New Scientist - 31 May 2014.bak

FOUR FUTURES FOR SCOTLAND
Take the high road
In 16 weeks’ time, the people of Scotland will decide whether
their country should become independent of the UK. It is not an
easy decision: the political, economic and cultural questions have
been debated for months.
There are other dimensions to consider, too, including science,
technology and the environment. These can shape any country’s
fate just as much as the social factors – perhaps more so, for a
small new nation looking to carve out its place in the world.
New Scientist looks at how an independent Scotland might reinvest
its oil riches, become a high-tech hub, a green beacon – or the
sickest country in Europe
SMALL nations can shape their own destiny, and this
can be both a blessing and a curse. If the Scots opt
for independence, they would do well to heed other
small nations before them.
Research by the innovation-fostering charity
Nesta has looked at small countries that have
prospered in the last few decades. Take tiny Estonia,
with a population one-quarter the size of Scotland’s.
It is the poster child for newly independent states.
Estonia’s government took advantage of freedom
from the USSR in 1991 to turn the country into a
technology superpower in miniature. From the free
public Wi-Fi in Tallinn to compulsory coding lessons
in schools, Estonia bet big on IT. And it paid off:
Estonians built the technology behind Skype and
run a host of cool start-ups.
But for every Estonia there’s an Iceland. Around the
time the Estonians embarked on their technological
adventure, the Icelanders set themselves up as the
buccaneers of international capitalism. It ended
badly, with the country’s banks collapsing and the
country facing years of painful austerity.
So an independent Scotland must choose its
path carefully. There are a number of directions it
could decide on: oil-investment paradise, renewableenergy
Mecca, high-tech playground.
None of these three scenarios is a sure-fire hit.
High-tech industries could always go the way of
“Silicon Glen”, a region in central Scotland where
electronics manufacturers once flocked. In its heyday
in the mid-1990s, it was claimed that Silicon Glen
produced 35 per cent of PCs in western Europe. But
this success vanished almost overnight when the
dotcom bubble burst and companies headed east in
search of lower costs.
Such scenarios are plausible futures for Scotland,
and there is also a fourth future; one that is more
troubling. Without a plan or a sense of where to
take the nation, it is possible that an independent
Scotland may drift into business-as-usual. Or
perhaps from an economic point of view, it would
be more accurate to call this business-and-financialservices-as-usual
– the time-honoured British model
of an economy run by bankers, built on debt and
managed to the timetable of the quarterly
financial results.
As the experience of Iceland and the Republic of
Ireland shows, this is a perilous path, especially for
a small country. It’s partly about risk: as we have
seen, the financial services sector can act as an
engine for the economy, but it has a nasty habit
of blowing up on the motorway.
There is also something deeper at stake: if
Scotland makes the wrong decisions about its own
economic future, it risks ending up as a backwater
to the rest of the UK, with England – and London
in particular – sucking away its brightest and best.
Independence offers a chance for Scotland to
shape its destiny, but whatever future it aims for,
it must avoid clinging to the old British habit of
muddling through. ■
Stian Westlake is executive director of research
at Nesta in London. Nesta’s report, When Small is
Beautiful: Successful innovation in smaller countries,
will be published on 30 June
MARK PINDER/REPORTDIGITAL.CO.UK
Oil and gas is at
heart of Scots’
future wealth
Rob Edwards, Grangemouth
AS DUSK falls, Grangemouth starts to
glow. Cloaked in clouds of steam and lit
by flares like giant candles, Scotland’s
biggest oil refinery has a strange
beauty. Situated roughly halfway
between Edinburgh and Glasgow on
the Firth of Forth, the 700-hectare
petrochemical complex is a vital hub
of UK oil production. Should Scotland
vote for independence, it will be one
of the new government’s key assets.
According to the industry, there are
between 15 and 24 billion barrels of
recoverable oil and gas left under the
North Sea. About 42bn barrels have
been extracted since production
began there in 1967. Because prices
have risen, 24bn barrels could be
12 | NewScientist | 31 May 2014