7 The great energy debate

So far, the debate about the future of energy generation in the UK seems to have been dominated by the choice of nuclear or renewables. I’m concerned that the question of energy affordability and fuel poverty has been marginalised. In particular, I’m worried that there is already a consensus that fuel will be much more expensive in the future, whatever the source. If this is the case, then the disproportionate losers will be the socially disadvantaged, especially the most disadvantaged, who are already paying punitive energy supply charges through the use of pay-as-you-go key meters. These people also tend live in the least energy efficient and lowest standard of housing, especially since the abandonment of national minimum standards in 1980 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Morris_Committee Unfortunately, the likelihood of improving their housing stock, through the implementation of high quality insulation or other major energy saving building modifications, does not appear to be very great. I fear that a harbinger of how Housing Associations (HA) and local authority housing regimes will respond to this challenge has been the way that they have responded towards tenants who request permission to install water meters in their homes. For example Mosaic, one of London’s largest HAs, will only allow tenants to have water meters fitted when the tenant agrees, in advance, to pay any costs associated with installation of the meter. As the water supply is usually to a flat, where the plumbing is often a jerry-built bodge, rather than a standard street supply, there can be considerable damage to kitchen fixtures when plumbers trace and modify the pipe-work. The result, few dare risk the cost. The energy debate becomes even more abstract with discussion of how people might offset energy costs by generating their own supplies. Such schemes, though varied and imaginative, are all irrelevant to people living, for example in a third floor flat who are prohibited by the terms of their tenancy from fixing anything to the external wall of their home or making structural changes. I’m not arguing pro or anti-nuclear, frankly I’m more worried that that the narrow debate we seem to be having ignores the ways in which a future premised on more expensive energy will of itself increase social disadvantage and division in the UK.