have been slashed to death and beheaded by a type of propeller used in shipping and offshore industries has prompted a powerful plea for a worldwide ban.

A scientific study for the Scottish government by the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University has confirmed that seals caught in ducted propellers suffer horrific and fatal “corkscrew” gashes. Larger seals could be decapitated by the blades, it suggests.

Ducted propellers run inside a casing, which makes them more efficient at low speeds, but it is thought the animals get trapped between the propeller blades and the casing.

Angered by the slaughter, a coalition of 26 wildlife and conservation groups is now demanding a Scottish, UK and international ban on the guilty propellers. They have written to the Scottish and UK governments warning that they are breaking the law by failing to protect seals.

“This is one of the UK’s biggest marine conservation and welfare tragedies,” said Sarah Dolman, 
Northeast Atlantic programme manager for Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the group that co-ordinated the joint letter.

“This latest evidence confirms that seals are being sliced up by some kinds of ships’ propellers and possibly in much greater numbers than previously realised. Despite the worst affected populations of harbour seals heading for local extinction, we have not seen any evidence that the UK and devolved governments plan to act to stop these needless deaths.”

First eagle killed by wind farm in Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 25 May 2014

For the first time in Scotland a wind farm has been officially blamed for killing an eagle, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

A white-tailed sea eagle, reintroduced as part of a nature conservation programme, was found dead in February at Burnfoot Hill wind farm in the Ochil hills near Tillicoutry in Clackmannanshire. A post mortem by government-approved scientists concluded that a “likely cause of death” was collision with a wind turbine. 

Eagles have been killed by wind farms in Germany and Norway before, but no deaths have previously been recorded in Scotland. Conservationists stress that many more eagles are killed by landowners, gamekeepers, power lines and trains.

But evidence that a sea eagle has now died after crashing into a wind turbine is likely to ignite fierce controversy, and trigger renewed questions about where wind farms should be sited. 

Sea eagles were driven to extinction in Scotland early in the 20th Century, and have been reintroduced from Norway in a series of government-backed releases beginning in the 1980s. Bigger than golden eagles, they are the UK’s largest bird of prey, with an estimated 79 pairs now successfully breeding.

Waste land across Glasgow to be assessed for solar energy farms

from Sunday Herald, 27 April 2014 

It may be hard to believe, but sunshine is now in line to help transform Glasgow into one of the world’s greenest cities.

Glasgow City Council is about to launch a project to identify sites for small solar farms on 400 patches of wasteland scattered across the city. The plan is to install arrays of solar panels to generate clean electricity on vacant or derelict sites owned by the council.

Despite the sun’s relatively rare appearance in the sky over Scotland’s largest city, experts say that tapping its rays for power in this way can play a vital role in ensuring a low-pollution future for Glasgow. 

The initiative has been enthusiastically welcomed by renewable energy experts and companies, who see a bright future for solar power across Scotland. Edinburgh is looking at putting solar farms in disused quarries and on pit bings, and 16 major solar electricity projects have won planning approval elsewhere in Scotland in the last two years.

Scotland already has 116 megawatts of solar capacity from more than 31,000 installations, mostly panels on the roofs of peoples’ homes (see tables below). But this is now seen by many as just the start.

Glasgow council has teamed up with Strathclyde University to conduct a comprehensive survey of 550 hectares of city land that is currently not being used. Sites will be assessed for technical and policy constraints to see which ones could accommodate mini solar farms. 

Solar farms are arrays of photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on the ground and designed to capture the sun’s radiation and turn it into electricity. According to the solar industry, just one hectare of panels can produce enough electricity to power up to 150 homes.

Community wins £13m deal from French wind power company

from Sunday Herald, 16 February 2014

Local communities have won a record-breaking £13 million deal from a French multinational company planning to build a wind farm near Edinburgh. 

A healthy slice of the profits from 22 wind turbines proposed for Fauch Hill in West Lothian will be shared by surrounding towns and villages – plus all the profits from an additional turbine that will be wholly owned by local residents.

The deal, agreed after long and hard negotiations, is reckoned to be one of the best ever won from a wind power developer, and could have major implications for other communities that are considering hosting wind farms in Scotland.

The 69-megawatt wind farm is being proposed by the Louis Dreyfus Group, a privately owned company founded in 1851 in Alsace, France. Two opinion polls have suggested that the farm is supported by around 60 per cent of local residents.

But the development has been opposed by some environmental groups, and was rejected by West Lothian Council in 2012. Last year it was the subject of a public inquiry, and is now awaiting a decision by Scottish ministers.

Push for liquid air batteries to help meet energy needs

from The Herald, 03 February 2014

Scottish ministers are coming under pressure to launch a £1.5 billion programme to store energy using ‘liquid air’ batteries and other technologies to help meet future power needs.

An expert report published this week by the left-leaning Jimmy Reid Foundation calls for a “radical rethink” by the Scottish government. It should adopt “a much more ambitious strategy” on energy storage to create jobs, wealth and exports, the report says.

The idea has been backed by a leading Scottish Nationalist, the renewables industry and environmentalists. The Scottish government accepts that the opportunities for energy storage will be “a key part of our future low carbon heat supply”.

Electricity supply and demand fluctuate, and one of the challenges for managers of the national grid is to try and keep them matched. One solution is to store more power that can be tapped when needed.

This is already done with pumped storage schemes like that at Ben Cruachan in Argyll, where water is pumped uphill by surplus electricity and then allowed to run down again to generate power when it’s required.

How water from old coal mines could heat a third of Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 17 November 2013

As much as a third of the heat needed to keep Scotland warm could be provided by tapping geothermal energy from old coal mines across the central belt, a major new study for the Scottish government has concluded.

Warm water piped up from abandoned mine shafts between Glasgow and Edinburgh and in Ayrshire and Fife could help heat many thousands of homes and other buildings for decades, researchers say. They are urging ministers to embark upon an ambitious bid to make geothermal energy a major new source of clean, renewable power within a few years.

The two-volume, 345-page study was conducted by the US energy firm, Aecom, and the British Geological Survey and has been published by the Scottish government. Geothermal energy from deep underground has “the potential to play a significant role in Scotland‘s future energy provision”, it says. 

The most promising source is the water that has flooded the hundreds of disused mine shafts that underlay large areas of the central belt (see map below). Heated by the warmth of the earth, it averages 17 degrees centigrade, with higher temperatures at deeper levels.

According to the study, the water can be pumped to the surface and, in combination with modern heat exchange technology, used to supply central heating and hot water to buildings. It estimates that water from Scotland’s 600 cubic kilometres of old mine workings could provide a “maximum accessible heat resource” of 12 gigawatts.

Big six under fire for blaming price rises on green costs

from Sunday Herald 17 November 2013

The big six energy companies have been accused of misleading the public by blaming green charges for rising gas and electricity bills. But in fact it’s the increasing cost of fossil fuels - particularly gas - that is mainly responsible for recent price rises, say critics.

They point to a UK government analysis showing that charges for insulating homes and supporting renewables make up only nine per cent of the average household energy bill. The cost of buying electricity and gas on the wholesale market accounts for nearly half the bill.

The major energy companies highlighted green charges as one of the reasons for introducing price increases averaging eight per cent over the last few weeks. This prompted the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to promise a “roll back” of green charges, and speculation that the Chancellor, George Osborne, will cut them back in his autumn financial statement on 5 December. 

But an authoritative analysis by the Westminster Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) shows that only £112 of the annual average household energy bill of £1,267 is due to so-called green charges. These include £47 to help low-income households insulate their homes, £30 to support wind and other renewable energy sources and £11 for warm home discounts for pensioners. 

By far the biggest portion of the bill – £597 – comes from the cost of buying wholesale energy to distribute to customers. Then there’s £257 to pay for the distribution networks, £240 to cover supply costs and profits and £60 for value added tax (see table below).

Pollution from planned wood-burning plant will be ‘like two million cars’

23 June 2013

A proposed wood-burning power station will belch as much toxic pollution into the air as two million car exhausts and put public health at serious risk, environmentalists are warning.

Controversial plans for a new £325 million plant at the port of Dundee are due to be considered by city councillors tomorrow. But critics say that hazardous emissions from the smokestack could worsen air pollution in the city, which is already at dangerous levels.

Like motor vehicles, burning wood produces tiny sooty particles and nitrogen dioxide gas, which can trigger breathing problems, heart attacks and strokes. Estimates by government advisers suggest that air pollution could be responsible for 3,000 premature deaths in Scotland every year.

The Dundee plant is one of four originally planned by Forth Energy, which brings the harbour company, Forth Ports, together with the power company, Scottish and Southern Energy. A plant at Leith in Edinburgh was abandoned after protests, a plant at Rosyth in Fife is awaiting a decision by ministers and a plant at Grangemouth in Falkirk was given the go-ahead earlier this month.

If the three remaining plants are built, they will be fuelled by importing a total of 1.7 million tonnes of wood chips and pellets every year from felling forests in North America and elsewhere. Forth Energy claims that this will cut climate pollution, but this is disputed by environmental groups.

Trump adverts against Salmond and wind farms ruled misleading

from Sunday Herald, 21 April 2013

An advertising campaign by Donald Trump, the US property tycoon, attacking Alex Salmond’s support for wind farms will this week be condemned as “misleading” by the UK government’s advertising watchdog.

The Sunday Herald has learnt that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) will publish on Wednesday a damning ruling on adverts that appeared in Scottish newspapers in December. The adverts linked the First Minister’s backing for wind power to the Scottish government’s decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. 

The ruling, the second against Trump’s anti-wind farm campaign in Scotland, has been welcomed by environmental groups and wind lobbyists. But it has prompted the Trump Organisation, which confirmed the ruling against it, to berate the ASA for being “disorganised, inefficient and wasteful”.

The adverts featured a picture of a forest of wind turbines on a hill overlooking a motorway in California under the heading “Is this the future for Scotland?” Below was a photograph of Salmond smiling and giving the thumbs up.

“Tourism will suffer and the beauty of the country is in jeopardy,” said the text. “This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi ‘for humane reasons’ after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.”

The adverts, which ran in the Aberdeen Press and Journal and the Dundee Courier on 14 December 2012, prompted 21 complaints to the ASA. They argued that the text and imagery were misleading, and the reference to al-Megrahi offensive.

The ASA has concluded that the claim that tourism would suffer “could not be substantiated”. The picture implying that a wind farm in Scotland would look like the turbines in California was “misleading”, it said.

Tories accused of ‘hypocrisy’ over £50,000 a year profits from wind farms

from Sunday Herald, 17 February 2013

The Scottish Conservatives have been accused of “hypocritical posturing” for opposing wind farms when three of their MSPs together stand to profit by at least £50,000 a year from them.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that Jamie McGrigor, the party’s’ environment spokesman, Alex Fergusson, the Scottish Parliament’s former presiding officer, and John Scott, the current deputy presiding officer, are all expecting to receive a substantial annual income from wind turbines on or near their land.

They have declared their involvement in the latest register of MSPs’ interests, but political opponents and environmental groups say that it conflicts with the new anti-wind farm policy adopted by the Scottish Conservatives last month.

A report launched by the party leader, Ruth Davidson MSP, demanded a big cut in the number of wind farms planned on land, and for wind subsidies to be slashed by 50 per cent. It also called for councils to be given the power to impose a one-year moratorium on any new wind turbines.

People power wind turbine blocked by Scottish Water

from The Herald, 01 May 2012

A pioneering plan for Scotland’s first ‘people power’ wind turbine in an urban area has been blocked by Scottish Water because of an insurance hitch, undermining ministers’ attempts to boost locally-owned renewable energy developments.

The voluntary groups proposing to build a large wind turbine at Seafield sewage works in Leith, Edinburgh, are furious that they have been thwarted by the government-owned company, despite having already received backing from the Scottish government and from the private sector.

They are now demanding that ministers step in and order Scottish Water to find a way of enabling the turbine to be built. “We are bitterly disappointed to have got this far only for the project to be stalled on what looks like a technicality,” said Charlotte Encombe, chair of the Greener Leith group.

“We are exploring every available option to resolve this impasse, and will not give up on the project yet. We owe it to the thousands of supporters who voted for us, the hundreds of local people who will benefit and our project funders to try to find a way to break the deadlock.”

Greener Leith, along with the neighbouring group, Portobello Transition Town, proposed building a turbine to be owned and run for the benefit of local people three years ago. Experts identified Seafield sewage works as the best site, and all the funding is now in place to make a planning application.

Trump contradicts himself - again

comment, 26 April 2012 

A small footnote to this week’s Trump circus.

At the Scottish parliament’s energy committee hearing yesterday (422KB pdf), Donald Trump attacked the Scottish government as “foolhardy” for setting targets to cut climate pollution by boosting renewable energy.

“I think that your CO2 targets are absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “Here you are, destroying the financial wellbeing of Scotland to meet phoney and totally random CO2 targets.”

But in the letter (129KB pdf) sent on his behalf by his lawyers to wind power developers, Vattenfall, in December 2010, the message could hardly have been more of a contrast.

“The Trump Organisation fully supports efforts being made by the Scottish government and the Scottish renewable energy industry to achieve ambitious national targets to meet 20% of Scotland’s energy demand from renewable sources by 2020,” it said.

Trump supports wind power, says leaked letter

from Sunday Herald, 22 April 2012

Donald Trump told Alex Salmond that he “fully supports” the Scottish Government’s drive to build more wind farms...before launching a vitriolic campaign against them.

In December 2010 Trump also pledged his support to the company building a turbine test site, the same company he now accuses of helping to destroy the Scottish landscape and place the tourism industry at risk.

A letter leaked to the Sunday Herald reveals that the US property tycoon warmly endorsed the targets adopted by Scottish ministers and industry to boost the use of renewable energy sources. Trump backed “appropriately located wind farms” and wished wind power projects “every success”. 

The revelations could hardly have come at a more embarrassing time for Trump, as he prepares to jet into Edinburgh this week to appear before a Scottish Parliamentary committee and attack the government’s wind power plans. He is also supporting planned anti-wind farm protests.

Trump’s hitherto hidden praise for renewables is likely to be seized upon by MSPs quizzing him at Wednesday’s hearing of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee. “Trump's thinking on the issue is as inconsistent as it is irrational,” said the Green MSP, Patrick Harvie, a member of the committee. 

“How can we possibly take his views on renewable energy seriously? It increasingly seems his bellyaching about wind farms is really about him not getting his own way.”

Trump has recently ratcheted up attacks on Salmond and his government in order to try and defeat a plan by the Swedish energy company, Vattenfall, to erect an 11-turbine test site in the sea off Aberdeen Bay. It is about a mile from the golf course Trump has built on the coast at the Menie estate, and he says it will spoil the view from his greens.

Trump has consistently opposed plans for the Vattenfall site but more recently has widened his opposition to attack the whole concept of wind farms.

Most Scots support wind power, says poll

from Sunday Herald, 22 April 2012

As many as 71% of Scots support wind power as part of the country’s energy mix, according an opinion poll conducted for the renewables industry and released today.

This reinforces the results of a UK-wide poll published last week, which found that 67% back wind power. It will be further confirmed by a third poll on energy for Friends of the Earth due out tomorrow.

The polls are all designed to undermine the anti-wind message being brought to Holyrood this week by the US tycoon, Donald Trump, and the protestors he is backing. They think they are winning the battle for public opinion. 

But the poll unveiled today found that 39% strongly agreed and a further 33% tended to agree with a statement supporting “continuing development of wind power as part of a mix of renewables and conventional forms of electricity generation”. Only seven per cent strongly disagreed with the statement.

The poll of 1,014 people in Scotland was carried out earlier this month by YouGov for Scottish Renewables, which represents wind power companies. Support for wind power was strongest amongst young people aged between 18 and 24.

“This lays to rest once and for all the idea that people of Scotland do not support wind power,” said Niall Stuart, the chief executive of Scottish Renewables. He urged the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, which is due to hear Trump’s evidence on Wednesday, to take note.

The Donald unzipped

from Sunday Herald, 22 April 2012

“Woah”, said Donald Trump, as he stared at Miss Scotland at a reception to launch his golf course in Aberdeenshire. “She’s beautiful. She may want to work with sales and stuff.”

The apparent willingness to offer a woman a job on the basis of her looks is one of the most revealing moments in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the controversial US billionaire and reality TV star. For seasoned Trump-watchers, it will come as no surprise.

The 65-year-old man with the world’s most famous toupee surrounds himself with attractive young women. He is co-owner of the organisation that runs Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA beauty contests.

Dubbed “The Donald”, Trump has been married three times, and has five children and four grandchildren. His latest wife, Melania Knauss, to whom he was hitched in 2005, is a former swimwear model from Slovenia. She is 24 years younger than him.

His chosen representative in Scotland, Sarah Malone, is the former “Face of Aberdeen” as a result of a competition in the local evening paper. “I called her,” Trump told a golf magazine. “I said: ‘Do you know anything about golf?’ She said: ‘No.’ So, I said: ‘Good, you’re hired.’”

Scotland's spectacular scenery 'being wrecked by windfarm vultures'

from The Guardian, 28 February 2012

Scotland's spectacular mountain scenery is being wrecked by "windfarm vultures" making millions on the back of government subsidies, an environmental group says.

The warning follows a decision by the Scottish government to approve a 59-turbine windfarm on the Glenfiddich estate on Speyside, south of Dufftown. The estate is owned by Christopher Moran, a multi-millionaire London financier whose insurance and property business is said to be worth more than £200m.

Critics allege that he is now set to make more than £20m over 25 years for leasing his land for the windfarm, which is 1.4 miles from the boundary of the Cairngorms national park. They blame the "massive financial incentives" offered by Westminster.

"Christopher Moran is just one of many windfarm vultures circling around the Cairngorms national park," said Dave Morris, director of Ramblers Scotland. "Scotland's reputation as a beautiful, unspoilt country is being destroyed as massive industrial-scale wind turbines sprout from the hillsides. Never in the history of public subsidy has so much been given to so few, for so little public benefit."

"He's going to make another shedload out of this," said Robert McHugh, who runs a holiday cottage business near the proposed windfarm, known as Dorenell, and was involved in a local opposition group. "People like us care, and think this is a bad thing, but no politician actually cares."