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Costing the Earth

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

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Costing the Earth: Dash from Gas

Boiling Point

Dash from Gas

BBC Radio 4 - Costing the Earth, Dash from Gas

Domestic gas boilers have to go by 2050, but what's the alternative?  Peter Gibbs reports.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has signed the death warrant for domestic gas boilers. From 2025, they are banned from new homes. But what's the alternative? Peter Gibbs reports.

Around 90% of homes in Britain get their hot water and heating from gas-fired boilers.  There are 23 million of them in Britain.  The Chancellor has banned them from new homes after 2025 and by 2050 they'll be history.  The government is committed to phasing them out to meet international climate change commitments.

So what are the alternatives to the gas that's provided reliable, reasonably priced heat since it was first piped ashore from the North Sea in the late 1960s?  Electric heating is a quick and easy replacement but we would need to massively increase the amount of green electricity that we generate.  Hydrogen gas could be burnt in home appliances but producing hydrogen takes a lot of energy and expensive new infrastructure would be needed.

Peter Gibbs is on the hunt for solutions, basing himself in the valleys of South Wales where energy companies and their customers are trialling new fuels, new smart technology and new payment methods to cut the carbon from heating our homes.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

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