I disagree it's a game changer.

I remember a few years ago when the project was announced as coming to the UK in this forum.

My response is the same now - it utterly fails to answer the cost issue.

Back then they were talking about starting on some easy identical social housing. Fast forward a few years and... They're still talking about the same thing.

It's going nowhere, unless someone stumps up some big cash. With Government not doing it, we need a modern day Cadbury/Peabody.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenDon't think it's an either/or. If you have a poorly insulated, fossil heated house (IE most houses including mine) then you need to insulate AND swap to electrified heating (I am).

be saving 90% of carbon right away.

I agree it's not an either/or, but a both and/and. I do however approach the whole thing differently and believe that it's about reducing energy consumption rather than following the headline carbon reduction. At the system level, I don't think there is anything close to an immediate saving of 90% carbon even on a so-called green tariff. That's going to take a couple of decades, if not longer I suspect.

Posted By: SimonDthere are different economic models available that would allow significant government cash

Yes - read
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deficit-Myth-Modern-Monetary-Economy/dp/1529352568/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=debt+myth&qid=1636112235&sr=8-1.
Governments that control their own currency have no problem with writing vast sums into existence - no need to even 'borrow' it from the private sector (as with QE). No danger of consequent inflation, provided it's done selectively and carefully targeted. Politicians like Biden now understand this, while Republicans (and Manchin) still hold to the old view.

And yes

Posted By: SimonDthere is knowhere near the necessary resource, skills, or knowledge in the UK construction industry to do it all properly and to solve this, it would take probably a decade or more of training and development

That's the real challenge - and fantastic opportunity to create jobs, skilled, well paid. Why not start now, or ten years ago?

Posted By: WillInAberdeenFrom SAP 10:

Carbon intensity of gas heating including efficiency of condensing combi gas boiler = 250g/kWh

Carbon intensity of heatpump, on UK average grid electricity = 38g/kWh @SCOP3.5

Immediate carbon saving by switching to heatpump without additional insulation = 84%

This is indeed not quite 90%, but agree this will improve over next few years as grid intensity continues to fall. Using CCC's projection the available saving will be >90% in 2027.

We are on oil heating so the carbon reduction for us, as of now is 89%. Sorry I shouldn't have used this figure for everyone.

Agree the figures can be made to look better or worse if you consider a "green" tariff, or regional grid intensities such as in Scotland, or marginal intensity, so let's not!

I think that's really more my point. To me it depends on how much to trust the accuracy of that data. You've got to start somewhere, but I am not the only one to think there are numerous limitations to those figures from a methodological perspective. Current figures used (including 2021) apply a carbon intensity figure of zero to Hydro, Nuclear, Wind, Solar and Pumped storage. These figures also caveat biomass to 120 +/- 120 gCo2/kWh depending on how they look at it. Life Cycle Assessment shows that none of these categories produce zero carbon. Additionally, imports are not included in the figures so essentially all we would need to do is import all our electricity and hey presto we're zero carbon.

There are also the limitations of arbitrary system boundaries. Nuclear doesn't include fuel transportation which actually contributes something like 11% of the carbon emissions of a nuclear power station over its lifetime.

A similar picture occurs with the figures used to show our reduction in carbon emissions where the government's headline figure is nearly 50% but if you do the calculations using other methods, this can be as bad as only 15%.

There's no doubt renewable energy is essential and producing some great results, but the figures we have are neither transparent, nor complete, and therefore only provide a very rough estimate as to the real world situation. Not unlike looking at creative transfer pricing arrangements in multi-national corporations

That's why I think we have to treat these figure with great caution and a healthy dose of cynicism as personally I would prefer to properly understand how far we still have to go and I don't think much of the population really understand this. The government certainly isn't making it very clear either

Posted By: WillInAberdeena more relevant metric than energy usage, because carbon causes global warming.

The problem as I see it with this predominant approach is that it is fundamentally linear, mechanicanistic and reductionist. It also focusses intention and action towards one small goal that we actually have have no knowledge of being effective (although history shows us the fallacy here as well as the problems of unintended consequences). This is why we need a systemic approach. Fundamentally the elephant in the room globally is resource use overshoot as a result of which we're destroying many aspects of our ecosystem. When we take a wider focus on ecosystems, we tend to find very effective natural resources that mitigate our impact on the climate. For example, blue carbon and the understanding that salt marshes are extraordinary carbon sinks. One salt marsh is the south west was rescued due to demand for flood prevention and nearly didn't happen because people didn't think it was worth the money - now with a better understanding of how it works as a carbon sink, it out values a vast number of other technological solutions to carbon sequestration.

If we spent more time understanding, nurturing and enhancing our ecosystems, we would undoubtebdly find that the planet's ecosystem becomes more resilient in the face of increasing carbon in the atmosphere. In some instances biologists are finding that plants and trees are already adpating to these changes in way that increase growth and development of the plants themselves. The problem with our continued ourshoot is we're actually doing the opposite. The interesting thing for me is that enhancing our ecosystems in ways which help people to connect with nature also has the effect of enhancing social cohesion and individual psychology, including mental health. Current carbon reduction approaches do nothing of the sort and are more detrimental socially, culturally and psychologically.

This may all seem counter-intuitive, but that's how complex adaptive systems work.

We need to understand when enough is enough.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenThe carbon embodied by building renewable generators was long used as a stick by their opponents, but was debunked over many LCA studies, which showed it is trivial compared to the carbon that they save,

Then why not include those figures in the calculations rather than ignore them? And who makes the decision as to what is trivial or not. I've read a good handful of LCAs on wind turbines and generally the findings tend to range from 8 to about 37g Co2e/kWh in GWP/GHG although I have a reference to one which is significantly higher. Taking the current grid carbon intensity given by SAP 10 of 136g Co2e/kWh, 37g if correct is rather significant to me but currently ignored.

To undertake a proper critical analysis to fully understand the environmental consequences of policy decisions is nothing but sensible in my view, and unwise to dismiss the process just because it may yield inconvenient or uncomfortable results.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenPerversely, the greener the grid becomes, the less carbon is saved by building each new renewable generator...

I think that is only to be expected given how large scale systems tend to work.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenBetter to decarbonise the source of the heat more quickly.

I don't disagree with you that there is a carbon cost to insulating. However, I think that insulating would reduce energy demand such that it reduces demand on heating requirements and thus implementation of alternative energy supplies, which would reduce the need to develop over-supply. Over-supply of energy, whether renewable or not has a carbon cost to it, which increases over time.

I find it curious that in this regard we forget human behaviour and how it dictates the final energy consumption of the home. Instead we look at simplistic kWH figures of heat input/output. If we spent a bit more time understanding those natural human behaviours, it could take us a lot further. I know I've said it before on this forum, but if you introduce the perception of a draught into a home, the occupant tends overcompensate when turning up the thermastat, sometimes by several degrees. Therefore this increases energy consumption over and above the calculable energy loss of the draught. Similar things have been found in MVHR studies where people unconsciously open windows due to increase in Co2 levels in the indoor atmosphere. I think it is reasonable to surmise that if you increase airtightness and insulate and ventilat properly you would end up with greater energy savings than the theoretical energy performance of the building.

Many of the financial models used for costing windfarm developments significantly under estimate maintenance costs and most are completely devoid of decommissioning costs. Given that these are financed and built by private shell companies, it's an environmental timebomb waiting to happen but is being ignored in the name of carbon reduction. So over-supply will simply exacerbate this problem.

Hence why I believe insulating is a primary activity.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenThe whole area is littered with these opportunities for "paralysis by analysis", we can draw our "system level" boundaries wherever we like to prove whatever we want, and society can easily spend another decade debating what solution would be "the best", like the last decade!

I don't necessarily see it like this. I don't think we've got to a stage where there is paralysis by analysis. I think it's more down to political and economic inertia which is sorely lacking in the analysis required to undertake the necessary change required for the benefit of our climate and planetary ecosystem. One of the problems as I see it is that there is now a closing down of freedom of critique within environmental movements and science, which is actually more detrimental to progress.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenI think it would be pretty good if we can save 89% of our house's carbon pretty quickly by switching to a heatpump, even if there's a probability distribution around that number, and follow up with insulation next.

I think it would be amazing to be able to do that and it may be possible to do it on an individual basis within a specific context. My concern is more at the system level in that if we were to implement such a transition on a global scale, this is simply not possible given what has to happen to support such a system wide transition, particularly if it's done quickly. One massive hindrance to this is human resource.

One context where switching over the heatpumps has worked extremely well is in Sweden. Their grid system is almost entirely electrical running boilers, cookers and just about everything else. Historically their grid has been powered by nuclear and hydro, so both low carbon. It makes sense to switch from direct electric boiler to heatpumps. Houses in Sweden are also generally built and insulated to a much higher standard. Socially they've also been more open to the new technology and implemented it wa ahead of us. However here in the UK it's very different, given our reliance on gas for heating and cooking the poor standard of housing stock.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenHere's the only line from my previous post which you didn't quote

Yes indeed, I did leave that one out We do indeed need to do both

From a Carbon perspective, I completely agree - heatpumps are the cheapest and quickest way to get to low carbon.

My own experience shows me that lots of insulation would allow existing rads to efficiently heat a home using a heatpump. Our 1963 120m2 home took 18MWh/ year until 2000 ish, now its around 4MWh. The orig rads dissipate 1kW with 5degC above the internal temp, so could now run at 30C to heat the home to 20C. Initially those same rads would need to run at ~50C continuously. I know of homes near me still like that, grr.
I expect a heatpump only installer would have swapped out the rads for bigger ones, and used a huge heatpump. This all costs, and the running costs of a heatpump are similar to gas due to the bizarrely low cost of gas - so where is the incentive to do it?

At the moment we seem to have motivations of cost and ‘doing the right thing’, but most people would have no idea what that is. A hefty CO2 tax would push things the right way imho. Govt has powerful tax levers, and needs to pull the right ones (not stamp duty/PV/insulation, yes fuel escalator/Co2).

Some additional info on retrofit of existing houses:

"Fabric insulation helped reduce the predicted
annual space heating demand by as much as 95%
[West London, case study 4, House 109, page 47]"

"The energy and carbon reductions
in Retrofit for the Future homes
were as much as 80%"

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669113/Retrofit_for_the_future_-_A_guide_to_making_retrofit_work_-_2014.pdf

Sounds credible to me. Tho I do wonder about my own age-related increasing farting, on vegetarian diet. I wonder whether there's so much fart per calorie, and if not performed by a cow on my behalf (while plants can't fart), I do the farting myself.

@RobL

Alerting people that driving/housing are the most important areas is a great message to get out there. There is a media fascination with diet, even though going vegan might only result in a 2-5% reduction per person in an industrialized country and the notion that veganism is a must has really created a PR problem for carbon reduction initiatives.

Posted By: wholaa@RobL

Alerting people that driving/housing are the most important areas is a great message to get out there. There is a media fascination with diet, even though going vegan might only result in a 2-5% reduction per person in an industrialized country and the notion that veganism is a must has really created a PR problem for carbon reduction initiatives.

I did this carbon footprint calculator. https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx the food we buy comes under the category secondary piled in with other stuff like reading matter insurance recreation, phone computer etc. Food account for 75% of this category (medium meat eater) and the category 66% of the total. It dwarfs house 15% and car 18% We grow a lot of what we eat if we bought it, that food footprint would be higher still. Becoming vegan would knock 22% off our carbon footprint as a household. I think it comes out as a lot as the other elements are low. I cannot see how we can eat less so wonder how realistic carbon footprint calculators are.

Posted By: wholaaThe trouble is data is misrepresented and the great health benefits are ignored. Here is a great example from the Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/25/going-vegan-can-switching-to-a-plant-based-diet-really-save-the-planet" rel="nofollow" >https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/25/going-vegan-can-switching-to-a-plant-based-diet-really-save-the-planet

I havent read what the guardian has to say but agree that there are health benefits from meat eating, in limited quantities. Our teeth arent as they are just to munch quorn!

I had a couple of courses of antibiotics, reluctantly, after most of a lifetime avoiding same. Distressingly, farting stopped. I take it as a sign of gradually recovering gut biome, that it's coming back.