Scotland’s Minster for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Jim Mather, insists that real momentum is gathering within the renewables/sustainable energy sector north of the border.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that, once again, this country had let a potentially large commercial opportunity in the renewables sector slip away.

Perhaps I was hoping for too much. Leaving aside the poorly researched piece that was prattled in a Sunday newspaper just days before the UK’s 2009 Budget and unjustifiably raised hopes, I had higher expectations of Chancellor Alistair Darling than the measures announced and largely trailed beforehand.

The global economic crisis has developed with such rapidity and intensity that some of its likely consequences have virtually escaped comment.

We are told by Deloitte that the number of exploration wells being drilled in the UK North Sea collapsed 78% in Q1 this year compared with the same period in 2008. On top of this, Oil & Gas UK thinks that the total amount of UK North Sea drilling could fall by nearly 70% this year.

There is now clear evidence that banks are destroying opportunities – both oil-related and offshore wind – so undermining jobs and the ability of companies to survive the downturn. Given the IHS/CERA report of just a few days ago that warned of serious consequences if there is not a rapid recovery of investment in boosting oil&gas output, short-sighted decision-making by the banking fraternity is plain stupid.

More than 40% of electricity generated in the world comes from coal-fired power stations. That is doubtless a matter for regret, but it is a statistic that is not going to change greatly for decades to come.

Read this: “And it is only by investing in environmental technology that we can end the dictatorship of oil, and it is only by tackling climate change that we create the millions of new green jobs we need”.