Biomess? – fuel for thought

By Dr Dan van der Horst, University of Edinburgh. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Making and controlling fire was perhaps the single most important invention that allowed humans to conquer the planet; keeping us warm and safe, improving our food, and transforming our landscapes. Even today, biomass energy is the most important source of energy in many developing countries. But the production of liquid biofuels, a policy pursued by the EU and the US, is highly controversial with environmental, social and conservation NGOs, even if most people in Scotland have no idea it is in their fuel tanks. In this short piece I will not revisit the extensive debate of how biofuels impact on food production and biodiversity, and what it would take to reduce or control these effects. Instead, I focus on a few home truths about biofuels that have received less attention to date.

The economic problem of biofuels is that they are, under most conditions, a relatively expensive way to reduce carbon emissions, so public money could be better spent on other low-carbon interventions. Whilst other renewables may experience technological breakthroughs or significant price reductions due to mass production, this is far less likely to happen for biofuels as they are based on a feedstock that has to be grown on land, which comes with an opportunity cost.

First generation biofuels (ethanol made from starchy or sugary crops, or biodiesel made from plant oil) are only a good value product in a market where food prices are low and petrol and diesel prices are high. Unless food production is subsidised and fossil fuels are taxed, these are rare conditions. In the absence of subsidies, we can perhaps envisage such conditions in a very remote corner of Africa where people can produce a surplus of food but cannot export it due to very poor transport links, which in turn also make the import of diesel and petrol very expensive.

Biofuels could have a useful role to play in an oil-importing developing country that is selfsufficient in food production but is struggling to sell its agricultural exports on the world market, for example because of logistical bottlenecks or import tariffs. Under these conditions, biofuel production could be a useful way to enhance the trade balance (spend less hard currency on importing oil) and boost the rural economy instead. This is how Brazil came to adopt their sugar-to-ethanol programme.

The carbon problem of second generation biofuels (made from inedible, woody biomass) is that there are better uses of the feedstock: using biomass as building material will store carbon for decades or longer. And when the time comes to dispose of these materials, they can still be burned for energy recovery. If there is a suitable place for biofuels in an industrial country, then it is first and foremost in integrated waste management. In the first decade of the 21st century, the UK was producing more renewable energy from biomass than from wind. This was not because we have big agricultural or forestry sectors, but because we were implementing the EU waste directive, which told us to cap landfill sites and capture the methane that emerges from them. Some of the largest anaerobic digestion plants in Europe are now found in the West Midlands; modern centralised facilities for treating sewer sludge and food waste. It could even be argued that we would have no need for a separate energy policy, if our other policy domains, such as foreign policy, environmental policy and economic policy, were more coherent and integrated.

At the end of the day, there is one very simple fundamental problem for biofuels. If you want to extract the highest possible value from a product, that product has to be very cheap and plentiful to ensure that putting it on fire is the best option. Smoking (whatever...) is just the exception that proves the rule.

Affording Coal

By Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Global energy is changing. Energy usage has trebled in the last 50 years, importing nations are becoming exporters, and whilst oil remains the largest source of primary energy in the world, its persistently high price has opened up the viability of a range of alternative energy types.

However, fossil fuels still dominate the global energy mix, providing more than 85% of global energy, and of these it is coal that has seen the fastest-growing demand of all. In a recent global review, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that there was the equivalent of 142 years of proven reserves of coal at current consumption rates (compared with 61 years of proven reserves of natural gas and only 54 years of oil). The World Coal Association, an industry representative group, further claims that the remaining recoverable resources of coal are more than 20 times larger. Of course, these estimates are based on current usage, and only a small increase in annual demand could cut the number of years significantly. For example, if coal saw even a 5% per annum growth, reserves would fall from 142 years to c45 years.

So, coal is the fastest-growing energy source. It is effective. There’s still a lot of it. And it is also relatively cheap. Sounds great. But coal has a problem. It is not called ‘dirty coal’ for nothing and, along with its immediate health and environmental impacts, coal has the highest carbon content (and therefore the highest carbon emissions) of any fossil fuel. In 2011, coal produced about 30% of global energy use, but accounted for around 44% of global carbon dioxide emissions; and historically it is responsible for more global emissions than any other fuel source.

As IEA Executive Director Maria van der Houven stated recently, “Irrespective of its economic benefits for the countries, the environmental impact of coal use, especially that coming from carbon dioxide emissions, should not be overlooked.”

Being the most available fossil fuel, and the cheapest, it is unlikely that people, companies and nations are going to be successfully persuaded to give it up, even though many of its damaging costs are ‘externalised’. Poland, for example, which hosted a recent round of IPCC climate negotiations (and simultaneously ran a major coal conference in the nextdoor stadium), uses coal almost exclusively (85% of electricity production) and is not going to give up its own energy security just for the climate without a very significant incentive.

The Obama administration unveiled historic environmental rules in June to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% – the first time any president has moved to regulate this carbon pollution – in large part by targeting reductions in coal use. The only hope for the climate in relation to coal, other than simply cutting our use of coal dramatically, is to find a way to capture some of the fossil fuel emissions from burning coal and store them somewhere where they can’t ‘leak’ or seep out into the atmosphere. This process of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is yet to be tested at any significant scale, and will cost significant money and energy to implement.

However, whilst CCS is only a partial solution (potentially reducing coal’s carbon emissions to those of natural gas), it feels increasingly more necessary. Even in the UK, where no new coal-fired power stations have been built for years, 39% of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants. So despite CCS remaining an uncertain technology, domestically and globally we probably need to see CCS developed successfully if we are going to keep burning coal and want to maximise our chances of avoiding dangerous climate change.

However, whether CCS works or not, we need to try to limit our use of coal. Several of the proposed key steps to reducing global carbon emissions include replacing coal with gas power, replacing coal with wind, or replacing coal with nuclear power. All of these would make major inroads to global emissions. Coal is fairly evidently a fossil fuel that we cannot ultimately afford, except in moderation.

This is, in part, what drives the development of renewable energy sources. The IEA reported last year that “global subsidies to renewables reached $101 billion in 2012, up 11% on 2011, and need to expand to $220 billion in 2035”. However, it is worth noting that the same body estimated that fossil fuel subsidies increased to $544 billion in 2012.

If we are going to solve the conundrum of how to achieve energy security, environmental sustainability, and economic prosperity simultaneously, we need to see some of this fossil fuel subsidy directed towards renewables and perhaps the development of CCS. However, CCS is a costly technology and if coal has to start paying for its environmental damage and other externalities like the cost of CCS, it no longer looks so economically attractive, which is why many commentators believe the fossil fuel subsidies would be better spent purely on renewable alternatives.

Scotland’s renewable energy transition: quo vadis?

By Professor Paul L Younger FREngg, Rankine Chair of Engineering and Professor of Energy Engineering, University of Glasgow. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

The Scottish First Minister memorably remarked in 2011 that Scotland could come to be seen as “the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy”. Three years later, with the Scottish independence referendum looming, it seems a good time to ask whether this is feasible. The Scottish Government has set ambitious targets to position Scotland in the premier league of renewably-powered nations. In summary, by 2020 the Scottish Government plans to have 30% of total Scottish energy use met by renewable sources. As energy includes heat (55% of Scottish energy use in 2011), transport (24%) and electricity (21%), separate targets for each of these modes have been set.

The electricity target always grabs the limelight: an equivalent of 100% renewable by 2020. This does not mean that all energy consumed in Scotland at that time will be renewable; rather, it effectively means that over a year (say) Scotland will export enough renewably-generated electricity to match the non-renewable element of its domestic consumption. Logically, if we really want to reduce Scotland’s contribution to climate change, we would be prioritising development of renewable heat. However, the 2020 target for renewable heat (11%) is even more modest than that of the UK Government (12%). At present, mainstream suggestions for decarbonising heat invoke electrification, on the assumption that electricity will soon be decarbonised. This would imply increasing the total amount of electricity generated by a factor of 2.5. But will Scotland’s renewable electricity generation be up to the job?

Renewable electricity supply in Scotland has a distinguished pedigree, dating back to the commissioning of the Galloway Hydros scheme in 1935. Many large hydropower systems were constructed in the Highlands during the 1950s, but development then slowed to a trickle, with only one sizeable new hydropower station being built since 1963 (the 100 MW Glendoe system commissioned in 2009). The current total installed hydropower capacity in Scotland is around 1.5 GW.

Estimates from Heriot-Watt University indicate that, given the imperative of conserving scenic glens, this could only be expanded by about 50%, mainly through small schemes. This is frustrating, as hydro is less variable in output than other renewables, albeit it is notably vulnerable to inter-annual variations in rainfall. In 2013, Scotland’s hydropower stock produced around 15.5 petajoules (PJ) of electricity, which amounts to 10.3 PJ per GW installed. This is significantly better than wind, which produced 8.9 PJ per GW installed. Yet even if all of Scotland’s remaining hydropower potential were to be developed over the next few years (which it will not be, given the lead times involved), it could not contribute more than 10% of the additional renewable electricity capacity needed by 2020.

Given Scotland’s weak solar resources (amongst the weakest in sub-polar Europe), and given that wave and tidal technologies remain nascent and exorbitant, wind is the only option for meeting the 2020 renewable electricity target. What does this mean in terms of further expansion of installed wind capacity? Scotland currently uses around 132 PJ of electricity per annum, and given the ambitions for economic growth and expansion of electricity use for heat and transport, we can assume that the 2020 figure will be some way north of this. In 2013, Scotland generated a record amount of electricity from renewable sources: 61.2 PJ, or 46% of Scottish electricity demand.

Given the proven annual productivity of Scottish wind farms, this means that a further 70.8 PJ will have to be generated by wind in 2020, which equates to 9 GW extra installed capacity. This is a realistic prospect: around 4 GW of onshore wind already has consent with a similar amount in planning; 5 GW of offshore wind is also in planning, though the recent cancellation (or ‘postponement for at least a decade’) of the 1.8 GW Argyll Array offshore from Tiree casts some doubt on the degree to which this will be deployed by 2020. Nevertheless, it seems likely that renewable electricity generation in Scotland can indeed meet the 2020 target.

This is where things get interesting though. Due to natural variability of wind speeds, onshore wind in mainland Scotland struggles to exceed a capacity factor of around 30% (ie, the proportion of the time it is actually producing significant amounts of electricity). This means that, even with 100% equivalent renewable capacity installed, some other source of electricity will always be required for more than two-thirds of the time. Thus, ensuring a 24/7 power supply will always need a combination of baseload (ie, constantly-available) and dispatchable (ie, available on demand) electricity sources. (Electricity storage also has a role to play, but it is sufficiently costly that it is difficult to see this expanding beyond the niche application of marginal load balancing). The problem is that most baseload and dispatchable sources of power cannot be switched on or off within the timescales over which wind output fluctuates.

Much of Scotland’s baseload is provided by its two remaining nuclear power stations, Hunterston B and Torness, which between them produced 34.5% of Scotland’s electrical output in 2012. Some baseload, and virtually all of the dispatchable output, was provided by just two power stations: Longannet (coal-fired, 25%) and Peterhead (gas-fired, 8%). Although the outputs of these fossil-fired power stations can be tweaked over a timescale of hours, they cannot be adjusted instantaneously as wind speeds wax and wane. Thus when we say Scotland produced 46% of all its electricity renewably in 2013, we need to be clear that much of this had to be exported to England. Indeed, Scotland’s 100% renewable electricity target is absolutely dependent on it continuing to export to England.

The net export in 2012 was 26.1%; yet there are early signs of changing fortunes for Scotland’s electricity export business. The four remaining non-renewable power stations in Scotland were until recently five: Cockenzie (coal-fired) closed in 2013 and will shortly be demolished. Since Cockenzie was taken off-line, Scotland has begun to experience periods in which it is reliant on electricity transfers from England. This happened on about ten days in 2013.

The Scotland-England interconnectors have hitherto always flowed N-S. This change in polarity represents the increasingly tight margins of baseload and dispatchable capacity in Scotland. At present, no new power stations with such capability are under construction in Scotland. Moreover, under current plans Scotland will lose its two nuclear power stations in 2023 – and with them a third of its electricity output, and the core of its baseload. Meanwhile, Longannet is ageing (it was originally commissioned in 1973), and notwithstanding recent upgrades, it is not currently expected to remain in service beyond 2025. Scottish Government policy precludes any replacement nuclear or coal-fired power stations, so in little more than a decade almost all of Scotland’s baseload and dispatchable generation capacity will have gone. That already leaves us barely enough time to design, obtain consent for, and construct alternatives. The only alternative of sufficient scale deployable to such a deadline is gas-fired generation.

Unless unconventional gas developments are permitted and succeed, Scotland will continue to be poorly endowed with natural gas resources. The majority of the North Sea gas fields are offshore England. Gas separated from Scotland’s oil fields is currently burned for power generation at only one site. Yet Peterhead has seen steady decline in capacity, from 2.2 GW in the early 2000s, to 1.1 GW in 2010; by April 2014 it was just 0.4 GW. These reductions have been ascribed to uncertainty over future prices for fossil-fired generation, coupled with transmission cost penalties for power stations in remote locations.  Neither of these factors auger well for construction of replacement, non-coal, non-nuclear, baseload or dispatchable capacity in Scotland within the next decade.

But does this matter? Can’t England provide these services to Scotland, while Scotland virtuously sticks to renewable generation alone? The current connector capacity is nominally 4.4 GW, though in practice this is limited to 3.3 GW due to thermal stability problems. A new 2.2 GW connector from Hunterston to North Wales is currently under construction.

We can therefore rely on an England-Scotland connector capacity of around 5.5 GW: this amounts to just 40% of Scottish peak demand, and closely approximates the amount of power output currently coming from Scotland’s nuclear and fossil-fired power stations (5.4 GW). There is no room for manoeuvre, and no guarantee that England (which has similar problems of its own) will have the spare capacity to feed power north when Scotland stands in need. We live in interesting times.

The Independence Referendum and Defence

By Dr Phillips O’Brien, Director, Scottish Centre for War Studies, University of Glasgow. This article first appeared in the spring 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

The questions of defence and security, surprisingly to some, have been some of the most hotly debated and contentious of the independence referendum campaign. The sheer number of different topics connected with defence means that it has rarely been out of the news. There have been clashes over issues as diverse as the nuclear weapons now based in Faslane, shipbuilding on the Clyde, the future of the historic Scottish Regiments, and whether or not Scotland should be a member of the NATO alliance. Needless to say, with that many issues, different interest groups and political pressures have exerted themselves in many different ways.

One of the best ways to see these conflicting pressures is in the rather tortuous discussions over Faslane and Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The west of Scotland not only hosts all of Britain’s nuclear submarines, it also is the base for Britain’s nuclear weapons. The ‘Yes’ campaign has received consistent and energetic support from a group of campaigners, sometimes associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which would like all nuclear weapons withdrawn from Scotland almost immediately after independence. Therefore the ‘Yes’ campaign has had to stress its antinuclear credentials regularly.

On the other hand, basic economics mean that the jobs attached to these facilities are important. At present, the MOD employs around 6,500 civilian and military personnel on the Clyde, and therefore it is one of the largest employers in one of the economically less well-off parts of the nation. This has led the ‘Yes’ campaign and the Scottish Government to try and craft an anti-nuclear policy that also would protect many of these jobs.

Since the launch of the Scottish Government’s White Paper, what is interesting is how the anti-nuclear stance, in the short term, has become a second priority to the protection of jobs. This can be seen in two parts of the document. In the first case, far from requiring that the rUK’s nuclear weapons be removed from Scotland as soon as possible, the Scottish Government actually set out a very flexible policy on Trident. While it was stated that the Government has a ‘view’ that the weapons should be removed by the end of the first Parliament (2020), this in no way is a hard and fast deadline. Instead, it opens the door for the nuclear weapons to remain in Scotland until the government of the rUK decides what it wishes to do with Trident. On the other hand, it would allow any Scottish government considerably more time to decide what it would base in those facilities once the nuclear weapons had been removed.

The second area was in the definition of a non-nuclear Scotland. The White Paper did not call for a non-nuclear policy along the lines of New Zealand, which bans all nuclear weapons from its soil and territorial waters at all times. Instead, anti-nuclear seems to be defined for Scotland as meaning that the Scottish government will not build, maintain or base nuclear weapons. However, there is no provision to ban them from visiting warships. This important proviso is a way of reassuring NATO, which defines itself as a nuclear alliance, that a Scottish government would take the necessary steps to make Scotland a co-operative part of the organization. In the end, the strong political pressure being placed by one element of the ‘Yes’ campaign seems to have lost out to the need to appeal to those employed by the MOD in the west of Scotland, and crucial international partners such as the United States.

Another way that the politics of independence seem to have arisen is the question of shipbuilding on the Clyde. In November 2013, the UK Government announced that all of the Type 26 Frigates (the next generation, most advanced warship that Britain will build during the next 20 years) will be constructed on the Clyde. Yet, at the same time, they announced that the actual construction process will not begin in earnest until 2015. It seems to be a classic example of a carrot and stick political approach to the question. The west of Scotland shipyards have received priority over those in England – Portsmouth will now be downgraded to a facility that can refurbish existing warships but will have a great deal of difficulty constructing new ones. At the same time, those communities eagerly anticipating that work were made aware that if independence were to be voted in, the contracts could still be shifted.

Together, these two issues show the different political impulses driving the discussion of defence within the independence debate. Ultimately it is the economic benefits of independence or remaining in the Union that have become the focus of the debate.

Scotland’s Pensions Future

By Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. This article first appeared in the spring 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Pensions have emerged as one of the most fiercely debated topics pre-referendum, along with the more overarching issues of currency, and membership of the European Union. Perhaps this is not surprising, as security in retirement matters to us all.

The challenge for the Scottish Government is to demonstrate that an independent Scotland would be better placed to deliver a pensions system which meets citizens’ needs while ensuring that they would at least be no worse off in retirement.

The State Pension - From a public expenditure perspective, the State Pension is significant. In 2011-12, State Pension payments of £87bn were made by the UK Government, representing 41% of all social benefit payments and 12% of UK expenditure.

In Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland, the Scottish Government confirms an intention that current pensioners would continue to receive their pensions as now, on time and in full, and that accrued rights would be protected. A ‘triple lock’ would be adopted for the first parliamentary term of an independent Scotland to protect the value of the State Pension (and single-tier pension and guarantee credit) over time against prices or earnings, with a minimum annual increase of 2.5%.

The new single-tier pension would be introduced in an independent Scotland, as planned for the UK, in April 2016. This is to be paid in full to those with 35 qualifying years of NI contributions, with a proposed minimum qualifying period of seven to ten years. This could mean that someone who worked in England for six years during their working life and in Scotland for the remainder would need to work an additional six years to achieve 35 qualifying years of NI or credits, as is the case for workers from other EU states currently working in the UK.

Accepting that the State Pension Age should rise to 66 by 2020, as proposed by the existing UK timetable, Scotland’s Future commits to a review of this age and notes the possibility of postponing the planned further changes as laid out in the Pensions Act 2007. There is some uncertainty as to how to interpret the lower average life expectancy in Scotland. Scotland’s demographics, with a higher projected ratio of pensioners to those of working age population, mean that this is likely to be more of a challenge. Economic growth and inward migration may be possible solutions.

Public Service Pensions  - Scotland’s Future confirms that all public service pension rights and entitlements which have been accrued would be fully protected and accessible, and the Scottish Public Pensions Agency would deliver public sector pensions in an independent Scotland. This comes with assurances that the Scottish Government would take on responsibility for the pensions of active, deferred, and pensioner members of unfunded schemes, including members of UK-wide schemes living in Scotland.

Private Sector Pensions - ICAS believes it would be advantageous for the Scottish Government to continue, at least in the early years of independence, to adopt existing UK arrangements for pension regulation and protection, and to develop these over time. According to Scotland’s Future, the Government intends to roll over UK law, and to form a similar regulatory framework and Scottish equivalent of the National Employment Savings Trust.

There would be significant crossborder issues for schemes which currently operate UK-wide. Under EU law, schemes which operate in more than one member state must fund their liabilities in full, and any under-funding must be rectified immediately rather than through a staged recovery plan. Scotland’s Future lays out a three-year transitional grace period, which ICAS believes is wholly insufficient for many schemes which are currently funding their deficits over much longer periods. The European Commission’s plans to reform the Pensions (IORP) Directive could provide an opportunity for the rules around crossborder schemes to be altered in a manner which eases the problem.

The ability of an independent Scottish Government to deliver the proposed pension policies laid out in Scotland’s Future is largely dependent on future negotiations with the UK Government, the European Union, and other bodies.

Geography, Difference and the Question of Scale

By Helen Packwood and Professor Allan Findlay FRSGS. This article first appeared in the spring 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Population growth in Scotland has continued to increase over the past decade and looks likely to meet the Scottish Government’s official population target, which is to match average European (EU15) growth from 2007 to 2017. Population growth has long been viewed as a key priority for the devolved Scottish Government, and at the core of its strategy for economic growth in Scotland.

The latest population growth in Scotland is slightly lower than the EU15 average; however, for most of the period since 2007 it has exceeded this level. Scotland’s population has grown by 3% since 2006-7, whereas the average across the EU15 countries has been 2%. Therefore Scotland seems on track to meet its population target.

Immigration plays an important role in maintaining this population growth in Scotland, and the Scottish Government sees continued population inflows as central to maintaining this demographic growth. However, Scotland still has a relatively small immigrant population (c7% of usual residents) compared with other European (EU27) nations.

Figure 1 reveals the geography of international migration to Scotland. Poland emerges as the most common non-UK country of birth in Scotland, despite being ranked 18th in 2001. As the most populous of the ‘Accession 8’ countries, Poland has been the biggest sender of East-Central European migrants since the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. Polish migrants now form 15% of all foreign-born residents living in Scotland.

In contrast to crude binary comparisons between England and Scotland, this article builds on the work of McCollum et al (CPC Briefing Paper 10 2013) and argues that a more pertinent comparison is to consider how Scotland compares with English regions. Figure 2 reveals the quantity and origins of foreign-born residents in the English regions and in Scotland. It is quickly apparent that, in terms of ‘distinctiveness’, the outlier is not Scotland but London.


The proportion of non- UK born residents in Scotland is similar to the English regions, with the notable exception of London.  By asking respondents, “If you were not born in the United Kingdom, when did you most recently arrive to live here?”, the 2011 Census gives an interesting snapshot of how long migrants have been resident in the UK. Scotland has a larger proportion of recent international migrants than any of the English regions. There is a varied distribution of recent migrants to the UK, with 22% of Scotland’s migrants arriving within the last two years (before the 2011 census); in contrast, the West Midlands, London, and the South-East of England have seen a smaller proportion of recent migrants.

A further 22% of international migrants in Scotland arrived within less than five years prior to the 2011 census; again this marks a distinction with migration to other parts of the UK. Based on this data, migration to Scotland appears to be relatively transient, with migrants settling for shorter periods than in England. Analysis of the age of migrants on arrival in the UK reveals an interesting picture of the nature of new migrants. These figures point to where young migrant families are arriving in the UK. At 17%, Scotland is among the top three locations for migrants arriving aged 0-4 years old. In contrast, just 9% of London’s foreign-born population arrived aged 0-4 years.

This analysis has important policy implications that impact on the current debate on constitutional change. While it is possible to argue that current UK immigration policy does not serve the interests of the Scottish economy particularly well, given the powerful influence of London in shaping perceptions of the UK’s immigration needs, it is seldom recognised that the same argument is true for other regions of England. Moreover, establishing migration policies suited to the different needs of regional economies is a policy option that has been taken up by some states such as Canada, and is an option open to the Scottish and UK governments regardless of the outcome of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.

In examining Scotland alongside regions within England, it is apparent that London has a much more diverse population than anywhere else in England. In fact, London stands in contrast to many areas of the country, particularly geographically ‘peripheral’ regions such as the South-West, the North- East, and Scotland. The ‘London effect’ clearly has a bearing on the UK and English averages in relation to most migration statistics, which underlines the importance of examining the data at a range of scales, rather than defaulting to considering only aggregate Scottish/English data.

Hugh Miller & The Cruise of the Betsey (6th -12th September)

RSGS and the Friends of Hugh Miller have chartered an old sailing boat to re-enact the voyage take by Hugh Miller in 1844, on the sailing boat The Betsey. We will be departing from the North Pier in Oban this Saturday afternoon, and plan to visit Mull, Eigg and Rum. Our floating manse, scientific laboratory and art studio is the wonderful Brixham trawler Leader, built in 1892. We hope to be able to communicate via Twitter, Facebook and on our Betsey website during the journey. We also have linked events on Eigg during that week, plus a follow-up Hugh Miller Festival in Cromarty (23rd -25th September).

Full details are on the Betsey website http://cruiseofthebetsey.wordpress.com

 Come and find us at the North Pier in Oban if you are anywhere nearby around lunchtime on Saturday 6th September.