If you were Chancellor....

[Radian]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Wasn't that already tried, and was a total failure.  Who remembers The Green Bank.

 

The UK Green bank was sold to Macquarie for £2.3 billion in 2017. Goodness only knows what it does now. The principle of funding by a small surcharge on energy bills is no longer a runner but the energy generating companies would be the obvious source of investment were it not for the fact that the entire objective is to reduce overall demand for energy 🙄

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Gone West said:

The solution isn't generating more energy

It is when it comes to energy security.

As we transition from combustion technologies to directly generating electricity we will, overall, need less energy.

That is a long way off.

 

It is combustion technologies that have got us in this mess.

'When in a hole, stop digging' comes to mind. We have left it way to late to start the transition, and it is not as if we have not known about supply security, or climate change matters.

Now we have been forced into a corner, like out PM, we have to decide if we carry on with the original plan, or speed up the transition to renewable energy infrastructure.

I bet if the Chancellor went to the international money markets with a 10 year plan to transition at 15 TWh/year (approx 5% of our yearly primary energy usage), he could raise cheap money.

It would be bold, but it is feasible and would become our primary industry for the next decade.

But it won't happen as nurses want a pay rise, as do teachers and the police, barristers, Co OP workers, librarians........

In fact, everyone wants a larger than fair slice of our governments revenue.

 

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Radian said:

the entire objective is to reduce overall demand for energy

That need not be the objective. Reducing energy imports and emissions needs to be the objective.

 

[Radian]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That need not be the objective. Reducing energy imports and emissions needs to be the objective.

 

We will always have to pay for our energy so given the other benefits that come with reduced demand I see it as the main objective. So long as it's increased efficiency we're talking about and not reduction through abstinence.

[SteamyTea]

Just now, Radian said:

So long as it's increased efficiency we're talking about and not reduction through abstinence.

Going to be both. There is no simple solution.

We have to work from all angles. 

I think this is the real problem. It seems so overwhelming that most people cannot cope, the government included.

[NSS]

Just picking up on some of the points made.

 

I was suggesting the incentives should benefit those in most need. Sure, wealthy people like a freebie, but I don't see why they should get one. If their energy bills rising from say £3k per annum (I have a friend who was paying that a year ago) to say £7.5k is not incentive to invest in better insulation and the like, what is.

 

As has been mentioned, landlords are already on the clock to improve their properties, but that's no reason why low income tenants shouldn't still have access to incentives if the payback is almost immediate and worthwhile.

 

Of course part of the long term solution has to be less reliance on imported energy, of any origin, but that can't be provided over night. Smoothing the peaks in demand is similarly desirable, but again won't happen in anytime soon.

 

I actually see the sudden and huge rise in energy costs as a perhaps unique opportunity to do something to improve the energy efficiency of properties, something we've all been saying was needed since this forum existed. 

 

The question is how best to achieve that. And the window of opportunity may be brief. Once prices start to fall, even if such falls are relating modest, or once people get used to paying higher prices (at least those that can afford to), the motivation to fo something will diminish.

[Ferdinand]

Quote

  

9 hours ago, Radian said:

I would like to see a low interest loan scheme for financing energy saving measures that is applied to a property rather than an individual.

@SteamyTea said:

 

Wasn't that already tried, and was a total failure.  Who remembers The Green Bank.

 

One quick, cheap and easy way would be to drop objections to onshore generation projects.  Let wind, solar and hydro compete with bio-gas, coal, nuclear and gas.

 

Husk off, I think you are confusing the Green Bank, which raised £10bn of private Green Infrastucture investment by the Govt committing £2.3bn - which was energy generation / reduction on a large scale, with the Green Deal, which was about using the reductions from your energy bill to pay off a loan to pay for the investment in your house. It was far too complicated. *

 

I'd say the Green Bank was a success, but Theresa May's Govt sold it off (fools), and the Green Deal was a failure, because it was far too complicated.

 

Both owe their results to over simplistic free market dogma. As a died-in-the-wool free marketeer, I think it's clear that in these schemes the Govt needed a bigger role.

 

The value of applying a free market is that (a) It means that things can be addressed in order of increasing utility without Govt second guessing / corruption when the guides have been set and (b) It means that what subsidy is needed is used most efficiently.

 

If you want an example of a free market based initiative look at how FIT subsidies were reduced to nothing to ensure maximum utility, whilst the Govt-micro control obsessed boneheads (**) of the Green Party continued to demand subsidies that were double or treble what was needed and rent-a-roof entrepreneurs would continue to make fortunes of hundreds of millions from such subsidy. 

 

F

 

* KISS. Just set a high standard, with taxes slanted to encourage it to be met.

** I am not keen on the UK Green Party, who IMO are watermelons, because I think frameworks to facilitate bottom-up initiatives are more effective than 45,863 expensive commissars in Council Offices.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I think you are confusing the Green Bank, which raised £10bn of private Green Infrastucture investment by the Govt committing £2.3bn - which was energy generation / reduction on a large scale, with the Green Deal

Yes I did.  It is a problem when things have similar names at the same time.

Bit like the Faces and the Small Faces.

Way too many similarities.

[Ferdinand]

On 17/10/2022 at 21:49, jonM said:

New builds are an easy win. Proper airtightness by design (not just a bit of silicon), MVHR and ASHP's would make a big difference to the energy efficiency in addition to improving air quality and addressing condensation issues. 

 

New builds stopped being a noticeable part of the problem years and years ago, since they each use only a fraction of the energy of an inefficient older house. That's not a reason to stop raising standards, eg the latest lot of Building Regs changes model as reducing modelled emission by 31%, but we need to know that this is the 20% side of the pareto analysis. 

 

Plus the large majority of houses in the UK *are* older, as we like to keep them around rather than rebuild using shed-tech every 30 years like in the USA, or have newer stock due to recent wars and more frequent renewal like much of the European mainland. (For impacts, see the problems Germany has with water supplies in their remaining older city centres).

 

The needed fix on newbuild is what it has also been for years - a rigorous inspection process by the BCO, rather than a game of pin the tail on the donkey inspecting one house from X.

 

7 hours ago, Gone West said:

The solution isn't generating more energy, it's reducing domestic energy usage which would be helped by a sensible scheme to improve existing housing stock, as @Radian says. Then people can live comfortably without using large amounts of energy.

 

We need to recognise that the UK has been effective in reducing emissions compared to our peer countries, and we use little energy by comparison with our peer countries. This was a graph I put together earlier when there was a remainer-type (one Siobhan Benita who is on perambulation through lots of political parties) trolling around on social media for things to help diss the UK wrt the EU, over the period of the current govt:

 

 

On energy usage (which I agree is very desirable to have low - need to build less infrastructure, or can export more), we are also doing OK by comparison. This is all energy usage, not just electricity. Though it is not "consumption based", which would make Germany (all those cars exported) and perhaps Norway (all that oil exported) look relatively better.

 

 

F

[Ferdinand]

Slight rant there. Sorry - close to my heart.

[joe90]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

close to my heart.

Very useful info F, I wonder if the Energy use per person is global position as the colder countries use more? Likewise Co2 graph, inland countries have lower winter temps as not warmed by the jet stream/Atlantic 🤔

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, joe90 said:

wonder if the Energy use per person is global position as the colder countries use more?

Depends how much air-conditioning is used.

Basically GDP is a better gauge of energy usage.

The more people earn, the more they use.

There are quirks of cause. Once a reasonable standard of living is achieved, then people start to care for the environment.

And at the other extreme, the very poor slum dwellers, they use little energy, but can do irreversible environmental damage in other areas.

[Ferdinand]

42 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Basically GDP is a better gauge of energy usage.

The more people earn, the more they use.

 

I don't think that holds to the extent implied - energy intensity of GDP (kWh/$) varies massively even across peer economies. It's quite possible for a wealthy county to use similar total energy to a similar less wealthy one. For me, that is one of the more hopeful signs that we can reduce emissions without returning to 1400. It is quite possible for development to happen with fewer emissions. We did total emissions per pop above. 

 

(Obvs there are factors such as exported emissions, local climate etc so it is all non totally precise).

 

For example, numbers of kWh per dollar of GDP for several countries, with a fuller graph below. Compare for example Denmark and Sweden, or Switzerland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

UK - 0.88

France - 1.08

Germany - 0.98

Denmark - 0.74

Italy - 0.89

Switzerland - 0.60.

USA - 1.48

Belgium - 1.60.

Netherlands - 1.21.

Canada - 2.45

Sweden - 1.35.

Singapore - 2.44

China - 2.13

South Korea - 1.8

Poland - 1.16

Spain - 1.1

 

Here's a chart:

 

Here's how that energy intensity of GDP over 25 years has changed for Bangladesh. They are using their carbon 3x as efficiently to produce income. Tis is even trade adjusted.

 

I haevn't quite answered @SteamyTea's q in the units he asked it, but these are adjacent numbers.

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

haevn't quite answered @SteamyTea's q in the units he asked it, but these are adjacent numbers

As I said, not perfect, but a good gauge.

We should really use emissions or an environmental damage factor (large hydro is problematic).

Also depends on, as you mention, imported and exported factors. 

It is an interesting area of environmental science, and there is no agreed international standard that is applied evenly.

 

[Iceverge]

On 18/10/2022 at 04:56, Adsibob said:

this isn't such a bad idea. Would it work though?

 

It could. 

 

[Iceverge]

On a slightly more sadistic note keeping energy prices as high as could be stomached without public unrest would certainly reduce usage. People would find a way to cope, no think tanks or fancy policy needed. Large uninsulated houses would become unsellable apart from plot value. 

 

To continue the flogging, power rationing would change behaviour. Allocate a certain daily or hourly amount of MWh to each segment of the electricity grid based on historical usage. Then unashamedly turn off the power when the limit was reached. Gradually reduce the limit over time or adapt it to daily wind/solar output.

 

You could give a single 2 second power cut at 75% of the limit. A 5 second one at 90% and a 10 second one at 97%. Chop the power completely at 100% and make everyone go to bed.  Within a few days people would have altered their behaviour. A slightly more nuanced version might have a smartphone app with an alert but I prefer the drama and suspense of the first method. 

 

On the supply side I think isolationism/energy independence isn't a solution. Pulling up the drawbridge leaves a country in a vulnerable position, especially with so much dependence on variable wind and solar. Opening more doors to buy and sell power is far more secure. Interconnectors, pipelines, oil and gas terminals. Gas and oil storage. Even Coal stockpiles would give far more options to keep the lights on rather than going "off grid" as a country and hoping the weather worked out ok and everyone discovered a shale well in the backyard. It is filthy though.

 

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

7 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

On a slightly more sadistic note ...

You could give a single 2 second power cut at 75% of the limit. A 5 second one at 90% and a 10 second one at 97%. Chop the power completely at 100% and make everyone go to bed.  Within a few days people would have altered their behaviour.

...

 

.... Behaviour altered to what? 

On a positive note, every teenager would have left the UK.  *king good idea .....

[Iceverge]

Just now, ToughButterCup said:

 

.... Behaviour altered to what? 

On a positive note, every teenager would have left the UK.  *king good idea .....

 

Caravan leisure battery lifestyle. No light switch left unflicked! 

 

[ToughButterCup]

That job - switching lights off - has been mine since marriage, especially since the evolution of teenage children.  Thank God that stage only lasted ten years.

 

I understand from mates thats a common dad-job . 🙄

[jack]

1 minute ago, ToughButterCup said:

That job - switching lights off - has been mine since marriage, especially since the evolution of teenage children.  Thank God that stage only lasted ten years.

 

I understand from mates thats a common dad-job . 🙄

 

No-one else in my house every switches anything off, not once, not ever. It's standing joke to everyone but me.

 

Best effort was the older boy leaving the fan heater on when he was in the garage gym yesterday. I spent a puzzled hour trying to figure out what was using 2 kW all day today when everything in the house was turned off. By the time we realised what the issue was, it had been on full power for over 20 hours. Even with a 4 hour cheap rate overnight and some decent solar through the middle of the day, that'll have cost a pretty penny!

[Radian]

3 minutes ago, jack said:

Best effort was the older boy leaving the fan heater on when he was in the garage gym yesterday.

How hot did it get in there?

[Adsibob]

Reminds me of a “thought of the day” I saw on public transport the other day which I associated so much with I decided to photograph it:

 

[jack]

2 hours ago, Radian said:

How hot did it get in there?

 

I don't know, but bloody warm! We have an insulated garage door, and the rest of the insulation is better than current house building regs.

 

I've just been out there actually, and it's still very warm hours later.

[Radian]

1 hour ago, jack said:

We have an insulated garage door,

That's on my list of things to do. The 15mm gap at the top and bottom of the doors will be a challenge though.

[Ferdinand]

18 hours ago, jack said:

 

No-one else in my house every switches anything off, not once, not ever. It's standing joke to everyone but me.

 

Best effort was the older boy leaving the fan heater on when he was in the garage gym yesterday. I spent a puzzled hour trying to figure out what was using 2 kW all day today when everything in the house was turned off. By the time we realised what the issue was, it had been on full power for over 20 hours. Even with a 4 hour cheap rate overnight and some decent solar through the middle of the day, that'll have cost a pretty penny!

 

Haha. I just did a @jack.

 

Have been running the gas for 30 minutes in a couple of radiators to slight-boost the bathrooms first thing, manually - then I run the heat pump for a couple of hours to generally boost the house when the solar comes on line.

 

Left it on for 24 hours by mistake 😁.Time to set the timer.

 

I make mine a  ~ Midlands pint at about £3 plus a bit, whilst I made Jack's a Southerner pint at about £6.

 

(Working on gas @ 80p per m3, which is about right, and lecky at 33p per kWh.