Tuesday 25 September 2007

Solar heating

My hosts on our final rest day in Eastleigh, Alain and Mary, have solar water heating installed in their home. I enjoyed a carbon free shower which felt a lot cleaner than a normal one. Alain and Mary have not had to use their gas boiler since March.

Has paying for solar water heating saved Alain and Mary more money than investing the money in a savings account? - No. Has it cut carbon emissions, reduced dependence on imported gas and stopped some money flowing to Russian oligarchs to spend on detroying Enlglish football? - Yes.

As a government, if your main interest were short-term economic growth, you would not promote solar water heating. However, if you were bothered about reducing carbon emissions and the UK's dependence on Russian gas, you would subsidise solar water heating on a big scale. I know which I would vote for.

1 comment:

Pete said...

Since you mentioned Russian Oligarchs pouring money into English football using money made from supplying gas I thought I might mention that "Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist" (the original post by Craig Murray, - former ambassador to Uzbekistan - was removed when his blog was shut down following the threat of legal action from Usmanov's lawyers - despite the firm admitting that they didn't have a case - thanks to the power of the internet, it's back and being covered in numerous blogs worldwide).

It's scary to think who profits from us not having enough solar heating in the UK.