A 'One warm room program?'

within six or seven years, we stand to lose 40 per cent of all our existing electricity-generating capacity.

From Mudloggers link to the Mail article

It is apparent that we will now in the UK whatever measures are taken have a massive energy gap, which will cause great suffering.
So how can we reduce this suffering?
It is too late to retrofit houses to Passivhaus standard, or to build out the generating capacity we need without using gas we won't have, so I am just focussing on emergency mitigation measures, rather than looking at loner term policies.
We have around 24million households in the UK, 3 million of which are in band F, the lowest insulation standards, and 9 million in band E.
There is no way we can bring this stock up to survivable levels in the time available.
What we could do is to bodge up insulation so that one room in every dwelling could be kept at acceptable temperatures - in Japan only one room is normally heated, so it is survivable.
This would have to go with a rationing system, so that the little heat we do have does not go to large houses of wealthy people, but keeps the general population alive.
This means the end of the 'free market' - Each house has a cut-off on energy.
Here is what we could do:
Loft insulation
Plastic bubble for windows:
http://www.simplycontrol.com/catalogue/insulation/default.asp
Greenhouse insulation, bubble insulation, snap mini kaps

Interior cladding, which reduces the usable space, but keeps you warm:
http://www.celotex.co.uk/
Celotex Insulation | High Performance Thermal Insulation Boards

These are not very Homes and Garden measures, but if just one room in each house is insulated the cost should be reasonable.

The bubble wrap for windows is very cheap, around £1.50 meter, so all the rooms in the house could have their windows sealed.
The greatest expense would be dry-lining the walls.

In an environment of high unemployment and hence low labour charges I would guess that about £2k might be enough to insulate.
Not every house in the country would need to be a public charge, so for back of the envelope you might have to pay publicly for half the stock.
So the total cost might be £24 bn or so, and it would not happen overnight, and would take time to get going.
Assuming that our masters realise that something is going on by around 2010, and taking 2015 as then year when we have lost really huge amounts of generating capacity, then a 4 year program night be realistic, so you are talking about £6bn a year.

At later stages then the use of air heat pumps etc could further reduce energy use - this would just be a basis on which to build.

What do you think?