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100 comments on Will the UK Face a Natural Gas Crisis this Winter? (Part 1 of 2)
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100 comments on Will the UK Face a Natural Gas Crisis this Winter? (Part 1 of 2)
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Yes it should be possible to fit double glazing, loft insulation and cavity wall insulation to most homes. I think also solar water heating may help reduce consumption for the summer months. This, combined with increased gas storage could help mitigate the UK's increasingly perilous situation.
I hope my MP sees this - she said she would check theoildrum since I last saw her and apparently she has now joined the all parliamentary committee on peak oil.
It should be possible, but almost certainly isn't in the time required. Most people in the UK don't have an energy efficient house and can't afford to make it so.
I already have massive loft insulation, double glazing, solar hot water, backup power, smart car, electric bike etc etc - but I still need lots of energy for my house and to maintain my standard of living.
I am an early adopter of this stuff, but if even I can't live without substantial quantities of fossil fuels, then I am very sure the rest of the UK (who don't even realise coal production peaked way back in 1913, let alone oil and gas!) have the slightest chance of adapting in time.
By 2020 the UK will have a very dire need for imports of nearly all our energy requirements as the coal, oil, gas and uranium don't exist in the UK anymore.
Sadly, my monthly experience is that few UK MPs attend the peak oil and gas committee meetings, so, like the Government, they are almost completely clueless as to reality.
I'm not sure we will be out of coal, it is unclear what reserves are available at what price, and some new techniques hold out hope of perhaps gassifying it in situ:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7046981.stm
Personally I am pretty doubtful of how long it will take to bring them on-stream, even if they are usable.
coal plants, CO2 emissions aside, are also not hugely different to build from nuclear in some respects, and so give no quick fix.
The UK may not have uranium, but it does have substantial reserves of waste which can be reprocessed - enough to run 3 power stations for 60 years, in fact:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilitie...
The figure of £160 billion worth sounds bogus though - that would be the value of the power produced, not the cost of equivalent uranium.
None of this is of much help for the neat future though, and no matter which way I cut it, it looks like being very cold here for at least the next 20 years.
Already as I posted on the energy security blog we are not sure of medicines this winter as they have not ordered ahead.
My fear as power is cut is of not just deaths from hypothermia, but actual hunger due to inability to pay for imports as the lights go out for industry.
'Mad Max Goes to the UK?'
I live in a 50 sq meter condo that was built a generation ago. In a typical month, I use about 65 KWH of electricity (wind powered) & about the same worth of Natural Gas to keep this place at 18C in winter. I live in Calgary, AB, where temps can be as cold as -30C for days on end. I have double windows, very old fashioned, in need of replacing too. How can you use that much in fossil fuels? (my electricity doesn't include my dryer or hot water).
Given England's moderate climate, I can't see how you'd even need much heat. What you have could easily be produced with heat pumps or GeoThermal. My family is Scottish (I'm first generation) Canadian...and last time I was in Scotland, it was a vast empty place with a WHOLE bunch of wind/wave power.
What would it cost to properly insulate an older home in the UK? 5 000 quid ?
For reference I live in a 52sqm end of terrace house. Two floors, roughly the same vintage as your condo. I'm in Scotland. Temps don't go below freezing much.
We use 170kwh ish gas per month for our hot water provision.
In the middle of winter on top of that we'll use 950 - 1000 kWh worth of gas for space heat. We keep the place at 20C minimum, but we only heat in the evenings and early morning. We don't use the heating while we're at work all day so I'm guessing the average temp is much lower that 20.
Our house has decent loft space insultion and good double glazing, but no cavity wall insulation.
You're claiming that your heating load is 130kWh per month. Assuming heating 5 months of the year thats 650kWh over 50sqm then you're looking at only 13kWh/sqm/annum heating requirements.
If I'm not wrong thats below the Passivhaus standard of 15kWh/sqm per annum.
That doesn't sound quite right to me. Having said that 18C - 64.5F is pretty cold for an indoor temp.
Meanwhile my house is running at about 96kWh/sqm/annum, which is what I'd expect.
Andy
PS I'm assuming that your 65kWh of elec is used in base boards and not a heat pump.