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If we're to hit the 42% reduction in carbon emissions within 11 years - the ambitious target set last week in the Scottish Parliament's Climate Change Bill - there will have to be some drastic action on several fronts.

It's not enough to argue over the need for new nuclear plants.

So today offered two signs that this is the area for both business and government getting more serious about what needs to happen.

Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson was setting the target of nearly all public sector vehicles being electric by 2020. That's nearly 30,000 cars and trucks.

He reckons the premium on such vehicles now, of as much as two-and-a-half times the cost of the petrol or diesel equivalent, should come down when they get into that level of mass production.

Labour's response has been to say the minister's plan lacks ambition, and that more should be done to give incentives to the private sector into electrification of cars and trucks.

Meanwhile, with the Queen today officially opening the Glendoe power station above Loch Ness, Scottish and Southern Energy, parent company to Scottish Hydro-Electric, has signalled it's got two very large hydro plants in mind somewhere else around the Great Glen, so far unspecified. Stand by for a planning application.

This has to do with pump storage technology, which uses wind power through the night to pump water uphill, so that the turbines can be reversed and hydro power quickly plugged in when people get up and switch their kettles on - a process known as "splash and dash".

But if we are looking, before long, to millions of electric vehicles being plugged in overnight, those turbines - and lots more besides - may be necessary to charge up the batteries.

Add to that one of the next stages of radical change in the way we use energy. Gas-powered heating for homes and workplaces is a far bigger part of the energy mix than transport or electricity generation, and being a fossil fuel, it's a major polluter.

It's likely we'll see a change to much more electric-powered heating, again depending on a vast increase in renewable electricity generation.

That's where the nuclear debate kicks off again.

And if the Scottish Government's answer is, instead, to plug into Scotland's potential as the Saudi Arabia of renewables, it brings us back to how this can be achieved without power grid upgrades.

The Holyrood Parliament is soon to start its summer recess with the Beauly-Denny upgrade, through the central Highlands, facing even longer delays. It was February when the public inquiry reporter delivered recommendations to Scottish ministers, and there's no sign of their final ruling coming out of St Andrew's House any time soon.

If the ruling means some of the transmission line has to be buried instead of carried on pylons twice as high as those that currently stride through the Drumochter Pass, those supporting the upgrade fear that the process could get kicked back into the planning process and delayed even longer.