What do we want?
Climate justice
When do we want it?
Now
Heating homes is heating the planet
We’re emitting more and more carbon
Right now, we’re going in exactly the wrong direction
Three-quarters of fossil fuels...
...used in the world’s buildings, goes on heating
I do not believe that you just sit back...
...and wait for something to happen
That’s not good enough
In 2021 emissions grew at the fastest rate for many years
I’ve got a massive carbon footprint
So, reducing, reusing is my vibe at the moment
So what’s the best way to keep warm...
...without warming the planet?
37-year-old Mokoena is a businessman living in Johannesburg
His home-cum-office is powered by electricity from the national grid...
...but for the past few years South Africa has failed to produce enough...
…electricity, and so power cuts have become the norm
You’d get home from work, literally put the key in the door...
...open up and then the power would go out
Now you can’t cook
So what now?
You can’t watch a TV, you can’t Zoom your friends or whatever it is
Mokoena also uses the electricity to power a hot-water boiler
Currently, we can only take a shower in the morning...
...so if I go out for a jog somewhere or go hiking or whatever it is...
...I’d have to get back home, switch on the water heater...
...wait 20 minutes, draw electricity, just so I can have a shower
This uncertainty around power has pushed Mokoena...
...to consider going off-grid and disconnect entirely...
...from the national electricity supply...
...and he has a personal motivation for doing this too
I have a background in motor sales
One of my biggest motivations is basically...
...just trying to undo all the V8s that I’ve sold
I’ve got a massive carbon footprint
I’m trying to just live a more sustainable existence...
...just trying to do my bit
In 2020, only 7.6% of South Africa’s electricity...
...came from renewable sources and almost 90% came from coal
Mokoena is keen to find a more sustainable solution...
...so he’s no longer adding to his country’s carbon footprint
So, I came across basically two ways to heat the water...
...it’s either through gas or through solar
Gas is still a fossil fuel at the end of the day...
...to get gas is still not a sustainable way to live
So solar seems the easiest, most sustainable option...
...to solve your water-heating problems
In a country which averages 2,500 hours of sunshine a year...
...that makes a lot of sense, but gloomier skies...
...call for more inventive solutions
£5,000 to scrap your old boiler and make your home greener...
…with a heat pump
In Britain, the government is wrestling with the same challenge...
...as Mokoena of heating homes without burning fossil fuels
Green is good
Green is right
Green works
Britain uses more energy for heating...
...than to power the electricity grid or run its transport system
...and 70% of it comes from burning natural gas...
...producing more than a quarter of the country’s CO₂ emissions
Part of the strategy is to try to get us all eventually...
...doing this, having heat pumps that don’t use fossil fuels...
...installed in place of gas boilers
No one is being told to rip out their boiler, let’s be clear about that
Angela had to cover the initial cost of her heat pump...
...heat pump, heat pump, heat pumps...
...heat pump, heat pump, heat pump...
...heat pumps, heat pump, heat pumps
So what is a heat pump?
A heat pump is a bit like a refrigerator...
...but doing the opposite because in your refrigerator at home...
...you’re extracting the warmth from inside the fridge...
...and you’re pumping it outside
So you notice that there’s a little bit of warm air...
...around the outside of your refrigerator
A heat pump does exactly the same thing
It’s sucks out small amounts of heat...
...from the air around your house and it concentrates it...
...and pumps it into your house to make you warm
So it’s a really efficient way of extracting what is essentially...
...free heat from the world around you...
...concentrating it and bring it into your home
This is Max Fordham, a pioneer of sustainable design...
...and environmentally friendly engineering
Today, his company is a leading voice in the push towards...
...low-energy buildings with low or net-zero carbon emissions
And this is one of its latest projects...
...transforming Oxford University’s Wolfson College...
...with a heat-pump-powered heating system
Senior partner Bill Watts has the job of bringing the vision to life
On somehow there you go
The heat pump it’s an air-source heat pump...
...there are four of them, they’re about five metres long...
...that high and they’re going to be sitting here
Four big fans, one, two, three, four...
...sucking air in at the back and then blowing it out that way
And this basement is about to become the engine room...
...for Bill’s mission to reduce the carbon footprint of the college
These are the boilers that heat the building currently
We’ve got about 2,500 kilowatts...
...of boiler power and we’re replacing it with 750 kilowatts of heat pump
We’re confident that we’ve dropped the amount of heat loss...
...of the building so we can reduce the size of the heating system...
...to a third of what it is
Nearly 20m heat pumps were sold worldwide in 2019...
...a number that needs to triple if climate targets are to be reached
But those targets are also dependent...
...on a more traditional approach to keeping buildings warm
OK, so this is a new window
Got the triple glazing
The insulation of this glass is a factor...
...of ten better compared to single glazing
I mean, it’s absolutely amazing
It’s exciting stuff for an environmental engineer
His clients, on the other hand, are likely to be more excited...
...by the 80% cut in the college’s energy bills...
...that this extra insulation is going to help to deliver
Take out the old window, put the damp-proof membrane down...
...put in the new window, foam it up...
...seal it up and then insulate around
That’s basically it
Back in South Africa, Mokoena has reached...
...similar conclusions to Bill Watts
So for insulation in the ceiling I would put pink foam to help insulate
In the South African context that’s to keep the heat out...
...more than to keep it in, then definitely change the windows...
But everyday consumers like Mokoena don’t have the deep pockets...
...of an Oxford University college
Cost is a problem when it comes to double-glazed glass...
...it just means remodelling again and it’s a huge cost
What we’re doing is we’re asking the government...
...to insulate all the UK homes
In Britain, insulation and its sometimes...
...prohibitive cost has become a surprisingly hot topic
There is nothing more important than insulating people’s homes...
...and making a start on cutting the emissions
But poor insulation isn’t the only obstacle facing heat-pump advocates
Up to 13m homes in the UK that currently use natural gas for heating...
...would not be suitable for a heat pump
Many because they simply wouldn’t have space
Little surprise, then, the energy with which other carbon-free...
...heating solutions are being pursued, from solar...
...to wood-burning biomass boilers to one potential fuel of the future...
...still trying to escape its past
The Hindenburg’s 7m cubic feet of hydrogen gas had ignited
This historic disaster hung over public attitudes to hydrogen use...
...for decades, even though it wasn’t the gas that caused the explosion
The reflexive fear of hydrogen even has a name...
...the Hindenburg syndrome
But that’s begun to change
From food...
...to medicine
This machine could change all that
Hydrogen has been used for years in industry
And is now a potential clean fuel of the future...
...for trucks, for planes, ships and trains
So why not houses too?
Here in a quiet corner of northern England...
...hydrogen is being domesticated
This unassuming house runs on a 100% hydrogen...
...for domestic heating and cooking
Since 2016 we have been looking at ways in which...
...the existing infrastructure of 280,000km of distribution pipework...
...could be repurposed using a carbon free...
...method of heating and cooking
The idea was to demonstrate that hydrogen is a plausible way forward...
...in reducing the carbon emissions in the UK
In this test project, there are no direct carbon emissions at all...
...but the hydrogen fuel itself needs to be produced...
...a process which requires a lot of electricity...
...and is currently done using fossil fuels
So its backers are on the lookout for sustainable sources...
...that might just be going spare
When you’ve got low demand for electricity, they actually stop...
...the wind turbines running because they don’t need them
Whereas they could actually run them, and that could generate...
...the green electricity to produce hydrogen
Northern Gas hopes to have hydrogen in UK homes...
...by the end of the decade
And if hydrogen can be produced using sustainable energy...
...then it can be a truly green fuel...
...but that’s a big “if”
The climate crisis my friends is the test of our times
If heating homes is to stop heating the planet...
...government and industry will need to work together...
...to bring green-energy solutions to a tipping point
By saying the industry will provide...
...and make it all nice and cheap is true...
...but they need certainty that that is going to happen
Justice, justice
The levers of state need to be brought to bear and say this particular...
...fuel source is going to be banned by this date...
...and then everybody gets behind it...
...and only government can do that
For the millions like Mo, who want to do the right thing and go green...
...they need support now to make their journey...
...to a green future possible
That migration from grid energy to renewable energy...
...it’s not as achievable as I’d like it to be
It’s not so easy to get there, but we try