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> The Heat and Building Strategy, to be published alongside the wider net zero review, will include a new 2035 target for a ban on fitting new domestic gas boil

by Glench 5y ago

> The Heat and Building Strategy, to be published alongside the wider net zero review, will include a new 2035 target for a ban on fitting new domestic gas boilers. Man, I'm glad this is included but the scientific reality is that we need to move much much faster than this. For reference, even if we perfectly replaced every gas furnace at the end of its functional life starting today with a non-polluting heat pump, we'd still be on track for 2 degrees of warming. We need gas bans on new houses NOW or at the VERY least create major up-front discounts for heat pumps.

hutzlibu 5y ago
Why is a ban on gas furnaces so important, when you can burn coal in your stove and oil for heating and both are still very common (at least here in germany)? I thought gas is way better than coal or oil, because it burns cleaner?
- Factorium 5y ago
  The UK strategy is to replace those gas burners with heat pumps, which you can power with nuclear energy. The problem in the UK is that many houses are very old and poorly insulated. Passivhaus basically needs to be the standard (if it isn't already).
- jamesdf 5y ago
  At least in the UK, using coal or oil is very uncommon, while gas is very common. So gas is the bigger problem to resolve. We need to get rid of them all eventually.
  - Glench 5y ago
    > We need to get rid of them all eventually. Totally agreed! But for me I'd love to strike the word "eventually" from the sentence. At this point we're in such deep shit that we have to move more quickly than "eventually" in my opinion. :) It's far better to emit NO pollutants in your home (and cars!) than to emit less, especially since polluting home infrastructure is replaced every ~15 years and pollutes for its entire lifetime.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Here in France, most furnaces are electric, a few use gas, and some stovetops use gas but they are becoming more rare, as it's cheaper to simply not include gas in a building. It's very surprising to me that people are still burning coal in their home, outside of very rural areas. Same thing with oil (except with cars of course).
- Glench 5y ago
  Ah, in the US gas is the most common and I'm not sure about the UK — just going off what the article mentioned. But yeah, my understanding is that burning gas in your home produces less CO2 than burning coal or oil, but they ALL pollute (and gas often has methane leaks from pipelines which is worse for warming than CO2). Whereas a heat pump emits nothing, is ~3x more efficient than gas combustion, and will increasingly cause no emissions as the grid is powered by renewables. It's far better to emit NO pollutants in your home (and cars!) than to emit less, especially since polluting home infrastructure is replaced every ~15 years and pollutes for its entire lifetime.
  - nly 5y ago
    Are all properties suitable for a heat pump though? That's the question. My understanding is they are basically aircon units running in reverse, which means outside heat radiators?
    - roywiggins 5y ago
      If you can't fit a heat pump, resistive heating should work fine, but it will be more expensive to run. It would obviously put more load on your renewable grid, so you'd want to put heatpumps wherever possible, but at least it's better than burning gas/oil/coal for heat.
    - Glench 5y ago
      > Are all properties suitable for a heat pump though? That's the question. Generally, yes, but of course it always depends on specific circumstances. Read up on heat pumps! They're really cool. And yes they're like air conditioning units that can cool and also heat. In addition to heat pump space heating there are also heat pump hot water heaters and heat pump clothes driers and it seems both are more efficient and non-polluting. It feels magical that they can pull heat from outside in the winter, but that's what they do! The more recent units can even do it in very cold temperatures.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Residential coal heating is extremely rare in the US[0], to the point where it occasionally gets a human interest story whenever a reporter runs into someone who uses coal. Most of America uses gas, some newer buildings and the south uses electricity, and wood handily outnumbers coal. The roughest equivalent we have here is oil heating, which is really only common in the northeast. It’s my understanding that that’s being phased out, because it’s unpleasant to live with. I don’t even know where I’d go to buy coal, to be honest. For most of America the closest we get to the stuff is a charcoal grill. 0 - 130,000 households two years ago, half in Pennsylvania.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    "I don’t even know where I’d go to buy coal, to be honest. For most of America the closest we get to the stuff is a charcoal grill." Well here in germany in winter time, you can buy 10 kg packs in allmost every supermarket. Probably a side effect of the still big ongoing open coal mining. But its gotten quite rare in comparison, when I was a child, it was common for many houses, to have coal in the basement and regular getting a truck for resupply. Now it is mostly for additional heat.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      That’s genuinely shocking and horrifying to me. Outside of coal mining areas, it’s viewed as a dirty and inferior fuel here in America. The idea of there being just stacks of the stuff where I buy my food is pretty hard to accept for me. Outside of a specialist delivery company (“high quality bituminous”, heh), I’d have to travel to a feed & seed store in the nearby farm country to buy coal for heating ($9 for a 40lb bag of anthracite). They’re out of stock, but it’s not clear to me if that’s because of supply chain issues, or because nobody ever actually wants it in my area. Meanwhile firewood is super easy to get. It’s available everywhere, including in huge stacks outside our grocery stores. I can even buy it from my city at $90 a cord, but it needs to be split.
      - hutzlibu 5y ago
        "it’s viewed as a dirty" It is. I lived in a small town in a river valley some years ago: you couldn't open the windows in late afternoon, when everyone started to burn their dirty fires.
mike-cardwell 5y ago
From the article being discussed: "The government is at present drawing up plans to subsidise electric pumps with grants of £5,000 for air source heat pumps and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps."
- Glench 5y ago
  Yes, that's great! I just wish it was paired with the more ambitious stick of banning new gas hookups.
  - mike-cardwell 5y ago
    Right now seems to be a perfect time to announce such large subsidies on heat pump installations. For two reasons: 1. A lot of people in the UK have actually had their savings grow because of covid. Not being able to spend on holidays and going out etc (I realise some have not fared so well). 2. The current crisis in gas. I think they're going to be swamped with people who want to take advantage of this. I don't think they're going to be able to keep up with the demand. I'm personally going to be on top of it as soon as it becomes available.
    - Glench 5y ago
      That's awesome! Please share with others what you learn in the process!
jacquesm 5y ago
Not to get you depressed, but given the amount of momentum involved there is absolutely no way we will meet our climate targets. It's game over on that front, the best you can hope for is damage limitation.
- Glench 5y ago
  You may be right! But the time for ambition and execution is now because our planet is too damn important for anything less. :)
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That I agree with. But the illusion that we're going to get through this unscathed if we all just pull together is at this point in time more harmful than helpful.
    - Glench 5y ago
      I'd add to that that we're already scathed! The higher temperatures have already affected the oceans, wildfires, droughts, and increased intensity for weather patterns like hurricanes.
heurisko 5y ago
A further alternative to heat pumps is hydrogen fired boilers. Heat pumps work well in well insulated houses, with large radiators, which aren't attributes of much existing UK housing. Boiler manufacturers are already designing hydrogen boilers. The question is, how much existing infrastructure can be used to transport hydrogen. I think we should be able to get to 20% hydrogen at least sooner rather than later, which is being supported by modern boilers. https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/hydrogen https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/hydrogen
- Glench 5y ago
  Why do you say heat pumps only work in well insulated houses with large radiators? Heat pumps are ~3x as efficient as the best gas furnaces so why would you need a better insulated house? Also, the problem with hydrogen is how do you produce it? Probably with renewable energy, right? So why would you waste all that energy converting from renewable electricity to hydrogen then burning hydrogen (which is not super efficient anyway)? Might as well just use the renewables to power your heat pump. Plus, heat pumps already work at scale whereas hydrogen needs a lot more work before it's ready for primetime.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    > Why do you say heat pumps only work in well insulated houses with large radiators? Because heat pumps operate at a lower flow temperature than boilers. Smaller radiators designed to operate at hotter temperatures won't bring your house up to the target heat temperature operating at lower temperatures. They often need replacing. [1] Trials of heat pumps in existing UK housing have found it difficult giving away heat pumps for free, because of all the extra work required for them to operate properly in the house. [2] > Heat pumps are ~3x as efficient as the best gas furnaces so why would you need a better insulated house? Heat pumps in comparison to conventional boilers are meant to be on all the time at a lower temperature, as they take a long time to bring a house up to target temperature. They depend on good insulation, otherwise the heat never accumulates, similar to if you leave a freezer door ajar, it will never freeze. > So why would you waste all that energy converting from renewable electricity to hydrogen then burning hydrogen (which is not super efficient anyway)? At times, renewable energy drives electricity prices negative. We haven't got many ways to store this when it happens, converting water to hydrogen would be a good candidate, which can be delivered using existing gas infrastructure. > Plus, heat pumps already work at scale Not in existing UK housing, which would require major changes (insulation, underfloor heating, larger radiators), before they work. [1] https://www.imsheatpumps.co.uk/blog/can-i-use-radiators-with-a-heat-pump/ https://www.imsheatpumps.co.uk/blog/can-i-use-radiators-with... [2] https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/major-challenges-in-persuading-homeowners-to-install-heat-pumps-government-admits/5112116.article https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/major-challenges-in-pers...
fmajid 5y ago
Good thing the gas price spike has concentrated minds. My parents live in France. They have to replace their 40 year old gas furnace, and were originally planning on replacing it with a 30% more efficient condensation gas furnace, but the French government gave them subsidies for a heat pump instead. They get heating that is powered by stable French nuclear power and are not exposed to volatile natural gas prices, the French reduce their dependency on gas imports from the distasteful Algerian, Qatari or Russian governments, everyone wins.
- Glench 5y ago
  That's great that that happened! I think it's to the point now where we need everyone to do that. Was it hard for them to physically change out their gas system for the heat pump? Was it hard to find installers or units?
  - fmajid 5y ago
    It's still work in progress. Finding the installers wasn't hard, but my parents are old and the options are complex, so it took them a while to select the vendor and heat pump. Right now they are awaiting government approval for their application (it's been very popular and they are swamped, and even had to increase the budget allocation). They also had to do preliminaries like upgrade their electrical connection and add 3-phase wiring in the home, as well as build a concrete platform outside the house to stand the heat pump on. The heat pump itself should be a drop-in replacement that uses the existing hot water radiators (which means it can't be used as A/C, unfortunately).

by Glench 5y ago

hutzlibu 5y ago

Why is a ban on gas furnaces so important, when you can burn coal in your stove and oil for heating and both are still very common (at least here in germany)? I thought gas is way better than coal or oil, because it burns cleaner?

Factorium 5y ago
The UK strategy is to replace those gas burners with heat pumps, which you can power with nuclear energy. The problem in the UK is that many houses are very old and poorly insulated. Passivhaus basically needs to be the standard (if it isn't already).
jamesdf 5y ago
At least in the UK, using coal or oil is very uncommon, while gas is very common. So gas is the bigger problem to resolve. We need to get rid of them all eventually.
- Glench 5y ago
  > We need to get rid of them all eventually. Totally agreed! But for me I'd love to strike the word "eventually" from the sentence. At this point we're in such deep shit that we have to move more quickly than "eventually" in my opinion. :) It's far better to emit NO pollutants in your home (and cars!) than to emit less, especially since polluting home infrastructure is replaced every ~15 years and pollutes for its entire lifetime.
Zababa 5y ago
Here in France, most furnaces are electric, a few use gas, and some stovetops use gas but they are becoming more rare, as it's cheaper to simply not include gas in a building. It's very surprising to me that people are still burning coal in their home, outside of very rural areas. Same thing with oil (except with cars of course).
Glench 5y ago
Ah, in the US gas is the most common and I'm not sure about the UK — just going off what the article mentioned. But yeah, my understanding is that burning gas in your home produces less CO2 than burning coal or oil, but they ALL pollute (and gas often has methane leaks from pipelines which is worse for warming than CO2). Whereas a heat pump emits nothing, is ~3x more efficient than gas combustion, and will increasingly cause no emissions as the grid is powered by renewables. It's far better to emit NO pollutants in your home (and cars!) than to emit less, especially since polluting home infrastructure is replaced every ~15 years and pollutes for its entire lifetime.
- nly 5y ago
  Are all properties suitable for a heat pump though? That's the question. My understanding is they are basically aircon units running in reverse, which means outside heat radiators?
  - roywiggins 5y ago
    If you can't fit a heat pump, resistive heating should work fine, but it will be more expensive to run. It would obviously put more load on your renewable grid, so you'd want to put heatpumps wherever possible, but at least it's better than burning gas/oil/coal for heat.
  - Glench 5y ago
    > Are all properties suitable for a heat pump though? That's the question. Generally, yes, but of course it always depends on specific circumstances. Read up on heat pumps! They're really cool. And yes they're like air conditioning units that can cool and also heat. In addition to heat pump space heating there are also heat pump hot water heaters and heat pump clothes driers and it seems both are more efficient and non-polluting. It feels magical that they can pull heat from outside in the winter, but that's what they do! The more recent units can even do it in very cold temperatures.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Residential coal heating is extremely rare in the US[0], to the point where it occasionally gets a human interest story whenever a reporter runs into someone who uses coal. Most of America uses gas, some newer buildings and the south uses electricity, and wood handily outnumbers coal. The roughest equivalent we have here is oil heating, which is really only common in the northeast. It’s my understanding that that’s being phased out, because it’s unpleasant to live with. I don’t even know where I’d go to buy coal, to be honest. For most of America the closest we get to the stuff is a charcoal grill. 0 - 130,000 households two years ago, half in Pennsylvania.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "I don’t even know where I’d go to buy coal, to be honest. For most of America the closest we get to the stuff is a charcoal grill." Well here in germany in winter time, you can buy 10 kg packs in allmost every supermarket. Probably a side effect of the still big ongoing open coal mining. But its gotten quite rare in comparison, when I was a child, it was common for many houses, to have coal in the basement and regular getting a truck for resupply. Now it is mostly for additional heat.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    That’s genuinely shocking and horrifying to me. Outside of coal mining areas, it’s viewed as a dirty and inferior fuel here in America. The idea of there being just stacks of the stuff where I buy my food is pretty hard to accept for me. Outside of a specialist delivery company (“high quality bituminous”, heh), I’d have to travel to a feed & seed store in the nearby farm country to buy coal for heating ($9 for a 40lb bag of anthracite). They’re out of stock, but it’s not clear to me if that’s because of supply chain issues, or because nobody ever actually wants it in my area. Meanwhile firewood is super easy to get. It’s available everywhere, including in huge stacks outside our grocery stores. I can even buy it from my city at $90 a cord, but it needs to be split.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      "it’s viewed as a dirty" It is. I lived in a small town in a river valley some years ago: you couldn't open the windows in late afternoon, when everyone started to burn their dirty fires.

mike-cardwell 5y ago

From the article being discussed: "The government is at present drawing up plans to subsidise electric pumps with grants of £5,000 for air source heat pumps and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps."

Glench 5y ago
Yes, that's great! I just wish it was paired with the more ambitious stick of banning new gas hookups.
- mike-cardwell 5y ago
  Right now seems to be a perfect time to announce such large subsidies on heat pump installations. For two reasons: 1. A lot of people in the UK have actually had their savings grow because of covid. Not being able to spend on holidays and going out etc (I realise some have not fared so well). 2. The current crisis in gas. I think they're going to be swamped with people who want to take advantage of this. I don't think they're going to be able to keep up with the demand. I'm personally going to be on top of it as soon as it becomes available.
  - Glench 5y ago
    That's awesome! Please share with others what you learn in the process!

jacquesm 5y ago

Not to get you depressed, but given the amount of momentum involved there is absolutely no way we will meet our climate targets. It's game over on that front, the best you can hope for is damage limitation.

Glench 5y ago
You may be right! But the time for ambition and execution is now because our planet is too damn important for anything less. :)
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That I agree with. But the illusion that we're going to get through this unscathed if we all just pull together is at this point in time more harmful than helpful.
  - Glench 5y ago
    I'd add to that that we're already scathed! The higher temperatures have already affected the oceans, wildfires, droughts, and increased intensity for weather patterns like hurricanes.

heurisko 5y ago

A further alternative to heat pumps is hydrogen fired boilers. Heat pumps work well in well insulated houses, with large radiators, which aren't attributes of much existing UK housing. Boiler manufacturers are already designing hydrogen boilers. The question is, how much existing infrastructure can be used to transport hydrogen. I think we should be able to get to 20% hydrogen at least sooner rather than later, which is being supported by modern boilers. https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/hydrogen https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/hydrogen

Glench 5y ago
Why do you say heat pumps only work in well insulated houses with large radiators? Heat pumps are ~3x as efficient as the best gas furnaces so why would you need a better insulated house? Also, the problem with hydrogen is how do you produce it? Probably with renewable energy, right? So why would you waste all that energy converting from renewable electricity to hydrogen then burning hydrogen (which is not super efficient anyway)? Might as well just use the renewables to power your heat pump. Plus, heat pumps already work at scale whereas hydrogen needs a lot more work before it's ready for primetime.
- heurisko 5y ago
  > Why do you say heat pumps only work in well insulated houses with large radiators? Because heat pumps operate at a lower flow temperature than boilers. Smaller radiators designed to operate at hotter temperatures won't bring your house up to the target heat temperature operating at lower temperatures. They often need replacing. [1] Trials of heat pumps in existing UK housing have found it difficult giving away heat pumps for free, because of all the extra work required for them to operate properly in the house. [2] > Heat pumps are ~3x as efficient as the best gas furnaces so why would you need a better insulated house? Heat pumps in comparison to conventional boilers are meant to be on all the time at a lower temperature, as they take a long time to bring a house up to target temperature. They depend on good insulation, otherwise the heat never accumulates, similar to if you leave a freezer door ajar, it will never freeze. > So why would you waste all that energy converting from renewable electricity to hydrogen then burning hydrogen (which is not super efficient anyway)? At times, renewable energy drives electricity prices negative. We haven't got many ways to store this when it happens, converting water to hydrogen would be a good candidate, which can be delivered using existing gas infrastructure. > Plus, heat pumps already work at scale Not in existing UK housing, which would require major changes (insulation, underfloor heating, larger radiators), before they work. [1] https://www.imsheatpumps.co.uk/blog/can-i-use-radiators-with-a-heat-pump/ https://www.imsheatpumps.co.uk/blog/can-i-use-radiators-with... [2] https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/major-challenges-in-persuading-homeowners-to-install-heat-pumps-government-admits/5112116.article https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/major-challenges-in-pers...

fmajid 5y ago

Good thing the gas price spike has concentrated minds. My parents live in France. They have to replace their 40 year old gas furnace, and were originally planning on replacing it with a 30% more efficient condensation gas furnace, but the French government gave them subsidies for a heat pump instead. They get heating that is powered by stable French nuclear power and are not exposed to volatile natural gas prices, the French reduce their dependency on gas imports from the distasteful Algerian, Qatari or Russian governments, everyone wins.

Glench 5y ago
That's great that that happened! I think it's to the point now where we need everyone to do that. Was it hard for them to physically change out their gas system for the heat pump? Was it hard to find installers or units?
- fmajid 5y ago
  It's still work in progress. Finding the installers wasn't hard, but my parents are old and the options are complex, so it took them a while to select the vendor and heat pump. Right now they are awaiting government approval for their application (it's been very popular and they are swamped, and even had to increase the budget allocation). They also had to do preliminaries like upgrade their electrical connection and add 3-phase wiring in the home, as well as build a concrete platform outside the house to stand the heat pump on. The heat pump itself should be a drop-in replacement that uses the existing hot water radiators (which means it can't be used as A/C, unfortunately).