SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES 10 MILLION POUND PRIZE FOR OCEAN ENERGY INNOVATION
In a remarkable speech April 2, 2008 at the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, announced his nation's sponsorship of a prize of 10 million pounds Sterling, approximately $20 million US, to encourage development of a world- changing marine energy technology. Salmond, who heads the Scottish National Party (SNP), leads a minority government that enjoys a narrow plurality within the Scottish Parliament. Although his views are often regarded as controversial within Scotland as well as the United Kingdom from which the SNP seek to move past the autonomy granted under former Prime Minister Tony Blair to be fully independent, Salmond won over his largely American audience with a rollicking sense of humor, eloquence and passion about the need for leadership in addressing climate change that he characterized as the greatest crisis facing humanity. At the conclusion of the question and answer period following Salmond's speech most of the audience rose in a standing ovation, quite an unusual tribute from a National Geographic crowd.
Much like Iceland, that has leveraged its abundant resources of geothermal and hydropower and its remarkable technological talent to become a world leader in clean energy, especially geothermal development and hydrogen, Scotland seeks to be a world leader in clean energy by building on its ample wind, tidal and biomass resources to become perhaps Europe's largest source of renewable energy. This is quite an ambitious goal for a nation whose population of five million is only about one percent of the population of the EU, but Scotland seeks to do much of this by becoming the world leader in marine technologies — tidal, wave power and offshore wind. In his speech Salmond spoke of inventions by Scots including Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone-and whose family played a central role in the emergence of the National Geographic Society. Only half way tongue in cheek Salmond quoted the late Harvard University economist John Kenneth Galbraith to state that practically all the inventions worth mentioning had been invented either by Scots or Jews or as Salmond wryly noted in the presence of the National Geographic leadership, many of Irish ancestry - "Scotch-Irish."
Just as the Dutch have used their expertise in coastal engineering to lead the world in shaping coastal protection strategies to counter sea level rise, the Icelanders have used their clean energy base and climate knowhow to move to the forefront in geothermal and hydrogen development, and in carbon capture and storage and soils management, and the Danes their success in wind to capture the bulk of the wind turbine export market, the Scottish are seeking to become not only large-scale generators of marine energy but also exporters of such technologies and their applications.
January storm at Aberdeen leading lightSalmond pointed out that Aberdeen, Scotland ranks just behind Houston, Texas as a center for oil and gas development and that it seeks to become Europe's center for renewable energy development. He noted that Scotland is drawing on its good fortune from the North Sea oil and gas resources to diversify to become a leader in non-carbon-based energy. Interestingly at the same time that Scotland is moving to transform its energy export base, Abu Dhabi that has become a major commercial center in the Gulf, a region now booming from oil and gas revenues, is moving to play a large role in clean energy development and finance through pioneering efforts such as the MASDAR Initiative. Besides encouraging investment in and development of clean energy technologies this Initiative seeks to build the world's first zero carbon, zero waste city.
The marine power prize announced by Scotland is open to firms around the world but to qualify they must do some demonstration of viability in Scotland. The newly announced Saltire Prize should both raise Scotland's profile in marine energy and also attract the growing number of marine energy firms to the Scottish market.
Scotland meanwhile is seeking to move forward in a diverse range of renewable energy areas as is evident from the official government site and the renewable association site. Renewable energy is also viewed as an opportunity to boost the economy in both the Highlands and Islands that have tended to lag behind the relatively rapid economic growth that has benefited much of the United Kingdom in recent years. Besides commercializing of generally grid connected renewable energy, Friends of the Earth Scotland is promoting micropower for homes .
With this stirring on so many fronts, Scotland and Scots that have been responsible for or have fair claim for making so many innovations crucial to modern life — universal public education, the steam engine, the telephone, television, the telegraph, radar, refrigerators, the microwave oven, the agricultural reaper, geosciences, anesthetics, penicillin and quinine — may play a large role in curing the climate malady that is threatening our planet.
