Lightbulbs
Ideas for Scotland
No 5

Photograph by Islay McLeod

Power of Scotland

Gordon Lawrie

When the heavy industry which had driven Scotland's economy for so long began to dwindle and shut down they told us this story. Perhaps you recognise it?
     We didn't need to worry about all the lost jobs because the booming service and financial sectors would be a simply marvellous replacement. Their wisdom was that our clever and inventive bankers (and they're certainly inventive...) would buy services whose providers would in turn buy shiny new toys and treats from our retailers who in their turn would grow and merge using the bankers' ready cash and knowhow and that somewhere, somehow this giddy magical mystery money-go-round would make us all millionaires.
     It didn't seem to matter that we weren't actually making things that the world wanted to buy any more. That was how the old economy worked. This was the new economy. Our call centres became engorged, as soothing and trustworthy Scottish accents attracted companies to locations well-known for their diction, such as Glasgow.
     As for the public sector, well there's a happy story of burgeoning growth. The number of people employed by the taxpayer in Scotland has ballooned by over 14% in the last decade. Ok, so maybe a few communities were mildly annihilated by the loss of the industries which had sustained them. Perhaps some youngsters would seek in vain for the apprenticeships their parents had hoped they would find. So what if the man in the street from Calton would drop dead at an average age of 54, (his counterpart in Cambodia surviving for six more years)? These were mere trivialities. We had Starbucks. And plasma TVs. And buy-to-let flats. Surely this fiscal thrill-ride would never end. Not while we had our call centres and our banks.
     Unfortunately, it seems these new economic certainties were a mere illusion, no more grounded in reality than an MP's expense form.
What is real is the deprivation, hopelessness and lack of opportunity which now blights so many of our communities. A 19-year-old of my acquaintance recently failed to get a six-hour a week job with a national burger emporium. He had previous experience working as a sous chef, but for this position, paying less than £35 a week, there were over 100 applicants. He was not even offered an interview. I have three friends who gained qualifications in animation and design. All were promised a secure future working in new media. All are now unemployed, their jobs exported to Korea. On a more positive note, sales of Buckfast continue inexplicably to flourish.
     Does anyone else feel that this shouldn't continue?
     
A Scottish problem, so what might a Scottish solution look like? Well, there are many things which we have in abundance in Scotland. We're a country with as much geography as history: as well as an abundance of rain, wind and sea, we are a people of innovation and engineering. We still retain some of the world's best research universities and, for the moment, have a large number of bright, capable, energetic young people who are just waiting for the opportunity to make something of themselves. Who knows, maybe they are looking to make something of Scotland too?
     At a time when the worldwide demand for energy is growing, and supplies are dwindling, the question we have today is: can we trust energy companies to do the right thing to supply this need? What does the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and BP chief executive Tony Hayworth's crude remarks about just wanting his life back suggest to you? Would it be too far-fetched to think of corporations as essentially psychopathic entities, driven only by an insatiable lust for profit, regardless of the human or environmental cost? Don't get me wrong, I'm not even suggesting that our businesses are run by sociopaths, simply that the Companies Act binds and compels them to behave this way.
     It is generally accepted that renewables must supply an increasing proportion of the worldwide thirst for energy. Alas, renewable technologies are not yet capable of replacing all fossil fuels. As an unpredictable force, wind power is, of course, wholly unsuitable as an unsupported, primary energy source. It must be backed-up by a constant and predictable power supply. As we are unable to attach our politicians' grossly overinflated sense of self importance to the national grid, this means fossil fuel or nuclear power.
     Unless someone comes up with a breakthrough in energy storage, it's looking like the only form of renewable energy which could realistically replace fossil and nuclear sources for baseload generation is tidal power. We all know why: the tide is consistent. It is reliable. It comes in and goes out at a steady, constant rate. So here's my question: why should tidal power remain so regrettably in its infancy? Would it be such an awful idea to focus our national efforts on making it commercially viable? Just think, by concentrating educational policy on science and engineering we could create a new generation of world-class inventors capable of solving any energy crisis: we could be the country which gave the world green, sustainable technology.
     We could invest in sustainable jobs, our coastal towns servicing our new offshore megaplants rather than languishing in terminal decline. Imagine, the workyards of Glasgow could ring with the chime of steel on steel once more. Not ships now, but manufactured new designs lovingly nurtured in our technological nurseries. The Clyde could return to its role as a central distribution channel, freighters taking Scottish-built generators to exotic, far-off climes.
     More than that we could have apprentices again, our young people learning a trade: not having to resign themselves to a life of wasted potential and potentially getting wasted.
     We would be selling a product the world needed to buy. In fact, this would liberate the whole planet from its addiction to hydrocarbons.
Surely we must seize this opportunity to become the global leaders in clean energy? By returning to our innovative roots and using our natural resources we could not only rescue our economy, but save the world.

Gordon with Alan Fisher


Gordon Lawrie was runner-up Scotland Young Thinker of the Year
in 2006. He represented ChildLine