How do I drive my gas boiler with nuclear power?
If nuclear is still working, demand for gas will be much lower hence lowering the dependency on Russia
(and while Russia is the biggest source, there's alternatives, and more will come up due to the conflict)
Source for all numbers: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/sankey/energy/sankey.htm...
16.03e6 TJ gas total
2.03e6 TJ used for electricity only
2.30e6 TJ used for electricity & heat, 60% of resulting (usable) energy is electricity
-> 1.37TJ
-> 3.40TJ of gas used for electricity, around 21%
Had other industrial nations acted like France in the 70s our problems, health wise, climate change wise and geopolitical would be about 1000x better.
- Less uranium is being produced than being consumed.
- The Russian sphere of influence is responsible for most uranium exports by far.
- Raise tsunami or hire incredibly incompetent operators to create nuclear reactor incident
- Wait for reactor containment vessel to crack open
- Collect hydrogen produced from hydrolysis and send it down the gas pipes
If that's true then it's completely unrealistic for heat pumps to become mainstream anytime soon.
We need to find alternative sources of natural gas, fast. Fracking may be a good choice at this point in time.
My idea is that augmenting with heat pumps is the most sensible step for most people. Such a system might provide a portion of the heat, and could be used for smaller heat zones (eg, some downstairs living room and/or bedroom) rather than the whole building.
My thought is that the advantage for augmenting is that it makes the geothermal setup much more affordable. You'll not end up needing to go super deep, or to install sophisticated insulation barriers.
That way, your geothermal setup can be pretty primitive.
"Households in England and Wales to be offered new £5,000 Government grant from April 2022 to help replace gas boilers with heat pumps."
Which is a long term win, as they won't need to import as much fossil fuels, and it helps meet climate targets. Any impact on Putin is merely a bonus.