Footnote: Energy: The Crippling Cost of Keeping Warm

Availability

There is no shortage of fuel on this planet. There is also no shortage of skill to grow it, mine it, drill for it and distribute it. There is no shortage of energy on this planet. There is also no shortage of expertise to build systems to extract it from sunshine or capture it from the wind and the waves. Yet millions have to endure the debilit­at­ing cold of winter in inadequately heated homes. This irrational paradox has no nat­ural cause. It is the evil doing of a socio-economic system founded upon the un­bridled pursuit of self-interest.

This system results in many people of working age and relevant skills being denied the means of turning their work into money. The compensation which a self-interest based society reluctantly pays them in return for this denial is naturally the least amount which it can get away with. The amount is therefore bound to be inad­equ­ate for the purpose of affording one so denied a dignified quality of life.

Official Attitude

I complain to officials about the inadequacy of our heating budget. Their reply is al­ways the same. To live within my welfare budget, they tell me, I can always turn down the heating another degree. Their minds seem unable or unwilling to grasp the notion of threshold. There is a temperature threshold at which the human life-form ceases to be able to function at a level which modern society expects and re­quires.

We have tried it their way. We have turned down our heating to reduce the gas bill further. We turned it down until the temperature in the main habitable rooms was just below 18°C. We put on extra thermal underwear and sweaters to compensate. The result was not as the uninitiated would suppose.

Practical Reality

My mind is normally very active. Ideas come quickly and easily. But when I turned down the thermostat, I found myself sitting there inactive and uninspired for hours on end. So I reset the heating back to its minimum adequate temperature. My insp­ir­ation and productiveness returned as the temperature rose again. As little as 1C° can make the difference. If I am to be about the business of searching for work and updating my skills then I can only do so effectively in a home which is adequately heated.

The operating temperature of the human body is 37°C. It is the same whether the body belongs to the Queen of England ensconced in her plush warm palace or to a tramp crouched in a freezing shop doorway in Borough High Street. The body's core temperature must be preserved. The energy required to do this depends on the difference in temperature between the body and its surroundings. As its sur­round­ings become cooler, the body maintains the temperature of its most vital parts at the expense of its less vital parts.

The result is an accelerating degradation in the body's performance as its surround­ings drop below the threshold temperature. This is rapidly followed by a degrada­tion in the performance of the mind. For me at present this threshold temperature is 18°C. It is, I should imagine, likely to get higher as one gets older.

With appropriate protection, the short sharp shock of a bracing walk in the cold can indeed spur one into action and be of benefit. Living in a prolonged inadequate tem­perature — even with outdoor clothing — does not. On the contrary, it wears one down. It stifles inspiration. It induces lethargy, slowness and poor productivity.

Gas

The energy consumed by our domestic heating for the years since 1976 are shown in the following chart. On the vertical scale, M stands for megawatt-hours. [The chart also displays our energy consumption in the form of electricity for direct com­parison (click the lower radio button).]

As can be seen, a normal comfortable temperature required about 28MWh of gas combustion energy per year.

This energy could only be measured once gas was installed in 1980. The initial low energy reading (for the year 1980-81) is because gas supplied our heating for only part of that year. Before that, heating was by coal fire.

On my becoming unemployed, we reduced our gas consumption to around 22½ MWh per year. That is a reduction of 20%. This put our average living room temper­ature well below the 18°C threshold. The cost of the gas that provided this thermal energy is shown in the following chart. (See table for the figures from which this chart was generated.)

Energy Cost (Gas)

At the April 1994 gas price of 1.477 pence per kWh this cost us £332.33 for the year. There was also a meter cost of £36.86 plus £52.44 for boiler maintenance giv­ing a total cost for heating for the year of £421.63 (at the 1993 value of the £). We eventually had to terminate the servicing contract on the boiler in order to con­serve money. So now, if it goes wrong, we have no heating.

Electricity

The energy in the form of electricity for the years since 1976 are shown in the fol­lowing chart. On the vertical scale, M stands for megawatt-hours. Note that the vertical scale covers only one tenth the range covered by the vertical scale on the gas energy graph.

The initial peak in 1979-80 is when I got my first computers. They were not as en­ergy efficient as modern personal computers. The dip in 1981-82 was when I spent most of my time on client sites. My adoption and use of electrical equipment — both office and domestic — grew considerably over the following decade. However, this was offset to some extent by our adoption of energy-saving measures through­out the home.

This was one of my personal interests long before I became unemployed. As a result, all downstairs lamps are now energy-saving fluorescent tubes. Our most used light is a table lamp on the sitting room sideboard with a 15 watt energy-saving bulb. We have acquired the habit of going to bed early and getting up early in the summer to avoid the need for artificial light. I installed two-way switching in the sitting room, hall, landing and two of the bedrooms so that lights can easily be switched off from where people tend to be. The refrigerator and freezer are kept free of ice and their radiators free from dust and open to good air flow. My com­puter is the only other constant consumer of electricity in its role as an aid to sear­ching for work and keeping my skills current.

As a result, our consumption of electricity has been reduced to its practical mini­mum of about 3½MWh a year. At 7.42 pence per unit, this cost us £259.25 in the year 1993-94. Any attempt to reduce electricity consumption further would be pos­itively detrimental to the functionality of our home.

The overall cost of this electrical energy is shown in the following chart. (See table for the figures from which this chart was generated.)

Alternative Technology

I did investigate alternative technologies as means of easing the burden of our crip­pling gas, electricity and water bills. After all, sunshine is free and untaxed (at least it still was at the time of writing) and, once water metering comes into force, the utilisation of captured rainwater will be unmeterable and unpoliceable, even though it be deemed the property of the water company.

I would like very much to add a solar collector to the hot water system. This should eliminate the need for gas fired water heating during the summer at least, and pro­vide a substantial saving during the winter months by pre-warming the water at the bottom of a greatly enlarged hot water tank. I even went quite deeply into the tech­nology of photo-voltaic cells and a small wind generator to supplement our electri­city needs. I planned to use these to provide a low voltage supply, from which in­verters could supply low energy lighting, timing and sensing. Further, to save the inevitable sharp increase in the cost of water when metering is installed, I could collect the rain water which falls on my house and pass it through a separate water system for lavatory flushing.

However, the massive capital cost of these alternative technology ideas rule them out instantly. Besides, I cannot imagine the government omitting to tax such a copi­ous source of free energy should it become popular.

The stark truth is that our utility bills cannot be squeezed any further without drast­ically diminishing the health and ability of each member of our family.

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Parent Page | © July 1994 Robert John Morton