net zero viewed in the microcosm

'the field next door has been neglected for a number of decades but  it has not (miraculously) turned into mature woodland.' 

horsemouth starts this quite late (like at about 8pm the evening before).

this morning the surveyor visited. 

horsemouth recaps some of his thoughts from yesterday.

ideally horsemouth would plant more trees but it is not really his decision to make. horsemouth would like to plant trees and get into enhanced carbon sequestration.

permit horsemouth to fantasise here.  

he'd also like to get out of heating with oil fuelled heating and a wood burner (but he suspects that's a pipe-dream). that wood fuels are renewable is no longer a bonus, because burning wood emits CO2 (a greenhouse gas) and can cause air pollution and respiratory problems for owners. the wood burner may in any event be banned soonish (they were regulated in 2022).  

he does have to admit it looks good. and seeing as the wood burned comes from trees felled on the property it has not had to travel very far. 

horsemouth would probably like to get into insulating the property more, air source heat pumps and solar panels (but his mum is against solar panels on the house for some reason). insulating the property more would either mean ripping off all the creeper from the outside of the house to fit external insulation or narrowing corridors/ rooms etc. to fit interior insulation. 

there's some insulation in the attic (he has seen it) that at least is good to know. 

all this is definitely more trouble than it is worth at this stage in the game.  (which is why it is just a fantasy).

but then these are the trade offs horsemouth and the communal endeavour will face when they come to insulate the communal endeavour's  houses. the whole process is proving more arduous than one would expect.  yesterday horsemouth missed a zoom meeting of the consortium due, in large part, to forgetfulness. seeing as the communal endeavour will now be paying for it all how much money the communal endeavour actually has coming in each year will become more important. the endeavour will be stabilising at its new turnover and surplus as the new properties come on stream. 

this is net zero viewed in the microcosm (house by house) but it is also about building huge amounts of electrical transmission infrastructure (pylons) to shift the electricity from where it is generated (on giant windfarms out in the north sea) to where it is consumed (in the prosperous and populated south). meanwhile the department of energy security and net zero (DESNZ) wrestles with the intractable shit show that is sellafield.