Activists hand in petition urging the Scottish Government to reject Peterhead gas plans

A group of activists gathered outside the Scottish Government’s offices at St Andrews House on Monday to hand in a petition representing the views of 13,000 people across the UK.  

The petition urges Scottish Government ministers to reject the plans for a new gas burning power station in Peterhead, in the Aberdeenshire. Developers SSE and Equinor are asking for permission to expand the existing power station in Peterhead (already labelled Scotland’s biggest polluter for the last 5 years in a row).  

CCS = greenwash 

The new development relies on the rotten foundations of carbon capture and storage technology which has failed time and time again across the world and has no working examples at this scale.  

Claims that CO2 from the new power station will be captured and stored under the North Sea are little more than greenwash, yet the Scottish Government appears to be falling for them hook, line and sinker.  

Prolonging gas demand 

If the new power station is given the green light by Ministers, demand for gas from the North Sea and beyond will be guaranteed for decades, while energy bills will remain cripplingly high for the Scottish public. With over a quarter of Scottish households already facing fuel poverty, we urgently need to stop profiteering fossil fuel companies from dictating the pace of the transition to cleaner and more affordable renewable energy.  

With the climate crisis escalating and winter approaching, the Scottish Government should be focusing on the solutions that we know will work, such as renewables, energy storage solutions and demand reduction, rather than gambling on unproven and expensive CCS technology. 

What’s next? 

Handing in this petition is a big milestone in the campaign to halt new gas infrastructure in Peterhead. It’s the result of tireless campaigning by many people who have been out flyering, protesting, speaking to their MSPs, disrupting AGMs, staging knit-ins and more.  

A huge thank you must go out to everyone who has got involved in this campaign so far – but it isn’t over yet! We know that handing in a petition won’t win this campaign on its own – we need a consistent, people-powered campaign to keep at it until it becomes impossible for the development to continue.  

To get involved in the campaign, plan for what’s next and make connections between different struggles such as fuel poverty and energy colonialism, come along to our Resisting Fossil Fuels Autumn Gathering in Perth on Saturday 2 November. We’ll be hearing from groups across Scotland who are standing up to the fossil fuel industry and building a better world, making some collaborative plans to strengthen our movements, and topping it all off with a delicious free dinner and ceilidh in the evening.  

If that sounds like your thing, sign up below!