[Moderating]
What nations “should” do, or the “moral high ground”, are not topics for FQ.
While there might be some Factual Questions possible on the role of Brexit in the UK’s current energy situation, that’s a sufficiently different topic than the supply or lack thereof of Russian fossil fuels that it would belong in a different thread.
All posters are instructed to stop all further discussion both of what nations “should” do and of Brexit.
If your underlying message is that our “Special Military Operation” has so depleted Europe’s supply of domestic energy that Europeans cannot even power their basic electronic devices, it seems a bit ill-considered/disingenuous to market it in the form of a video that would need to be viewed on said devices 
Maybe a bit like explaining how impoverished we’ve left you all, and placing that ad solely in the Robb Report.
Insulating the drafty homes in the UK certainly can be done if the political will was there.
In fact there was a flagship scheme to do precisely that between 2012 and 2015 called the Green Deal by the Conservative government under Cameron. It was a fiasco.
The Government’s impact assessment estimates that Green Deal will lead to 125,000 to 250,000 households being lifted out of fuel poverty by 2023. But that’s nowhere near enough, said Michelle Mitchell, charity director general at Age UK.
“The Government’s target of lifting just 250,000 households out of fuel poverty over the next 10 years is tantamount to trying to bail out a sinking boat with a teacup; in the last month alone another 300,000 households have joined the ranks of the fuel poor,” she pointed out.
It is estimated that some nine million households could fall into fuel poverty by 2016 while six million households are already in fuel poverty.
So that was written in 2013 and the scheme was ill-conceived and failed wasting a lot of money.
If it had been successful the problems the UK is now facing with large numbers of people facing fuel poverty could have been avoided.
The poor state of housing in the UK is a long standing structural problem in the UK economy that was not seen as a priority for the government to deal with. So now ten years later, we have an energy crisis and suddenly this weakness is exposed dramatically and is climbing up the political agenda.
Fuel poverty is a big issue. Millions of households are denied credit by energy suppliers and are obliged to use a pre-payment gas and electricity meter. They pay extra for that. So they ration themselves suffering in the cold and dark because they can’t afford to charge the credit key at the local store.
The government has provided some short term financial support to those facing huge bills, but there is a lot who will fall through the net. My bills have tripled and government support for many will end of April when it projected that there will be another big increase.
There will be more political pressure to hit the big Oil and Gas majors with another windfall tax on their excessive profits, but they will scream that they need the money to pump more gas from UK wells.
Quite a difficult economic problem for the government to solve. Their mistakes in the past are catching up with them.
But the exceptionally mild winter weather is helping a lot.
Canada had a program in the early 80’s to improve the insulation of crappy pre-Arab Oil Embargo construction. I knew a few people who had their houses’ insulation improved by injecting urea–formaldehyde foam into the poorly insulated exterior walls. Folllowed by un-saleable homes and expensive refit jobs to rip out that insulation which exuded formaldehyde into the house.
There are newer, safer formulations - I guess the question is - what does century-old construction look like, is it amenable to insulation improvements? I had a 1962 house with 2x4 stud walls and the best most cost-effective insulation upgrade was replacing the old aluminum slider windows with PVC triple-paned windows.
I suspect there are heritage laws in the UK which prevent a lot of classic single-pane wood frame windows from being appreciably upgraded because it would ruin the authentic look. Not to mention better insulated doors and weatherstripping.
The thing I remember, on my visit to the UK in early 1990’s, was looking out my hostel window in south London at a brick building with its waste water pipes running down the outside of the building. Oddly, that wouldn’t work in Canada’s climate. I assume the UK has a ways to go to energy efficiency.
There is quite a lot of agitation in the UK about this, as well as other energy conservation measures. There are huge arguments about whether the current government’s efforts are enough or just “sticking plaster politics”.
Thinking back, back in the 60s we managed a complete house-to-house, street by street, programme to convert from coal gas to North Sea gas. In principle, though it would be much more time-consuming and need an army of workers, it shouldn’t be impossible to do something similarly pro-active on home insulation and energy efficiency, at least for the areas of greatest fuel poverty and inefficiency.
I don’t know whether there is anywhere else such a thing as those prepayment meters, when I first saw them I thought it was crazy. It is the most expensive form of metering, and it affects almost exclusively the poorest. So those who have less pay the most and run out of coins (I see they have cards now! Progress!) at the worst possible moment. Not to mention what it does to computers, the internet, programmable VCRs, smart appliances and your roast in the oven when you switch off power unexpectedly. But as it affects only the poor Tory governments have done little to change this, and Labour was too busy doing Cool Britannia or distracted with something else. It is an anachronism and a sign, I believe, of the things that are weighing the UK down, but at least this one has little to do with Putin.
I had rather publicly pooh-poohed the notion that Europe could quickly increase their LNG import capacity but Germany completed its first floating terminal a month or two back. I expect global liquefaction capacity to remain a constraint although that already has increased capacity in the works.
There is a big push in the UK to move to wind power generation, to the extent that some of the peak generation figures are looking very impressive.
I can’t imagine that this will not accelerate further given that relying on Russian energy supplies is an obviously unreliable solution. Humans are adaptable given enough reason to do so and Russia has provided that reason. Who is going to rely on them for a stable supply of energy in the future?
I have keen interest in how to insulate my 120 year old home. The walls are a double layer of bricks, floors made of wooden joists with floor boards and plasterboard ceilings seperated by a void. The windows are weight balance sliding panels.
There is a lot that can be done: fibre insulation in the void, double glazing the windows, expanding foam around the windows, adding a thin internal insulated wall with plaster board. It is all very disruptive and expensive. These homes were designed when every room had a coal fire. Add to that bill replacing the gas central heating with a heat pump and this adds up to a big chunk of change.
There are also a lot of system built apartment blocks built in the post war period for social housing projects. The dream then was that nuclear power would provide electricy ‘too cheap to meter’ - remember that? They were designed for electric heating, which soon proved to be unaffordable. So they were fitted with gas and you see a gas pipe going up the concrete staircase.
EU building regulations provided a standard intended to bring these homes up to a modern standard for insulation. This involved installing external cladding to outside of the building. Sadly this was done very badly and introduced a huge fire risk that resulted in the Grenfell tower disaster when a small apartment fire ripped up the outside of the building and created a towering inferno with huge loss of life. This led to many apartments becoming uninsurable and unsaleable. It is going to take many billions to put that right. There will be a big report published later this year. It was a catalogue of mistakes and shortcuts by contractors, weak building regulation by government and an unprepared fire service. There will be lots of finger pointing.
The UK has a peculiar relationship with property and housing. Conservatives are happy to see it securitised as a tradeable asset…well they did until the 2008 financial crisis. They still want private enterprise to finance new building work, but they never build enough and much of designed as an investment opportunity for foreign investors rather than the housing needs of the general public Socialists want housing to be a public asset, kept in public ownership but they make for poor landlords. It has suffered from being a political football for decades and under the last three Conservative administrations, a very neglected area of public policy. So there is housing shortage, not enough being built, and the state of the housing stock is lamentable. Other countries take a more long term approach. There is a huge debate about this in the UK right now and one of the more voluable direct action political activist groups is called ‘Insulate Now!’. They are very fond of dramatic stunts drawing attention to fuel poverty.
So now Putin has created an energy crisis that has made this structural weakness very evident.
It should be said that some of the problems are not unique to the UK. The UK is temperate and not exposed to the colder extremes of the European climate. The post war rebuilding saw concrete apartment blocks built all over Europe. In the former Soviet states they were typically heated by cheap natural gas coming in from huge pipelines from Russia. These building were not designed for heat conservation. The heating goes on when the weather gets cold and stays on, moderated by opening windows. Renovating housing on a large scale is a slow and expensive business. The crisis is being addressed by pumping the gas in opposite direction, from Norway and the LNG ports in the West to the East as Putin turns off the taps. But part of the long term solution is to moderate consumption. This requires planning and a political consensus. But it comes at cost paid by taxes.
I think about my own home from the Victoria era with its lovely high ceilings and plaster work. Then how to find a decent builder in London amongst the all the assorted overcharging rascals in the building trade who could do the insulation work. Then I look at the smart meter,see how much I have clocked up today…and put on another wool jumper and let some rooms go cold. There is huge amount of self moderation going on that will reduce consumption. Up yours Putin!
You’re probably aware of this, and are making two separate points, but in case anyone isn’t:
Russia makes up a tiny proportion of UK gas imports (about 3%). There’s a good summary of the UK energy mix here.
The UK has nonetheless been affected a great deal by the current energy crisis due to issues with domestic production, not having enough gas in storage, and consequently needing to buy gas on the open market, which of course has ripple effects from the lack of Russian gas.
The UK also has been involved in a big experiment in creating a competive market for gas and electricity supply. The retail end of that cunning plan in market enconmics has become disfunctional with many energy companies being unsufficiently leveraged and exposed to spot prices for natural gas. Many have gone bust and others are passing huge bills onto their customers. Businesses that buy gas and electricity are even more exposed to this and are suffering massive increases bills. Very challenging for a business owner to survive until the prices normalise in a year or so. Some will simply shut down for a time. Very bad for the economy.
Other European countries still have publicly owned utilities that are much better placed to control pricing centrally.
yes, out of my current office window I can see a place when a major high-voltage cable comes ashore connecting us the the European grid and through which we source power (and can export). So even though we don’t directly use Russian gas very much for electricity generation we are still connected into other countries that do (or did).
If it’s made of brick then probably not. Often brick buildings have two or three or more layers (depending on height) and then they’re plastered on the inside with no cavity to fill with insulation. Sometimes there might be 1" furring strips on the inside behind the plaster so it sounds like a hollow wall when you knock on it, but there’s not enough space to get a meaningful amount of insulation injected into there considering the cost and repair work necessary. Even in older wood framed homes it can be difficult (though not as much so) to get into those wall cavities to insulate, and sometimes you find old style wiring, such as knob and tube, which cannot be insulated around, so that then needs to be replaced too.
You can add rigid foam insulation and stucco to the outside, but that totally changes the look of the building and could cause problems with roof eaves, downspouts, exterior utilities, window and door jambs, and overall durability. Doing something similar inside means all window casing, jambs, baseboards, electric outlets, vents and radiators need to be moved. So those are usually non-starters.
Overall, sealing out drafts is the most important factor. An old single-pane window with a good storm window can perform better than a cheap double-pane window with bad seals. Beyond that, roof/attic insulation is the best way to retain heat, and that’s usually more doable than trying to insulate walls. Foaming rim joists at the top of the foundation also helps a lot with air sealing.
Yikes! I suppose the issue with redoing exterior walls inside would be matching up décor so it doesn’t look like a refit out of the movie Brazil. (That scene where there’s a divider wall down the middle of the desk.) That’s why in the good old days, they hung tapestries on the walls of the castles and manors.
The UK’s supply problems are nothing new. North American builders also prefer to build premium homes, the profit is better than building “affordable” (i.e. low priced) housing. Municipalities like the idea of higher-tax-base homes. It’s just that a lot of building built since WWI are easier to insulate - stud walls, and allowances for (now insufficient) insulation. The late Victorian homes here - the few there are - tended to have sawdust insulation (if any) which has settled, resulting in poor insulation but an opportunity to inject foam to improve things.
I read a lot about heritage designation limiting what changes can be made to British buildings, and I wonder how that affects most of those late-1800’s homes. I recall one TV show where the owner was told they had to hire heritage-capable carpenters to replace the windows with some exact matches in style and material.
All buildings built before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition are listed, as are most of those built between 1700 and 1840. The criteria become tighter with time, so that post-1945 buildings have to be exceptionally important to be listed. A building has normally to be over 30 years old to be eligible for listing.
In England and Wales, listed buildings are classified in three grades:
Grade I buildings are of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important. Just 2.5% of listed buildings are Grade I.
Grade II* buildings are particularly important buildings of more than special interest. 5.5% of listed buildings are Grade II*.
Grade II buildings are nationally important and of special interest. 92% of all listed buildings are in this class and it is the most likely grade of listing for a private residential building.
There are about 500,000 buildings listed in the UK.
It is not every older building that has listed status. It depends on whether their features are rare or they are an example of particular technique or the work of an particular architect.
There are an enormous number of homes from the Victorian period and the majority are not at all unique. So owning a home 150 years old is quite common. The local government keeps a list of the listed buildings and it is actually a criminal offense to damage one. It all comes from the extensive bombing suffered by the UK in WW2 and an anxiety about losing the architectural heritage of the country during the rebuilding in the post war period. Too much was lost to property developers who were very quick to pull buildings to make a fast profit.
Older buildings have many attractive features compared to modern developments. I look around my area of London and the new builds all tiny apartments for people who don’t mind living something the size of shoe box next to a rail station for a few years at the start of the career. The big old Victorian houses, converted into apartments, provide a lot more living space and often a garden. Some are very pretty, unlike the utilitarian modern development that can be quite soul-less. However, the houses often predate electricity and had lots of fireplaces. Adapting them to modern standards by renovating was sometime done very badly with poor heat and sound insulation. Home renovation is a national past-time and when you buy a property, you gradually become aware of all the challenges. Major modifications have to satisfy the building code.
There is a massive price tag associated with upgrading the housing stock in the UK, however it is paid for. Successive governments have dodged the issue or come with ill-conceived schemes such as the Green Deal introduced, then abandoned ten years ago.
I see no government plan to insulate homes and replace gas heating with heat pumps. What we do have is lots of smart meters. The cost of which was added to electricity and gas bills. Many in the UK are sit at home looking at the bills racking up on the little energy meter displays they give you, wondering how they are going to afford to pay.
There has been some financial help from the government, but that is dues to end in April unless you are on some kind of welfare benefit. The welfare system is linked to the tax system here and there are many who receive tax credits because the pay is low. Inevitably there will be people who fall through the net and this is a big worry, especially for elderly pensioners.
When there is a crisis like this it is good measure of how effective your government is. The current shower of politicians we have in power at the moment are deeply unimpressive. About the only worthwhile thing they have done is invest in huge wind farms off the coast in the North Sea. When the wind does blow, as it does today, it replaces a lot of the gas normally burnt in power stations. 44% Wind and 8% Gas and 15% Nuclear and rest imported from interconnectors to other grids, especially France with its surplus nuclear power. On a cold, windless day, the Gas often goes up to 40% and wind down to a few percent.
https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
This energy crisis has been quite a shock to the system, but it is can all be managed. Long term it will kick into a higher gear the migration to renewables and we might even get insulated houses and reduce consumption.
It is an ill wind that blows no good!
I’m not sure whether or not to get European energy news from a webcomic, But Scandinavia and the World has an opinion.
As a Dane, I agree
I lived in a Victorian house and it was very cold and drafty. It looked great but I was constantly under blankets and the heating was on a lot. I’m now in a relatively soulless new build flat but it’s well-insulated and it has a heat pump and underfloor heating throughout.
I much prefer this place to the pretty old home.
My sister’s stuck in the same sort of place, so thinly walled that at one point they could hear birds nesting within the bricks. Heating is hard but not impossible, plenty of readings made to the gas supplier to make sure they aren’t overcharged.
Where I am most of us heat with oil, it’s not nice to see 500l selling now for more than I paid for 900l last year, but I’ll get by.
Green campaigners can thank Putin for giving the energy industry a kick up the backside and raising the profile and demand for renewable energy.
Apart from this, the two EPRs at Hinkley Point C, designed by the French state-owned Électricité de
France (EDF), are currently under construction. They will be the first new British nuclear reactors in three decades, upon expected completion in 2027.
The two 1,600 MW reactors are 66.5% owned by EDF and 33.5% owned by the Chinese state-owned China General Nuclear (CGN). The same design adapted for site-specific conditions and potential cogeneration of heat and/or hydrogen is proposed for Sizewell C.
Since around 40% of the heat generated in a nuclear power plant is wasted, there is an opportunity to use it for hydrogen generation and could even supply heat directly to local businesses.