Emma Duncan, deputy editor of The Economist, has a nice graph showing the abatement costs of various different technology options. Over on the left hand side the cheapest – as usual – are various energy efficiency options that, like loft insulation, are cheaper than free, in that they save you money.
So why aren’t all these mitigation options already installed? In a word, because people aren’t always rational. Often, like me, they’re lazy and can’t be bothered with the hassle of having to stay home for a day to spend five hundred quid on having the loft done – when it will take years to recoup the cost of the investment.
Which begs the question: why have power companies still not managed to figure out a way of selling domestic heat and power as a service rather than as a commodity? I worked as a think tank research fellow on UK energy policy four years ago, and even then it seemed clear that this was where the debate needed to go.
Well, maybe things will finally move if Gordon Brown moves energy over to the Department of the Environment…
