Scotland plans thousands of new green jobs

Whilst the Scottish Parliament has yet to pass a budget, Finance Secretary John Swinney is planning as series of proposals to create thousands of new ‘green’ jobs as part of the countries economic recovery plan based on “new low-carbon industries in energy production, energy efficiency and sustainable transport”. A recent report into new forms of renewable energy which identified offshore wind energy as the greatest economic and community benefit has convinced the Scottish government that when coupled with wave and tidal projects will mean that Scotland will benefit from a wealth of jobs in new technologies. As part of the (so far failed) new budget the government had  also agreed to include the Green Party’s £33 million home insulation plan adding to the jobs total. New proposals to build a offshore wind farm on the Kintyre Peninsula around Cambletown by Danish firm Welcon and a wave-driven power station of the Isle of Lewis with NPower adds to the jobs total.  However, the Chief Executive of Centrica has issued a warning to the UK government saying that unless public investment into ofshore wind farms was increased the UK had little chance of meeting its 2020 renewable energy targets. Sam Laidlaw said that the UK faced much higher electricity and gas bills within three years because power companies are shelving investment plans in the current credit crunch and that “if we have a long hiatus of more than a year its going to be a bigger challenge to meet our renewable targets to ensure we have security of electricity supply. We have to find solutions in the next few months”.