Why we need "Net zero"

[Beelbeebub]

45 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Exactly the same a solar assist heat pump outdoor condenser, but indoors 

Ha! Yeah, but prettier obviously. 

 

What is that product? I wonder if you could get around the big box of an outdoor unit with a large black roof/wall mounted panel

[saveasteading]

 

3 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Dont think id want them in my house though.

 

 

Cheap but noisy, and easy to fit,  but  just for one room. But buy in southern Spain (prob france too) and they are much cheaper...and noisier.

If that was running off solar and battery that shouldn't take long to pay back.

 

[Roger440]

5 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

 

 

 

Cheap but noisy, and easy to fit,  but  just for one room. But buy in southern Spain (prob france too) and they are much cheaper...and noisier.

If that was running off solar and battery that shouldn't take long to pay back.

 

 

Came very close to fitting 2 in my office and "clean room" in my workshop. Well, the propane filled ones, so no need the an F gas person.

 

Sadly, my "electricity supply" issue means that ill need to go oil for that too. Lots of second hand boilers around at the moment for bugger all money. And easy to DIY.

 

Which is a shame, because this would have been much simpler.

[Crofter]

My air to air system doesn't look like that. 

There's a normal outdoor unit like any other ASHP.

Then under the floor there's the indoor unit, completely out of sight. Insulated 200mm ducts go from this too each room (smaller rooms split down to 150mm).

The warm air comes out of wall grilles. One in the kitchen plinth, the others are just above skirting level.

Each grille has adjustable vanes and a damper to restrict the flow. I've throttled down the kitchen one a little but otherwise haven't touched these. 

 

The house is 93m², the ASHP is 10kw, which I thought might be slightly oversized but it's what the installer suggested.

 

In use, we tend to set it to anywhere between 18-20⁰C. The thermostat is in the hallway in the middle of the house. You can close doors on individual rooms if you want them hotter. So usually we leave bedroom doors open and that keeps those rooms comfortably cool, while closing the living room door lets the temperature go up to a degree or two more in the. We could adjust the dampers to achieve the same thing but opening and closing doors is easier!

 

We do light the woodburner in the evenings so when I say we're spending £1-£2 a day, it's not quite the whole story. I reckon we maybe save £1 a day lighting the stove. Which does make me question the wisdom of spending so much time and effort chopping logs 😂

 

Edit to add: total installed cost was about £4200 including every little jubilee clip and clamp. Most of that was the supply and fit of the indoor and outdoor units. I ran all the ducting myself. A simple but time consuming job that the installer wasn't interested in taking on himself. I likely saved a lot of money by doing that myself. 

 

And just to reiterate, zero grant funding towards any of this.

[JohnMo]

58 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

What is that product?

Video - 

 

[-rick-]

Are they defunct? The website they give in the video seems dead. www.sahp.info

 

Whats the website in your earlier screenshot?

[JohnMo]

https://acwservicesltd.co.uk/electrical-services/solar-assisted-heat-pumps/

[Mattg4321]

On 29/01/2026 at 09:43, SimonD said:

 

I'm not sure it's agreed that we should extract what we've got. Analogous to the OP, I can't help think about another complex situation we're dealing with in the UK - the NHS - one of the lines of which goes:

- Service isn't working

- Result = call for more beds/capacity in hospitals

- Provide beds/capacity

- Find beds filled because patients can't be discharged effectively enough due to internal processes and external capacity (so patients get blamed as bedblockers)

- Result is full circle to call for more beds/capacity in the hospital

 

This is the cycle oft shouted from the rooftops from patient groups as well as politicians and the media.

 

The other view, which is mostly ignored from the above is, but very well understood (i.e. they know what needs to change and how to do it but are prevented by those holding the views above):

 

- Model and understand the effects of admitting patients into hospital (including costs)

- analyse the data

- realise that it is far cheaper, much more effective, and better for patients if they don't have to go into hospital in the first place

- costs can actually be reduced to as little as a 10th of the cost of inpatient service

- result - a realisation that we have to fundamentally rethink and change how we provide health services, which demands a total mental shift away from what we've been doing for almost 80 years.

- therefore resistance, because change is hard and may need additional upfront investment

- and what follows is 'oh this is too hard it isn't working immediately. Wards are being closed and we don't have enough beds, so to solve the problem we need more beds'

 

The similarities here are that we know what we need to do, we know how to do it and what is required, we have all the technology in place to do it, but instead we turn back to what we already know, despite all its downsides. Better the devil you know?
 

What possible sensible reason is there for leaving it in the ground whilst we import the same product from abroad at additional cost, with no benefit to the treasury and impact on certainty of national supply?

In all honesty net zero is not my biggest concern. High energy prices are. We need to reduce them as much as possible and any number of benefits will shortly follow. 
 

If the plan is to steal a march on other countries by going renewable early, and it means we can compete then great, but I’m very sceptical. China will keep burning mountains of coal for generations yet imo. Whilst we get poorer. 

 

[saveasteading]

53 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

leaving it in the ground whilst we import the same product from abroad at additional cost,

The oil isn't the same product.

I didn't know this til recently. 

Neither do the campaigners and anti-green journalists whose messages go far and wide. Or if they know it doesn't suit their narrative.

 

Ours goes away for turning into chemicals, and we can't run our vehicles or heating off it.

And it gets ever more expensive to extract as the volume and easy pickings diminish... as I understand it.

[jack]

1 hour ago, Mattg4321 said:

In all honesty net zero is not my biggest concern. High energy prices are.

 

The UK has some of the highest energy prices in the world, but that's driven by regulation and how the market is structured. I doubt increased local extraction would have much, if any, of an impact on energy prices.

I agree, however, that high energy prices are one of the biggest issues facing the UK at the moment, both domestically and industrially.

[Beelbeebub]

13 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

The oil isn't the same product.

I didn't know this til recently. 

Neither do the campaigners and anti-green journalists whose messages go far and wide. Or if they know it doesn't suit their narrative.

 

Ours goes away for turning into chemicals, and we can't run our vehicles or heating off it.

And it gets ever more expensive to extract as the volume and easy pickings diminish... as I understand it.

This also feeds into the "drill for energy security" argument. 

 

For gas it is relatively simple. So *if* we were able to extract enough gas for our needs then we could heat homes and run power stations from our own supply. 

 

But oil is another matter. 

 

We will *always* be dependent on imports for road fuel because of oil and refinery type mismatches. 

 

My understanding is us road fuel is mainly refined from imported oil, despite the US being a net exporter of oil, for this reason. 

 

So, as transport is vital to our economy and national security, having a system that relies on a product we have to import is bad.  The solution to this is to move transport to an energy source we can domestically supply. Previously this was more or less impossible. However the advent of practical for most purposes electric vehicles has solved this.

 

So the net zero policy of electrification of road transport is also the energy security policy of moving away from an import dependent fuel source. 

 

The key things politicians who advocate "drill for energy security" omit are

 

1. There is no plausible scenario where the UK can produce enough oil and gas for current consumption. 

 

2. Even if we could, type mismatch between oil and refineries would mean we have to import fuel anyway 

 

3. Being an open market means the price of domestically produced oil and gas tracks the world price anyway. Therfore not insulating us from price shocks.