By Mike Robertson
The huge Heddle’s crane sat in the Crantit farm road ready to lift the mock Trident pole into place.
Before long it started to rise from the ground and then, tragedy…
The pole buckled under its own weight and was rapidly lowered to the ground.
After some examination and discussion a man appeared with wood and tools and got to work.
This time a successful lift allowed them to swing the pole into the field for all to see.
The point of this exercise was to demonstrate the size of the proposed electricity poles in context. With a little magic and the assistance of Photoshop we can remove the crane and show the mock pole from both the Old and New Scapa Roads.
Demonstrations like this help us come to a decision about what is an acceptable change to our environment. It’s important to remember we are facing a climate emergency and people often forget the ’emergency’ part of that. Orkney has a wealth of both renewable energy and the knowledge to generate and deliver it. This is important to the sustainability of our planet, if not for ourselves then for our children and grand-children. The new Orkney grid is important to allow us to deliver clean, renewable energy to the rest of the country, the UK and the world. It would be great if this could be entirely underground but this is not possible for a variety of technical and commercial reasons. However, it should be underground where it would have the biggest impact on our natural environment and heritage. It is for us to say where these places are. Orkney has led the world before, let’s hope we can do so again
Categories: Local News
