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The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

The response to heat pumps is just really weird, compared to the response to most other new technologies.

Greens are forever being accused of wanting to take people back to the stone age, but when they're enthusiastic about a new technology the same people insist on holding on to their old technology.

I know nothing about your house and I'm not going to advise you as to whether it's suitable for a heat pump. But it's an effective technology that can keep a lot of houses warm and you will be wasting a lot of money on gas if your house is so badly insulated that a heat pump wouldn't work.

I think it makes sense for new homes.

Retrofitting an existing (older) home is massive faff and expense.

It would disrupt every room in your house. With a young family very much living in it that's simply not an option.

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion on PB in recent weeks, from many contributors - @JosiasJessop, @Nigelb, @Stuartinromford - regarding the role of heat pumps in domestic and commercial heating systems. According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2023), approximately 1.2% of UK homes currently use a heat pump as their primary heat source, compared to 5.7% in Sweden

As noted by @MattW, the principle behind a heat pump is relatively straightforward. It involves the transfer of heat energy from one location to another through the operation of a vapour-compression refrigeration cycle. Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) and ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) differ mainly in the location of their heat exchangers. ASHPs generally achieve a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) between 2.5 and 3.5, whereas GSHPs may reach between 3.8 and 4.5 under optimal soil conditions. These figures are influenced by factors such as outdoor air temperature, humidity, brine concentration, and compressor age. It is worth noting that the variance in SCOP between systems installed before 2016 and those installed after 2020 can exceed 0.4, a detail which some analysts have described as “not insignificant.”

Government incentives - yes, @TimS - have played a considerable role in determining adoption rates. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), launched in April 2022, offers grants of up to £7,500 toward installation costs, which typically range from £7,000 to £19,000 depending on system complexity. Uptake has been uneven: data from Ofgem (Q2 2024) show that 22,781 BUS vouchers were redeemed in England and Wales, representing a 7.3% increase year-on-year. Scotland’s equivalent programme achieved a slightly higher per capita rate, although precise comparative metrics are difficult due to differing reporting methodologies. It is generally agreed that public awareness remains limited, particularly among households with Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings below band C

In conclusion, heat pumps represent a technology of some promise, albeit with notable caveats regarding cost, efficiency, and suitability. Their future success will rely on continued refinement of compressor materials, enhanced refrigerant regulation (notably the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons under EU Regulation 517/2014), and the ongoing engagement of stakeholders across the supply chain. That’s my amateur opinion, anyway

Your amateur option, or ChatGPTs?

Are you saying @Leon doesn't often begin paragraphs with "In conclusion,"

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion on PB in recent weeks, from many contributors - @JosiasJessop, @Nigelb, @Stuartinromford - regarding the role of heat pumps in domestic and commercial heating systems. According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2023), approximately 1.2% of UK homes currently use a heat pump as their primary heat source, compared to 5.7% in Sweden

As noted by @MattW, the principle behind a heat pump is relatively straightforward. It involves the transfer of heat energy from one location to another through the operation of a vapour-compression refrigeration cycle. Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) and ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) differ mainly in the location of their heat exchangers. ASHPs generally achieve a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) between 2.5 and 3.5, whereas GSHPs may reach between 3.8 and 4.5 under optimal soil conditions. These figures are influenced by factors such as outdoor air temperature, humidity, brine concentration, and compressor age. It is worth noting that the variance in SCOP between systems installed before 2016 and those installed after 2020 can exceed 0.4, a detail which some analysts have described as “not insignificant.”

Government incentives - yes, @TimS - have played a considerable role in determining adoption rates. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), launched in April 2022, offers grants of up to £7,500 toward installation costs, which typically range from £7,000 to £19,000 depending on system complexity. Uptake has been uneven: data from Ofgem (Q2 2024) show that 22,781 BUS vouchers were redeemed in England and Wales, representing a 7.3% increase year-on-year. Scotland’s equivalent programme achieved a slightly higher per capita rate, although precise comparative metrics are difficult due to differing reporting methodologies. It is generally agreed that public awareness remains limited, particularly among households with Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings below band C

In conclusion, heat pumps represent a technology of some promise, albeit with notable caveats regarding cost, efficiency, and suitability. Their future success will rely on continued refinement of compressor materials, enhanced refrigerant regulation (notably the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons under EU Regulation 517/2014), and the ongoing engagement of stakeholders across the supply chain. That’s my amateur opinion, anyway

Your amateur option, or ChatGPTs?

As an aside, the (very real) improvements in San Francisco are largely the simple consequence of getting a decent Mayor in.

Daniel Laurie was elected last year, on a platform of dealing with petty crime and homelessness. The biggest element has been a very simple 'move along' policy. If you're hanging out on a street corner (particularly in the center, financial or tourist districts), the police will simply move you on. You can no longer pitch a tent and be ignored by the police.

This has been combined with creating 1,500 new beds for homeless people... away from the City itelf. Get fed and a bed... but you won't be near Union Square.

Laurie also had a policy of avoiding conflict with Washington. The people of San Francisco wanted their city back, not political statements.

The San Franciscans seem to be pretty happy with him: his 75% approval rating has to be among the highest of Mayors in the US.

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

Sandy is talking his book .

I'd rather have a hydrogen boiler than an air source heat pump. This is true.

Heat pumps — whether they’re good or bad, or right or wrong for any particular home, and about what they represent in the broader conversation about how we heat our homes. It’s one of those topics that everyone seems to have an opinion on these days, and it’s interesting how much the discussion has evolved over the past few years.

When you start to look into it, the whole subject of domestic heating really opens up a world of complexity. There’s efficiency, of course, and cost, and installation, and government incentives, and then there’s the climate angle, which is never far away. But what really strikes me is that there’s no one-size-fits-all answer — every house is different, every homeowner’s priorities are different, and what works brilliantly for one person might be a total non-starter for someone else.

I think we also have to consider the long-term picture. It’s not just about what’s cheapest or most efficient today, but about where things are heading in five, ten, even twenty years. Will the technology mature further? Almost certainly. Will prices come down? Probably, at least to some degree. But at the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that the whole energy landscape is shifting under our feet — and nobody can say for sure where it’ll all settle.

Then there’s the comfort factor. People talk a lot about kilowatts and coefficients of performance, but in the end, we all just want to feel warm in winter and not think too hard about how it’s happening. Some say heat pumps feel “different” — not worse, just not quite the same as traditional systems. And that’s an interesting point, because it’s not just about physics; it’s about perception, habit, and what we’re used to.

The thing is, I don’t think the conversation is really about the machinery at all. It’s about how we approach change — whether we embrace it cautiously, enthusiastically, or not at all. Heat pumps just happen to be the current symbol of that broader shift. Some will leap in early, some will hang back until the numbers look better, and some will probably never be persuaded. And maybe that’s fine.

At the end of the day, whether a heat pump is the right choice depends on so many variables that it’s almost impossible to generalise. But it’s certainly a topic worth keeping an eye on. If nothing else, it gets people thinking about their homes, their bills, and the future of energy — which can’t be a bad thing, really.

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

CCGT power plants are just about the worst possible place to install CO2 capture. If you are spending the thick end of £1 billion on a capture plant, you want it to be operating based load, maximising the quantity of CO2 it is capturing. Sticking on the back of a CCGT with a load factor of 50% is halving the usefulness of the capture plant. Plus, it costs more to be able to capture efficiency during the frequent start-stop of a despatchable plant. Plus the flue gas of a CCGT has a relatively low CO2 content (and high oxygen content), also resulting in higher costs.

Best place for CO2 capture is, in my view, on Energy from Waste plants. They run at full load continuously, and produce power and heat, some of which can be supplied to meet the energy needs of the capture plant. Also, half the CO2 is biogenic, so they become net-negative and can offset emissions from hard to abate sectors and help us achieve net zero.

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

Sandy is talking his book .

I'd rather have a hydrogen boiler than an air source heat pump. This is true.

So would I. My 3 year old boiler says it's "hydrogen ready"

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

Sandy is talking his book .

I'd rather have a hydrogen boiler than an air source heat pump. This is true.

Do you get hydrogen pumped directly into your home? (Or at least hydrogen unencumbered with oxygen atoms?)

If the gas network gets repurposed as a hydrogen network, then we all will.

If I remember correctly, methane (CH4) molecules are much bigger than hydrogen ones (H2), and one cannot simply repurpose a set of pipes with certain tolerances to store something which is significantly harder to contain.