Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
JULY 27, 2021
By Paul Homewood
The media is finally starting to wake up. Pity they did not years ago:
Boris Johnson has always tried to take a ‘cakeist’ position on Net Zero. We can drastically cut carbon emissions while boosting living standards, he claims. But the truth is, the sacrifices being demanded of us in the name of Net Zero are incompatible with democracy, and the PM knows it.
Just look at the anguish the gas boiler ban is causing to the government. Johnson has now conceded that the ban will have to be pushed back from 2030 to 2035. It will have to be some other prime minister’s problem.
The boiler ban was a key plank of the government’s Net Zero strategy. Gas boilers were to be replaced with heat pumps. These heat pumps are not what anyone could call a reasonable alternative to boilers. While a boiler can heat your house fairly quickly at the flick of a switch, a heat pump can take around 24 hours to heat your home to between 17 to 19 degrees celsius – i.e., not-quite room temperature.
For the pleasure of living in your not-quite warm house, you will have to fork out around £10,000 for the unit and installation. Then, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), you can expect to spend an additional £100 per year on your energy bills.
If you want to own a heat pump and have a house that’s more than lukewarm, you’ll need lots of extra insulation. This means yet more tens of thousands of pounds in renovation costs. The Energy Technologies Institute estimates that a ‘deep retrofit’ could cost as much as building a home from scratch. This is not money that any ordinary person has down the back of the sofa – or that the taxpayer can reasonably cover for millions of households.
Getting used to this reduced lifestyle ‘will take an attitudinal shift’, says Chris Stark, CEO of the CCC. This is quite the understatement. It means abandoning what was once a completely normal expectation in a developed country: having a warm home in winter.
In our Net Zero future, we can also forget having a stable and affordable supply of electricity. Boris says he wants to make the UK the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’. But we should be wary of green energy experiments. Places like California that have rushed to swap nuclear and fossil fuels with renewable energy are regularly faced with rolling blackouts. Since Germany embarked on its Energiewende (energy transition), its electricity prices are now among the highest in the world, though, ironically, this hasn’t done much to lower CO2 emissions.
Net Zero is easily the largest national project the UK has embarked on since the Second World War. But even as politicians boast about it on the world stage, parading their harsh ‘targets’ at every opportunity, they have tried to downplay its significance to the public. It’s just a tax rise here, a subsidy there, maybe a bit less meat-eating or not rinsing the plate before loading it into the dishwasher. Technology will take care of the rest, anyway, they say.
But when the public really finds out what Net Zero means, will they tolerate it? The gilets jaunes protests in France were the most significant public revolt since 1968. They were sparked by an eco-tax. This tax didn’t affect the metropolitan liberals who dreamt it up. They were baffled that anyone would stand in the way of carbon neutrality. But they had to reverse course. This tax was but a drop in the ocean compared to Net Zero.
If a similar set of peer-reviewed published scientists, self-appointed activists, bureaucrats and elected officials set out to design a new aircraft, would anybody in their right mind board it for a flight?
And yet they are somehow qualified to direct and manage a worldwide industrial transformation? Incredible!
Most of these people aren’t qualified to be baristas. Or in the quaint UK idiom, they couldn’t run a whelk stall.
….. or the less quaint one – “couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery”.
Or the real-life version – Can save the planet, but can’t even fix potholes in the roads.
It is like the old joke about a camel being an animal designed by a committee.
Is a Kamela a small bactrian camel?
Here is where a moderate sized (farmhouse) windmill might be feasible, not a generator but an air pump/compressor for direct heating in winter and cooling in summer. Actually you could alternatively drive an evap/compressor refrigeration cycle with a windmill compressor -heating and cooling. Its intermittency problem is not as serious as in gen of electricity.
With a well insulated building and triple glazed windows, an air vent to outside with a heat exchanger exhaust, preserves heat.
It seems to me, that more holistic engineering of the house would be wise for the long haul. An air to air heat pump that is affordable for working class wages would just keep you on the miserable side of comfortable and frequently will let you down. Don’t trust gubmint estimations of what you need. They have used affordability calculations to estimate the unit you ‘need’ so you think the cost is reasonable.
Net zero equals rationing.
I have owned many air sourced heat pumps. They worked well enough down to outside air at 0C at which point they spent a lot of energy defrosting themselves. Since the COP gets much worse below 0C they have a resistance heater that they call upon to add additional heat — at additional expense. Finally, the heat pump generally makes use of the furnace plenum and fans, which results in there being too much transfer for the typical heat pump to keep up with, which makes air coming out the registers in the house not so warm as that coming from a furnace-fired plenum; so even though the air is warm enough to heat the house (say 80-90F) you may not find sitting near the register to be comfortable.
Air to air heat pumps work fine as an alternate source of heat in the spring and autumn, but they take some thought to use effectively, and in a cold climate you really need a furnace to supply base heat in winter.
Kevin,
I agree, ASHPs, used in average houses in the US northeast, are money losers.
My own house is well sealed and insulated, but I am still losing money, if amortizing costs were included.
Here is the data regarding my HPs:
Excerpt from
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/some-ne-state-governments-play-deceptive-games-with-co2-emissions
Heat Pumps are Money Losers in my Vermont House (as they are in almost all people’s houses)
I installed three Mitsubishi, 24,000 Btu/h HPs, Model MXZ-2C24NAHZ2, each with 2 heads; 2 in the living room, 1 in the kitchen, and 1 in each of 3 bedrooms. The HPs have DC variable-speed, motor-driven compressors and fans, which improves the efficiency of low-temperature operation.
The HPs last about 15 years. Turnkey capital cost was $24,000
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-co2-reduction-of-ashps-is-based-on-misrepresentations
Well-Sealed, Well-Insulated House: The HPs are used for heating and cooling my 35-y-old, 3500 sq ft, well-sealed/well-insulated house, except the basement, which has a near-steady temperature throughout the year, because it has 2” of blueboard, R-10, on the outside of the concrete foundation and under the basement slab, which has saved me many thousands of space heating dollars over the 35 years.
I do not operate my HPs at 10F or below, because HPs would become increasingly less efficient with decreasing temperatures. The HP operating cost per hour would become greater than of my highly efficient propane furnace.
High Electricity Prices: Vermont forcing, with subsidies and/or GWSA mandates, the build-outs of expensive RE electricity systems, such as wind, solar, batteries, etc., would be counter-productive, because it would: 1) increase electric rates and 2) worsen the already poor economics of HPs (and of EVs)!!
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-costs-of-wind-solar-and-battery-systems
Energy Cost Saving: My energy cost savings due to the HPs were $253/y, on an investment of $24,000!!
Amortizing Heat Pumps: Amortizing the $24,000 turnkey capital cost at 3.5%/y for 15 years costs about $2,059/y.
This is in addition to the amortizing of my existing propane system. I am losing money.
https://www.myamortizationchart.com
Other Annual Costs: There likely would be service calls and parts for the HP system, as the years go by.
This is in addition to the annual service calls and parts for my existing propane system. I am losing more money.
Cost of CO2 Reduction would be (2,059, amortize – 253, energy cost saving + 200, parts and maintenance)/0.998 Mt/y, CO2 reduction, table 6 = $2028/Mt, which is similar to money-losing, very expensive, electric school buses. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/electric-bus-systems-likely-not-cost-effective-in-vermont-at
Highly Sealed, Highly Insulated Housing
If I had a highly sealed, highly insulated house, with the same efficient propane heating system, my house, for starters, would use very little energy for space heating, i.e., not much additional energy cost saving and CO2 reduction would be possible using HPs
If I would install HPs, and would operate the propane system down to 5F (which would involve greater defrost losses), I likely would displace a greater percentage of propane, and might have greater annual energy cost savings; much would depend on: 1) the total energy consumption (which is very little, because of my higher-efficiency house), and 2) the prices of electricity and propane. See Note.
I likely would need 3 units at 18,000 Btu/h, at a lesser turnkey capital cost. Their output, very-inefficiently produced (low COP), would be about 34,000 Btu/h at -10F, the Vermont HVAC design temperature.
However, any annual energy cost savings would be overwhelmed by the annual amortizingcost, and parts and service costs. i.e., I would still be losing money, if amortizing were considered.
NOTE:
1) About 1.0 to 1.5 percent of Vermont houses are highly sealed and highly insulated
2) Vermont’s weatherizing program, at about $10,000/unit, does next to nothing for making energy-hog houses suitable for HPs; it is a social program for poor people.
Heat Pump Evaluation in Vermont
VT-Department of Public Service found, after a survey of 77 HPs installed in Vermont houses:
– The annual energy cost savings were, on average, $200, but the maintenance and annual amortizing costs would turn that gain into a loss of at least $200.
– On average, the HPs provided 27.6% of the annual space heat, and traditional fuels provided 72.4%. These numbers are directly from the survey data.
– Owners started to turn off their HPs at about 24F, and very few owners were using their HPs at 10F and below, as shown by the decreasing kWh consumption totals on figure 14 of URL
– On average, an HP consumed 2,085 kWh during the heating season, of which:
1) To outdoor unit (compressor, outdoor fan, controls) + indoor air handling unit (fan and supplemental electric heater, if used) to provide heat 1,880 kWh;
2) Standby mode 76 kWh, or 100 x 76/2085 = 3.6%;
3) Defrost mode 129 kWh, or 100 x 129/2085 = 6.2%. Defrost starts at about 37F and ends at about 10F.
– Turnkey cost for a one-head HP system is about $4,500; almost all houses had just one HP. See URLs.
On average, these houses were unsuitable for HPs, and the owners were losing money.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-savings-of-air-source-heat-pumps-are-negative-in-vermont
https://publicservice.vermont.gov/sites/dps/files/documents/2017%20Evaluation%20of%20Cold%20Climate%20Heat%20Pumps%20in%20Vermont.pdf
NOTE: Coefficient of Performance, COP = heat delivered to house/electrical energy to HP
See page 10 of URL
https://mn.gov/commerce-stat/pdfs/card-air-source-heat-pump.pdf
Heat Pump Evaluation in Minnesota
The image on page 10 of URL shows:
1) Increasing coefficients of performance, COP, of an HP, versus increasing outdoor temperatures (blue)
2) The defrost range from 37F down to 10F (yellow)
3) Operation of the propane back-up system from 20F to -20F (green).
Such operation would be least costly and would displace propane, that otherwise would be used.
The image shows, HPs are economical down to about 13F, then propane, etc., becomes more economical; much depends on the prices of electricity and propane.
https://mn.gov/commerce-stat/pdfs/card-air-source-heat-pump.pdf
BTW, all of the above has been widely known for many years, and yet, RE folks, in and out of government, keep on hyping air source HPs in cold climates.
Ground Source HPs
They are widely used in many different buildings in northern Europe, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Their main advantage is the coefficient of performance, COP, does not decrease with temperature, because the ground temperature is constant
GSHPs can economically displace 100% of fuel.
ASHPs can economically displace at most 50% of fuel; the percentage depends on how well a building is sealed and insulated.
The main disadvantage of GSHPs is greater turnkey capital cost, i.e., high amortization cost. See URL
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/residential-and-other-gshp-systems-in-new-england
Trying to force people to replace gas boilers by heat pumps for home heating is a colossal waste of money. Natural gas is by far the most efficient way to heat a home, and emits about half as much CO2 per million Btu as burning home heating oil.
If Boris Johnson wants to use the government to incentivize people to emit less CO2, he should incentivize conversion of oil-burning furnaces to natural-gas boilers, and incentivize people to install better insulation in their homes. You won’t get to net zero, but you will reduce CO2 emissions.
In the USA, there have been incentives for energy saving in the tax code for decades. If a homeowner installs better insulation, or windows that transmit less heat, or switches out an oil-fired furnace for a natural-gas furnace, the cost can be deducted from the person’s taxable income, which amounts to the government subsidizing part of the cost (depending on the person’s tax rate). The problem with the current approach is that this is only available for people who pay income taxes, which are only about 50% of the population, and credit is not given if the adjustment results in a negative tax (the people are not paid, but only get away with zero tax that year).
So if BoJo is worried about climate change, he should try using a “carrot” (tax cut or credit) to incentivize people to save energy, not a “stick” to punish them for emitting CO2.
Even for those who believe that increasing CO2 concentrations in the air would cause warming of the climate, “net zero” CO2 emissions should not be the goal. What was human life like in prehistoric times before mankind discovered how to use and control fire, including wood fire? Probably extremely miserable.
Most school children know that animal and human life uses oxygen from the air to produce energy and emit CO2, and that plants use sunlight and water to remove CO2 from the air and produce food and oxygen. It has also been shown experimentally that additional CO2 in the air increases plant growth rates.
So, for those who fear “global warming” from additional CO2 in the air, the goal should be to reduce human CO2 emissions so that the removal rate by photosynthesis catches up to the emission rate, and the CO2 concentration in the air stabilizes at an equilibrium level. Oh, by the way, that will also increase food production. What’s wrong with that?
How can Net Zero by 2050 be dead.
According to griff it’s a locked in fact that Europe will be completely off of fossil fuels by 2030.