It's not so much the dates as the cost.
If you're that keen you can pay my share.

Nuclear could be the primary source. Sure, issues to over-come but even so, worth investing in the research.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Two lines, what a rare treat.

It's relative though, isn't it.

You're paying for new energy sources to be built all the time. Have done for the last 50 years or more.

The government will not want to be in a situation where they're moving too fast and it's costing their electorate. Hence the world 'transition' and dates that will need to be reappraised to suit. Similar to the cost of owning and running an EV – it can't be more expensive than what we pay now for combustion cars, otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

I've already covered my issue with banning gas boilers (and why that won't happen in the timeframes they've given) above. It will cost too much, consumers will reject it and isn't practical in the short term. The Scots Govt. will find that out soon enough – it's up there with the just as brilliant idea of 'simply convert everything to Hydrogen'. Inevitable massive recent windback... Moronic.

There are far bigger environmental fish to fry than that anyway. Would be a good move from an energy security perspective though. The sooner we can practically wean off Gas the better.

In terms of heat pumps, specifically, some operate down to -22 with pretty good efficiency from what I can see. They'll be installed in new builds where they have far better insulation and need to be used less (so more cost efficient).

Edited by SW19 CPFC (26 Jul 2023 9.26pm)

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

Trust has nothing to do with it. Simple market economics. Too expensive = rejection/unaffordable = business model fail

Hence the hydrogen wind back.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

You are correct in operating at low temperatures. The problem is that the water that heats your radiators and your hot water in most systems (depending on the refrigerant used) only gets to around 50*c. This means that your current radiators are not big enough. They need to be approximately 50%-60% bigger in surface area to allow the same amount of heat into the space. The pipework will probably need modernising for both zoning and dynamic flow due to the bigger radiators. Your hot water cylinder will need an electric element fitted to get the water past 60* c ( the L8 recommendation).
All this alongside your house or flat etc being over a certain U value. That is just some of the changes needed to get a heat pump to be viable. ( what’s the carbon footprint to manufacture and install that lot). Then you have the tricky calculation of how many KW would your heat pump need to operate; many people have a fuse board able to deliver 60-80 amps. Divide that by 4 (ohmms law) roughly and that’s really the KW that your incoming power cable can safely deliver through the fuse board. ( dependent on the type of load) This might need a bigger cable installed as well. ( diggers, tarmac etc) Your heat pump may be 18Kw so bung an electric shower of say 8 kw on and you do the math.
So yes heat pumps would be electric only and if produced cleanly would be better for the dolphins but it’s not the silver bullet when allied to the above. A rough guesstimate to upgrade the uk electric grid is 4-6 trillion pounds over many years. That’s 3 x our GDP. That’s not goner happen any time soon.