The Scotsman reports today on the internal divisions in the Labour party in Scotland over their submission to the Calman Commission. It seems the Scots MPs (including Gordon Brown) want to take back planning powers from Holyrood, whereas the Scots MSPs want to keep them. This despite a poll that shows more and more support in Scotland for indepenance. Talk about putting yourself on the wrong side of the debate!

Essentially, it seems the Westminster Labour party MP's have taken the huff. They still want to build new nuclear plants, whilst there's a measure of agreement in Holyrood that Scots would be better investing in renewable energy.

The same old tired nonsense about Holyrood risking security of supply by blocking new nuclear is rehashed in the Scotsman. So, let's try and figure this out once and for all:

1. Total Gross renewables installed in Scotland in 2001: 4202 GWh (10% of total consumption)
2. Total Gross renewables installed in Scotland in 2007: 8226 GWh (20% of total consumption)
3. Total Gross nuclear power generation has never been more than 18681 GW (or  37.9 % of total  consumption) over the same period.
4. There's two nuclear power stations in Scotland, one is due to close in 2016 and the other 2023.
5. 2007 Number of households: 2314,000 . Estimated 2023 number of households 2625,000 (13% more). We could assume we'll consume an extra 2428.5 GWh in 2023, but when you look at the stats you can see that actually Scotlands consumption has hovered around 50,000 GWh over the last 7 years. Lets be optimistic and assume that our efforts to boost our efficiency will maintain this static trend.
6. Assuming that the nuclear reactors generate 50% of the total nuclear output each, in 2016, renewables will need to replace roughly 9000 GWh of capacity, when the first reactor closes.
7. We've managed to add 4000GWh in the last 6 years. We'll need to add almost another 8000 GWh to meet the the SNP's 31% from renewables target by 2011 -  that'll take us to roughly 15,500GWh. The Scottish Government seem confident that currently consented renewables developments will meet that target. It therefore seems safe to assume we can handle the closure of the first one of the nuclear reactors.
8. Looking onwards to 2023, even with a slowing growth rate in the easy to install stuff - like onshore wind, it looks like we can install another 9000Gwh of capacity.

Conclusion? Labour MP's are frustrated over the fact that their Westminster green policies are clearly mince, and are trying to find a way of scunnering Holyrood as it becomes clear that it's doing a better job of greening the scots economy than Westminster is - even with limited influence over the regulatory environment.

Of course, the energy policy debate is not simply one of nuclear vs renewables. Scotland relies on coal and gas for a large part of its electricity supplies too, and cutting electricity demand should really be the starting point for all of this. And what are the SNP proposing to do about those issues? If the last budget is anything to go by the answer is pretty much nothing. But that's a different question.

I just wanted to make it clear that if Holyrood can carry on supporting the growth of more renewables, as we're doing at the moment, we don't need new nuclear in Scotland and there'll be no risk to security of supply issues.