“Independence isn’t a constitutional nicety, it’s an economic necessity”

So it’s September 18th 2014 then. Would I vote “Yes”? Of course.
Maybe my memory has let me down here, but I think it was Jim Sillars that summed it up best for me in the 1980s. “Independence isn’t a constitutional nicety, it’s an economic necessity”.
As an adolescent, I did my first leaflet drop for the SNP in 1974 in Lanark for Tom McAlpine. I well remember the “It’s Scotland’s Oil” campaign theme and the optimism that was generated. I really couldn’t have imagined that only 14 years later, after combining a PhD in the physical sciences with an intense political activism, I would be packing my bags for work. After a spell in Canada I eventually settled in the United States and, in a quirk of fate, ended-up working on research topics related to oil. This experience has fully confirmed my old suspicions about eminent politicians peddling propaganda about the imminence of dwindling production and revenues. Sure, reservoirs are depleted. However, a great deal of the original oil in place in the North Sea remains, well, in place. Technologies for its production continue to be developed. Secondary and tertiary recovery becomes feasible for implementation. Oil, produced for the last four decades, can continue to flow for the next four decades.
However, continued development of North Sea oil will have to rely on competent decision making from Westminster. Comparison of the words and deeds of successive UK governments with those of the Norwegians gives a clear idea of the model that should be followed. Recall that in 2011 the Cameron government hiked tax rates on North Sea oil production, thus threatening future investments in the sector and local employment. In 2007, foot-dragging by Westminster lead to the abandonment of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project centered at Peterhead. Successful implementation of CCS, with BP playing a major role, could have had the potential to develop as an enhanced oil recovery project utilizing anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the North Sea. But where was Westminster?
Given I grew up in Lanarkshire, I was always fully aware of the role of the steel industry in the local economy. A trip up to Glasgow on the train from Carluke took you past Ravenscraig, Hallside and the old Clyde Iron works. I knew plenty of steelworkers, from laborers to metallurgists. I also knew that the flourishing North Sea oil industry had a voracious appetite for steel, not just for platform construction but for pipeline transmission systems and related infrastructure. When the Ravenscraig steelworks was being threatened with closure, and Tom McAlpine was busy with the “Save Scottish Steel” campaign, I well remember feeling the ludicrousness of the entire situation. So many of my friends’ fathers, and elder brothers, were steelworkers; at one time I expected to maybe become a metallurgist, too. I saw the offshore industry demanding steel. Yet Ravenscraig and the Scottish steel industry were essentially euthanized. Had Scotland become independent in the 1970s then I am convinced that, to this day, domestically produced steel would be being used for North Sea infrastructure. Families and communities would not have been torn apart. If we really are “Better Together”, why was this deindustrialization allowed to happen?