New podcast that challenges Scotland’s energy industry launched by UofG
Published: 21 February 2025
A new podcast series that questions why Scotland’s abundance of energy hasn’t resulted in a more prosperous or fairer society has been launched by UofG energy experts.
A new podcast series that questions why Scotland’s abundance of energy hasn’t resulted in a more prosperous or fairer society has been launched by UofG energy experts.
‘The Energy That Made Modern Scotland’ explores how more than 50 years of oil and gas production and the birth of renewables in the twenty-first century have transformed Scottish culture, society and politics.
Episodes profile the voices of workers and communities in Northern Scotland which have been front and centre of these big changes for over half a century.
These include Shetland, which was subject to an influx of people and activity when Europe’s biggest oil terminal was built at Sullom Voe, and the Cromarty Firth in the Eastern Highlands where huge oil rigs were built at Nigg in the 1970s. Both places have since become integral to Scotland’s wind energy sector, whilst also continuing to be shaped by onshore and offshore oil and gas work.
The series is led by energy historian Ewan Gibbs and sociology lecturer Dominic Hinde. Ewan’s work on archives and recording oral histories with workers and others who lived through these long periods of change are accompanied by Dom’s research travelling as a climate journalist and sociological observer around the same place in the past few years.
Ewan explained: “We wanted to create a set of easy to listen to episodes that take a big picture look at Scotland’s energy industry and ask the big questions from the perspective of the environment and building a more just economy and society. We have abundant energy sources available to us in Scotland, but why hasn’t this had the impact it should have done in ending poverty or creating more prosperous jobs and lives? We’ll ask these questions from the point of view of important localities in Northern Scotland, communities in the Highlands and the islands which have generated wealth and been epicentres of work which transformed Scotland and Britain, but which are now facing new questions about their own future.
“Too often, these places have been an afterthought even when visions of firstly an oil rich and now a clean and green Scotland and UK have relied on their resources.”
First published: 21 February 2025