Opinion: Insulation not fossil fuel subsidies

Good debate on Britain's energy addiction at libdemvoice:

Cara Jenkinson writes:

" Earlier this week parliament overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill calling for a moratorium on fracking.

The challenge that the UK faces is that we are particularly dependent on natural gas. The vast majority of us have gas boilers and heating makes up much of the gas used in the UK. Weaning ourselves off gas boilers isn't easy. There are renewable alternatives such as heat pumps but these only work in very well insulated homes. And there's the rub. Around 70% of homes in the UK are still not well insulated, and a good portion of those have solid walls which are difficult and expensive to insulate.

Even assuming a really ambitious programme of bringing 1 to 2 million homes a year to a high standard of insulation, and fitting them with heat pumps, we will still be dependent on gas until around 2030. On that basis, I suspect it does make sense to investigate fracking, with a robust regulatory framework, as the alternative is importing large quantities of gas.

But the problem is we are nowhere near retrofitting 1 to 2 million homes a year.

"

See more of the article and the debate at: