Pioneering new research has highlighted some of the political difficulties with the UK’s energy transition, in particular around vested fossil fuel interests.
The research, by Dr Richard Lowes and Dr Bridget Woodman from the University of Exeter’s Energy Policy Group, found that those with existing interests around fossil fuel heat were overselling the idea of converting the UK’s existing gas infrastructure to run on low carbon gases such as hydrogen.
This overselling comes at the expense of known, low- carbon heating options. The research is published in the international peer reviewed journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions and the project formed part of the UK Energy Research Centre.
In order to reach goals for net-zero emissions for heating, which makes up around a fifth of UK emissions, huge changes are required to the way that homes and buildings are heated.
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