Time for a thread on our new policy plan for home heating.
Our homes are responsible for 14% of our carbon emissions, and we're well off track to reduce them. What should the new government do?
nesta.org.uk/report/deliver…
Let's start with the context.
The UK has reduced emissions from electricity a lot - and now plans net zero electricity by 2030. Industrial emissions have fallen a bit, and surface transport is broadly on track.
But emissions from homes and buildings have barely shifted...

I enjoyed reading this Tony Blair Institute report tonight - @ToneLangengen and @DaceHermione are always interesting. But there are a couple of big points I disagree on which I think are worth setting out…

institute.global/insights/clima… First, I don’t think technology is a big problem for net zero any more. We’re just undergoing two of the most remarkable technology breakthroughs ever (solar and batteries). In most of the key areas (apart from aviation, farming, -ve emissions), we have most of the tech we need

This is a good question. Why have heat pumps become a bit of a contentious topic in the UK?

I'm late to it, but wanted to have a proper go at answering it...
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https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/1782016554189594691

Before I get to the nitty gritty, it's worth saying vibes aren't the main problem the UK has with heat pumps.

The big issues are things like: expensive electricity wrt to gas (so you can't offset the high upfront cost with cheaper bills); and having 85% of homes on the gas grid.

I’ve read through the @PIK_Climate report on the economic impacts of climate change.
The results are eye-watering, but also very, very important. Everyone working in economics or finance - not just climate people - really needs to understand this.
🧵
pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest… The headline result has made headlines: a 19% reduction in global income (think GDP) by 2049, relative to a world with no climate change.

To repeat: climate change will make us 19% poorer by 2049 than we would otherwise have been.

Right, I’m going to have to do a thread on the sewage / water company stuff…

It’s right for people to be angry - both at sewage overflows and at Thames Water possibly being bailed out - but the problem is going to be frustratingly hard to fix… There are 3 main things that have got us where we are:
1. Too little water company investment in sewerage infrastructure to reduce sewage overflows
2. Underestimating the cost of capital (interest rate), which let water companies make too much profit
3. Underfunding regulators

Rachel Reeves’ interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning is worth a listen.
I thought it was a good interview on both sides, and it’s probably the clearest view available of Labour’s fiscal plans.

Thread of what I think we learnt… 🧵

(From 7 mins)
bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod… Just to emphasise before I start: of course these interviews are a bit frustrating for everyone, because Reeves can’t say exactly what she’ll do (for a mix of political and not-being-the-government reasons).
But I think there was quite a lot of insight here if you look closely.

What can the history of energy tell us about the current energy transitions?
Here's a thread with 6 points I took from @antonhowes' essay for @nesta_uk...

https://twitter.com/ACJSissons/status/1716698571481735212

1. Abundant energy can transform people's lives.

By the 18th century, the average Englishman was around 5 centimetres taller than their French counterparts. People in England had far more food available, so they worked harder and the population grew faster.

Right, I’ve had a chance to read the No 10 press release on the big changes to net zero. And…
…there’s some good stuff in there on low carbon heating, alongside the widely trailed bad stuff.

So, let’s divide it all up in to Good Things and Bad Things…
gov.uk/government/new… The most obvious good thing: raising the grant for getting a heat pump from £5k to £7.5k

The average air source heat pump under this scheme so far has been around £13k - so people would pay £5,500 on average under the new subsidy (compared to £2k-4k for a new boiler)

Given it’s in the news tonight, it’s worth restating what the proposed 2035 gas boiler “phase out date” is, where it came from and what the rationale behind it is.
Quick thread… What is the phase out date?

It would mean that, from 2035, no one could install a new gas boiler at home in England. It won’t affect existing boilers - if you get one installed on New Year’s Eve 2034, you can keep it for as long as it works (and you still have access to gas)

The economics of renewable energy is confusing - and I’m not sure journalists all explain it correctly.
So here’s a thread to try and explain what these renewables auctions are, why they’ve previously been successful and why the latest one went wrong… Renewable energy - particularly wind - is very different to traditional fossil fuel energy. Almost all of the cost is the upfront capital cost (I.e., building the wind turbine). Once you’ve built it, the energy is virtually free.
For gas (CCGT in the chart), fuel is the main cost

Given my twitter feed is going mad in both directions over this, let me attempt to stake out the unpopular middle ground.

Building homes and cleaning up waterways are both big political issues, and they’re in direct conflict here. But there are better ways to manage that!
🧵

https://twitter.com/pickardje/status/1696261898344481196

Building new homes does add more pollution to local waterways, many of which are already in a bad state.
But it is only a small part of the overall problem on water quality. Water company failures and, most importantly, agricultural pollution are the big issues.

This is a helpful summary of one of the main climate inactivist arguments that seems to be in vogue just now.

Why is it wrong? 1. The idea that what the UK does has no bearing on global carbon emissions is nonsense.

1% of global emissions is a lot when you’re under 1% of the population. But more seriously…if the UK were to ditch net zero, many other countries would have an excuse to do the same.

What impact does installing heat pumps have on the UK's productivity?
It might sound like a niche question, but I think it's quite important to understanding how net zero is changing our economy...
🧵 There are two main factors that matter here:
1. Installing a heat pump changes your energy use. A typical home will stop using ~12,000 kWh of gas and use an extra ~3-4,000 kWh of electricity instead
2. Installing a heat pump has a capital cost ~£10,000 higher than a gas boiler

There is a very simple trick you can use to separate good ideas from bad ideas in the energy transition: ask “how much clean energy does it need?”

E-fuels (pumped by Rowan Atkinson here) require loads of energy to make. So they’ll be v expensive and unviable outside a few niches

https://twitter.com/guardianopinion/status/1664891064736681984

Afaik there are 4 ways to make clean energy: wind, solar, water or nuclear.

Almost everything else* is a way of storing, moving or transforming this clean energy.

*there’s also carbon capture on fossil fuels (not yet zero carbon) and biomass (requires a lot of land)

Why do retrofit loan schemes always seem to fail in the UK? (Remember the Green Homes Grant? The Green Deal?)
What would it take to make them work?
Well, we @nesta_uk have been looking in detail in this question, and today we have published our answer...🧵
nesta.org.uk/report/all-the… The most important factor for any home loan scheme is UPTAKE. If householders don't want to take the loan (no matter how good an offer you think it is), the scheme just won't work, the homes won't get retrofitted and you won't achieve your climate or warm-homes goals.

One v good thing about this piece is that it gently questions the prevailing wisdom in economic geography: that what’s best for towns like Oldham is actually to grow nearby cities like Manchester.

I broadly subscribe to that theory, but I think it needs some careful thought…

https://twitter.com/joshi/status/1657275282217107458

The simplest form of the Cities First theory is: create many jobs in the city centres (like Manchester), help people from the towns (like Oldham) commute.
That is part of what we should do, but commuting is often not as important as people think. And not everyone can commute…

There's a very interesting outline of Labour's potential policy plans for government here.
Here are some of the lines that stood out to me on net zero...
labourlist.org/2023/05/labour… Electricity supply

The "net zero electricity by 2030" target is already known (and v ambitious). The plan seems to be to throw everything at it - renewables of all kinds, nuclear - which makes sense.
But I can't see anything in there on the hardest bit: energy storage.

The full data for the first year of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme came out today, so @laurenorso and I have had a dig into it.
How has the flagship heat pump subsidy gone in its first year?
Tl;dr - slowly, but with signs of promise
nesta.org.uk/data-visualisa… First thing: the amount of money allocated to heat pump subsidies wasn't all that much.
Here is all the money set out in the Nov 2021 Heat and Buildings Strategy. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme made up 11.5%...

I want to introduce a problem in economics that I see a lot and haven't seen written down: the multi-benefit problem.

This happens when something has several different benefits, but no single benefit is big enough to justify the cost.
Result: the thing often doesn't happen.
🧵 An example of a multi-benefit problem: planting trees.

Trees have *many* benefits. They reduce flood risk. They absorb carbon. They host nature. They provide timber. They're great for recreation.

BUT it's rare that any one of those benefits is enough to justify the cost.

A nice write up here by @helentbiz of a very thoughtful piece of work on regulation by @BimAfolami et al.

Regulation is more important than ever, but for the last decade we’ve got used to a lazy, knee-jerk deregulation narrative. This is much better.

on.ft.com/3LaGXAS The Regulatory Reform Group argues we need to “regulate the regulators”.

That’s a hard task - there is so much different stuff that needs regulating, from toxic chemicals to financial products.
But the focus on better regulation, not less, is right.

wpi-strategy.com/regulatoryrefo…

So I’ve got a piece in the @FT (!!) about how we are could move towards an era of energy abundance…but only if we get used to energy only being plentiful some of the time.
🧵

on.ft.com/3whp5w9 Talking about energy abundance might sound far-fetched in the middle of a crisis.
But this week, way ahead of anyone’s expectations, we’re producing so much wind energy that we’re close to a grid without any fossil fuels.

Below is our energy mix for the last week…!