Rolls-Royce SMR selected to build small modular nuclear reactors

Nothing in any of the new builds I've seen these past 20 years has led me to believe they will be there in 100 years.

Yep, just been looking at houses with my son. Blown double glazing seems quite common.

I think some at least will be.

The building regs. ensure reasonable quality - better than many houses of the past that are no longer with us.

A friend in the heritage industry reminded me 'the old houses that are with us today are the better built ones'

Ones I have seen being built have good foundations, generally good raised concrete floors and a brick skin mostly. They will probably do a hundred years.

I can only give you ballpark figures, but taking a Victorian terrace, decent insulation and ASHP - say £30,000. Saving about 70% of total gas consumption, so maybe half national gas consumption.

If you give me more accurate idea of your home I'll do you a more accurate estimate.

No. Victorian homes weren't insulated because there wasn't the understanding of building physics that we have today. And there wasn't the need - solid fuel was cheap enough for most, and there wasn't the level of whole house heating we have today.

Old homes, though, are a PITA retrofit-wise. If someone could come up with an easy to install, cheap and effective form of mechanical ventilation it'd change the game.

Yes - google 'Passivhaus'. It's a well established science.

Of course - same with me and most other people. That's why it needs to be subsidised. Say, instead of spending on nuclear.

Lots of reasons why people don't do it. Even when it's free people don't do it. Witness ECO4 and the GB Insulation scheme.

So you (and others) keep saying. The fact remains it isn't being done cheaply. I don't know how many times you need to be reminded. Maybe that's what I'm here for :-)

I don't think the French experience is quite the poster child you suggest - especially since 2021. And it was state owned - still is, mostly. And I don't think you support state ownership? So that line of debate is odd.

I'm not sure how GB Energy is going to pan out. We'll see.

Gas is one option of electricity generation - which would not be needed if we insulated properly and consumed responsibly.

To equate renewable CO2 emissions with gas burning is another eccentric position.

And as you know, it's not consistent with CO2 reduction. Which again I'd guess you don't support - but hey.

Victorian terrace, stone built solid walls, lime mortar, slate roof. Cellar at front, yorkstone floor; ground floor back room yorkstone floor.

Strangely, the EPC does not suggest adding roof insulation.

This house was built in 1911 with shallow foundatioms and suspended floors. It's still standing.

But with 75% of UK households switching from gas to electricity for heating and our whole transport infrastructure switching from fossil fuel to electric driven vehicles any "retro" scheme is likely to end up with the country still consuming more electricity, not less.

Be gentle with RJH...

We also have still have very many poorly build houses from 50 to 100 years ago. 25% of UK housing stock was build over 100 years ago. Although most of these properties have been modernised and have had improvements in insulation most would still fall well below modern standards for energy use, and not cheap or practical to gain much more improvement.

Yep. All those victorian terraces with no off street parking and outside toilets replaced by a lean to kitchen and bog - really need tearing down.

But no one ever will.

So what do the people who want gigantic AI data centres (i.e. the government) do? Nobody anywhere in the world is suggesting they use too much energy to exist.

So assuming a high gas consumption of 18,000 kWh, that means an up-front cost of £30K (plus interest, either paid on a loan or lost on savings), while saving around £750 per year, so taking 40 years to pay for itself? Then of course electricity is far more expensive than gas, wiping out any savings at all. No wonder people aren't doing it!

And many modern houses are built with insufficient parking space, building tomorrow's slums today.

You also have all those houses throw up post WW2 and all those tower blocks built down to a low standard by an unskilled labour force.

A long time ago now a study was done to see what the cost of decarbonisation would be. Energy efficiency actually saved money but once the low hanging fruit had been picked that was it.

Low penetration wind was much higher in cost. Solar and high penetration wind were simply not considered to be viable *at all*.

The problem with insulation is that once you have it, what else can you do?

Te same with car efficiencies. We are pushing up towards 50% fuel efficiency in hybrids which is astounding, bu that is getting near the theoretical limits of a fuel car.

In the end the limiting factor is aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance.

If Electricity were nuclear, electric cars would lower fuel usage, but there is no evidence that a renewable grid backed with gas saves any overall CO2 *at all* versus say a hybrid car..

Just hand waving 'technological advances will make our dreams cone true' is utter bollocks really.

We have done the vest we can already with just about everything

Except nuclear.

We know that this can be made WAY cheaper - its overnight costs are very low, and that shows that all the money goes on bureaucratic delays. Not on poured concrete.

And rolling out a series of identical reactors in hundreds should make it even cheaper than that.

When you actually run the numbers and calculate total cost to society, its a no-brainer. Nuclear is all we have left in the technological bag of tricks, and nuclear by itself is only a solution for electricity.

Tough times are coming

There is a default assumption that people in todays rabbit hutches wont actually go out, or if they do buses or trains or Uber taxis will take them there. Or they are young enough to cycle.

A POV assisted by councils fervent attempts to make their patches 'vehicle free zones'

No. As I said (and you snipped/maybe didn't read), in essence the process is going to need subsidy. That subsidy could come from, amongst other places, money spent on nuclear.

As I said, the economic return is one of many reasons. Witness the Decent Homes programme (which was much more than insulation/heating) - free to the million+ eligible, but nothing approaching 100% takeup. IME about 70% - I don't think the actual figure is known.

What is interesting to me is how little households appear to care about waste, fewer still environmental impact. And the economic arguments always tend to centre on worst case and incorrect assumptions. Ho hum.

But far more don't even get that far. The work's disruption is not trivial, there's little understanding of the problem or solution, and the building industry isn't exactly flush with trust. I'm not sure what can be done.

Maybe a better way to think about retrofit is less energy consumption - not the source of the energy.

But yes, electricity generation will need to increase.

Ta, I'll take a look.