El Presidente reckons a separate Scotland could put less than 10% of oil and gas revenues into a sovereign wealth fund every year for the next 20 years and end up with £30bn by 2035. That would imply more than £10bn revenues every year for the next 20 years. Seems pretty optimistic, given that even the Scottish Government's own figures for Scotland's "geographic share" of North Sea revenue for 2009-10 was less than £6bn. Not to mention that UK oil production peaked in 1999, and according to official figures, somewhere between 76% and 90% of all UK oil reserves had already been extracted by the end of 2010.
And £30bn sounds a lot, but compare it with the £59.2bn total public expenditure in Scotland for 2009-10 (which, of course, didn't include all the considerable costs that an independent country would incur) and it doesn't seem so impressive.
Your figures are incorect and increase in renewables will lead to reduction in usage within this country.
ReplyDeleteThey're not my figures - I've linked all the sources. Of course, the SNP would probably dispute them, but then they would, wouldn't they? They have to talk up "Scotland's Oil" all they can. Any increase in the consumption of renewable energy would tend to depress the price of oil/gas and hence revenues from them. And usage within "this" country (Scotland? UK?) is of little relevance - we'd just be taxing ourselves!
Delete