my home and community combined heat and power

Home energy security As an individual, I have gone to great lengths to transition my diet, my lifestyle, my consumerist habits, my waste, and my personal transport, all down to a globally sustainable carbon footprint, these were all good lifestyle transitions towards - how the world needs to be! I did not do this overnight, none of those systems would have coped by a swift change, it was all what is called a just and fair transition for me, that transition as an individual is nearly complete, it has taken me around 8 years to transition - my diet, my finances, my consumerist habits and my personal transport

The final part of my transition is my homes combined heat and power system, at present I have no energy security, I am reliant upon international corporations to heat and power my home, this is unsustainable! especially as the government deliberately and intentionally drive the cost of heating my home and powering my home into unrealistic territory! I will end up in debt or the house becoming uninhabitable I’m not a big energy user - I live alone and spend a lot of time away from home, it’s never been a large expense for me as I use my home power sparingly, moving forward a couple of solar panels, would supply more than enough electricity to power my home, heating it however! is an entirely different beast, I worked as an apprentice painter on this building site as it was then, but now is my semidetached home, that was 40 years ago I have lived in this house for 25 years during that time I have repaired the old gas boiler myself on a few occasions, I have never been entitled to any form of government grants - that were given out to upgrade to a new boiler to become more energy efficient, It’s strange for me to reflect upon that now! 40 years ago when this house was being built, British gas was a national industry it made sense for the government to instal gas boilers in people’s homes, it was coming from the North Sea, We the people never really understood what was meant by privatisation of all these nationalised industries, we didn’t know that we were literally giving our energy security away to international stock markets, you were never informed by media that you’re no longer in a social democratic country, or that we are now a shareholder capitalist country, it could potentially viewed that we are not even a country anymore! Just a whole bunch of assets bought and sold on international stock markets, As an individual I checked online to see which countries in the world were the most expensive for energy? the United Kingdom kilowatt per hour is the second most expensive country in the whole world, privatisation may have been a temporary good for the London stock market, but it was a bad thing for the homeowner (or perhaps I should say homeowners like me) unless of course - that homeowner happened to have a large amount of shares in these energy firms, like so Many of the people in the houses of parliament

Because my house is so old the insulation along with - the doors windows and walls, will never be adequate for an electric heat pump to heat my home, I definitely want to transition away from gas due to its carbon footprint, But; it would seem that a transitioned to a heat pump would not be suitable for this home unfortunately, I am yet to find out if a ground source heat pump could be a suitable option, the other option would be Installing a wood burner into a wet system of radiators, this would be my preferred option as I will be totally prepared organised and manage that system Independently, Proper energy security then! the government do not want me to get a log burner installation - because if used wrongly by burning the wrong source of wood for example, then the system could be every bit as bad environmentally As a gas boiler! if this style of heating is your only option then - the government want you to get a system that relies upon wood pellets, this means yet again that you are reliant upon some corporation or wealthy landowner for the supply of your home heating, these type of systems are also prone to breakdowns that you cannot repair yourself meaning - you will still be reliant upon heating engineers and factories for spare parts and repairs, a cynical man (as I am) would believe the manufacturers would put in designed obsolescence -a system that’s designed to breakdown in a set time Transitioning towards net zero targets and the lowering of your individual carbon footprint, can at times make me feel that nobody in the world cares, people like me are attacked daily in the newspapers and on the TV for trying to do the right thing, companies and the government make these transitions extremely difficult, these companies want to keep control of what and where you buy your consumables from What about my community - My neighbours only two doors down have just changed their gas boiler, they took the easy path and the cheapest, which was to upgrade her gas boiler system to a new - more energy efficient gas boiler, this means that they have no intention of transitioning away from gas heating their home, for at a minimum of five to 10 years (I wonder what the price the gas will be then) the world does not have that long these decisions we are making right now will have impacts on the earth for the next 2-3000 years. We need to transition away from fossil fuels now, they should be getting this explained to them from the media! Not getting adverts for continuations of pollution There was a community I was watching in England that crowdfunded a whole street, where every house became a power generation station, what a fantastic community thing to do - solar panels on the roofs for electricity - ground source heat pumps for heating, and; I believe a small wind turbine, that street now has proper energy security! and by exporting to the grid their excess, that they regularly produce, their also going to get back the money they invested in the system, a win win - I do not live in a community where people could come together like this, I know this because I am involved with saving the local community hall, which I now need to look into getting the combined heat and power, to change to a sustainable system this is absolutely necessary, because it’s going to be owned by the community and run as a charity, which financially will never survive, if; we were to end up trying to pay the current heating and power costs, an affordable system will be found there’s lots of options for heat and power system, since the community hall comes with grounds with plenty scope for a solar farm, even the potential for a massive ground heat source system, that could possibly be big enough to heat and power the surrounding homes, but there is no community spirit big enough in this area to adopt such a fantastic initiative, the media has us all different tribes working against each other, that’s the way of the land owner shareholder capitalists they keep control of all the money and all the land, if the community hall gets into debt then the bank gets the land - and the wealthy shareholder capitalists continue to own everything, they will blame the Nationalists, the Socialists and the environmentalists, for the failure of community halls countrywide, blame culture is a trick to keep us arguing with each other - blaming each other for the transference of a former good public asset into private hands

That’s me and my community and our combined heat and power, energy security dilemmas explained, what are the government doing about this environmental crisis, energy crisis, cost of living crisis, that we are all accelerating into faster than we can adapt? the Scottish Government agreed to the under two alliance internationally, the British governments not happy about that, the Scottish government is working towards the Paris agreement for net zero targets for 2035, the Scottish Government are actually (someone should give credit to them) achieving these targets, they are doing extremely well, the nationalised railway Network and water network, these nationalised industries which are accountable and owned by the Scottish people, are investing heavily in renewable energies and sustainability for the good of the people of Scotland, as we transition away from fossil fuels, even though on paper Scotland is an oil rich country it does not own any of this oil, the international shareholder capitalists that own the north sea, export around 80% of it (more when Grangemouth refinery shuts) the quicker we as individuals and as a nation - transition away from fossil fuels, the less international debt we and our country will get in, and; the big bonus the quicker our environmental damage will come down, the public are not informed of these initiatives due to the media being owned by the shareholder capitalists, who; fear nationalised industries - shareholder capitalism thrives on exploitation of people and resources, the mainstream media promote pollution and war to make shareholders money, the Scottish Government is paying a heavy price for their environmental initiatives politically, the press are destroying them and the greens on a daily basis in Scotland, I am at present applying for grants to move my heat and power in the green initiatives that the Scottish Government are pushing, the people of England don’t have this choice they have the British government only making decisions for them, the British government also act in Scotland and their net zero targets are for 2050! Disgusting and not necessary, you can get a grant for a gas boiler upgrade in Scotland from the British government (not the Scottish) the British government are actively promoting the continuation and growth of gas usage, they do not want communities and individuals obtaining energy security, they want their business partners share prices kept high on the international stock market