Reposted from Not A Lot Of People Know That
DECEMBER 31, 2020
By Paul Homewood
Last week, the government’s Climate Change Committee published its ‘Sixth Carbon Budget’ recommending what it thinks the government needs to do in order to meet its target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Much comment revolved around the proposed ban on new gas boilers from 2033, after which homes would have to be heated either by electric heat pump or possibly by hydrogen boilers, should the government decide to repurpose the existing gas distribution network for hydrogen.
But there is a far bigger nasty concealed in the document that was hardly reported: a proposal that the sale of properties be banned from 2028 unless they score at least a grade C in an energy performance certificate (EPC).
This has serious implications because millions of British homes will not reach this level and cannot be brought up to this standard at any reasonable cost. I have serious doubts as to whether an EPC energy grade means anything, given that it is just a crude estimate of how well an computer algorithm thinks it ought to perform, not a test of how it performs in practice.
Moreover, these reports seem highly sensitive to who is carrying them out – I hade two done on my home in the space of a year, one of which gave me a score of 42 out of 100 and the second, after I had replaced some windows with better-insulated ones, gave me a score of 32. The report informed me that even if I undertook all the recommendations in the EPC, which consisted of fitting solar panels and replacing the boiler, it was only going to bring me up to a score of 49 – a grade E.
In other words, I could spend over £10,000 and still I wouldn’t be allowed to sell my house and nobody would be allowed to buy it. Not only that, the Climate Change Committee recommends that mortgages shouldn’t be allowed on homes with a EPC rating of less than ‘C’ by 2033. So you, you won’t be able to sell, or to have a mortgage on your home. What are you supposed to do then?
There are nine million homes in Britain which, like mine, have solid walls. It is going to be virtually impossible to bring many of them up to a ‘C’ rating unless their walls are insulated. You can do that ‘cheaply’ by stick insulation on the inside or outside, but even so that will cost – in the case of a three bedroom home – between £7000 and £13,000, according to Which. But it is fraught with problems. If your house wasn’t built with a damp proof course – which applies to just about any house built before the 1920s – you could be trapping in damp. More realistically, to achieve a grade ‘C’ rating you would have to undertake a complete refurbishment, stripping the property back to the bricks and starting again. For millions of homeowners, that is not an option.
Has the Climate Change Committee thought for the moment of the repercussions of its recommended policy: to make millions of homes unsaleable? These unsaleable properties would be in addition, of course, to the many thousands of recently-built homes which, although they notionally have excellent energy performance, are unsaleable thanks to flammable cladding and insulation.
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Great Reset, build back better, new Green deal … we lose our assets, we would be controlled and managed and lose our democracy.
Makes you wonder what universe they operate in.
Impossible standards foe existing buildings
Push disabling “renewables” into the grid, which is already struggling
Mandate EVs to ramp up demand.
You can imagine the Spin Drs in a few years time, “it was a perfect storm of events that derailed our plans”
It was once called Planet Earth, but I’m sure these-F-wits will find a better name for it than what it actually is now – Planet Libtardia.
The good news of course though is that it’s not going to last. Kiddies do grow up.
Either these people are suffering from one of those mass delusions/hysterias that occasionally affects crowds, or these are all just cynical empty-promises.
Or both, possibly.
Link to the 6th report
Link to the report on buildings
This just came into force in France TODAY. New buildings are not allowed to have gas central heating.
Parts of my house are 450 yrs old. I have cast iron window frames. Damp course is short for; its damp of course. I have done everything reasonably practicable to stop the cold winter wind howling through on a calm day. The house will never achieve anything better than F minus. Houses like mine are why England is such a damn fine place to live. I rented a modern house once; mould everywhere due to all the condensation; the official answer in mid winter? = keep the windows open! Horrible house.
If it ever became law, the government would be out of office faster than you could say Nigel Farage.
No idea what UK laws are on takings by regulation but in the US, if my house becomes unsellable by government action it’s a 5th Amendment taking and I am supposed to get government compensation – of course that requires litigation and isn’t easy. But the other side of this is that if government action made my house unsellable, my house’s property value becomes zero (other than the underlying land) so I immediately pursue a certiorari action locally to have my property taxes re-assessed based on a valuation of zero, as does everyone else in my town who cannot sell their homes. This should bankrupt my town. So the implications have been thought out even less here than the article suggests.
Basically, home owners will be buggered.
solid wall German houses of ‘Victorian’ age are routinely insulated
With they exorbitant energy prices caused by the rash decision to go green and ditch nuclear, I’m not surprised
You have never lived in Germany, have you? In fact, you have no knowledge of 20th century history either. How many pre-1945 houses do you think survive as they were originally constructed? Go on. Have a guess, once you’ve read about what happened to Germany between 1939 and 1945.
“by 2030 you will own nothing…and be happy” all makes sense if you look at the so called “Great Reset” plan.
Let’s go back to living like the Turks in the 12th century. No vehicles or planes at all. We live in yurts, ride horses, hunt and fight with swords, shields and bows.We have Obasi’s (Tents) as communities and elect chiefs. All medical needs done by naturalists. Wounds cauterized by hot metal to stop the bleeding. All electronic devises destroyed along with satellites. All current weapons destroyed and planes scrapped. The game begins, just like the idiot kids play in their basements. You either fight or die. Whoever is left standing in 50 years will be elected in congress. Anyone leaders caught lying or cheating is put to death instantly, after a trial of course. Do we miss, “the good ole days” or what!
This is very close to condemning property for failure to meet impossible standards. And the possibility of property being sold for taxes if the fines are imposed.
It is no stretch for the very wealthy to buy up properties on the cheap and prosper. Of course I am only speculating.
Servitude: A charge or burden resting upon one estate for the benefit or advantage of another.
Natural gas pipelines may not be suitable for hydrogen. I seem to recall that hydrogen requires special handling.
“Natural gas pipelines may not be suitable for hydrogen. I seem to recall that hydrogen requires special handling.”
The metallurgy and losses are a bit more complex than that: Hydrogen embrittlement is recognized danger at certain temperatures and within many of the common pipe alloys – That means that the metal itself cannot be used in many cases. (Not all. Hydrogen embrittlement occurs when the pressurized hydrogen atoms carried within the pipeline cause crystalline changes between the steel and carbon matrix of the pipe walls, and cause early failure by cracking at low pressures.) More common is the simple “leakage” of significant pressurized hydrogen atoms as they (literally) simply leak straight between the atoms in the pipe wall to the outside. Losing 1-2% per mile of pressurzed hydrogen pipe means significant losses, and fire/explosion hazards indoor buildings and facilities.
Cryogenic hydrogen transfer is waaaaaaaaaaaaay more complex and expensive and expensive (can you say “rocket fuel handling” without adding a few millions of dollars per launch site?), but at least the pressures are lower.
There are a few misspellings in this presentation, but it outlines a few of the issues technically:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiwvvfasPvtAhURvVkKHa8PA5cQFjACegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.energy.gov%2Fsites%2Fprod%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F03%2Ff12%2Fhpwgw_embrittlementsteels_sofronis.pdf&usg=AOvVaw246krXNGKiHZGKCMVuhl23
A more general summary is in the article here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452321618302683
Remember: Almost all of today’s natural gas pipelines are now 20-50 years old, running underground underneath many tens of thousands of miles near cities, towns, industries, and homes. They ALREADY have been subjected to decades of vibrations, stress changes, settlement, and corrosion. Now, “they” think sticking pressurized hydrogen into those old pipes is going to be “safe”?
Another hare brained scheme that will fail.
“ should the government decide to repurpose the existing gas distribution network for hydrogen“??!!??
No. If you think the existing piping can pipe Hydrogen, you don’t understand Hydrogen.
I have just spoken with my brother-in-law in the UK. He is an estate agent (real-estate agent in American) and is not overly concerned with this legislation, He told me that Landlords had already had to have their property certificated at “D”, and that hadn’t been a serious problem. He doesn’t see people having to tear out the insides of their homes and putting in vapor barriers and scads more insulation. He says that whatever the Government does will have to be practical. So, there is a view from someone who will be seriously affected by this policy. (I’m never ready to accept that any Government will do what is practical.)
As in America the U.K. has such backward digressed leadership in place it’s capable of any hair brained idea or control measure a deluded Commie can come up with. Time for the purge of this idiocy from public life and influence. Deal also with the Tribal elephant in the room where 1.2% of the population controls 99% of the rest of us in their psycho/socio bubble.
Climate? Lies maybe? Doctored Data, Not U.S. Temperatures, Set a Record This Year James Taylor James Taylor.
EconLog. 1.6%, Not 97%, Agree that Humans are the Main Cause of Global Warming. By David Henderson.
The UK Telegraph in their ClimateGate Series exposed the U of Exeter Climate Scientists, who were tasked with supplying the UN’s IPCC with temperature data.. for having deliberately placed thermometers on rooftops next to hot air con outlets, on black tarmac car parks, in city centers and supplied many readings from Russian locations with NO thermometers.
Making homes unsaleable is a feature, not a bug. The Global Warming movement —and the hysteria over covid—is designed to beggar the middle classes as we have our wealth tied up in our businesses and our homes. The covid lockdowns will bankrupt the businesses, and the new climate rules will make your home worthless. The “elite” will remain untouched.
Building new homes by cutting down trees/pouring concrete to replace all the old homes is considered environmentally friendly?
If you want to use gas, you can use gas-powered heat pump. Including absorption gas heat pumps, or engine gas heat pumps.