There is a hole in every argument about Scottish energy. It says nothing about the deficit hours. And the deficit hours are about to get worse.
So the firm-power question and the data-centre question are one question seen from two ends. A flexible load makes the surplus pay; nothing yet built or permitted covers the deficit it leaves behind. Do the first and refuse to face the second, and you have a grid that is brilliant on a blustery Tuesday and, on a still Thursday in February, kept alive by burning gas while everyone argues about warehouses. The mix that would shrink that gas to a thin, honest bridge is buildable now, and we are building almost none of it. A dead calm powers no compute. The concrete that answers it is already being poured, at Peterhead, and the only thing we will not do is call it by its name, or cost the thing it is meant to be a bridge to.