From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
AUGUST 23, 2021
By Paul Homewood
More waste of taxpayers’ money:
This is the crucial section:
£170 a year for 38,000 homes tots up to a saving of £6.4 million. In what sane world would this justify spending £170 million?
Boris in Blunderland “Off with his head”
This sort of thing only makes sense in Green-World where everyone has failed to study maths and also are not using their own money.
nicholas, math is racist (see Oregon Law Senate Bill 744, signed into law by Governor Kate Brown). This is going to get a lot worse until adults are elected into governments. No choice but to wait for it.
The odds of adults getting elected is getting slimmer.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-recall-ballots-drugs-gun-felon-car-police
And yet the trolls tell us that mail in ballots are perfectly secure.
The ONLY means of “security” … of verifying the validity of the ballot is signature matching. And signature matching confirmations have been “relaxed”
Vote Fraud has been guaranteed
Which is the primary reason why the Democrats have been pushing mail in ballots for the last 20 years or so.
Even Ars Technica admits all the accusation re: Internet capable “voting machines” (actually: regular computers) are true!
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/08/8chans-ron-watkins-scores-a-major-own-goal-with-leaked-bios-passwords/
But of course the manual doesn’t say “users SHOULD cheat in election” so it’s fine. I guess.
The only way these devices are not Internet connected is if you (the owner/administrator) decide they won’t be.
In fairness, this bill was supposed to be because of the covid crisis. On the other hand then, why is it effective for the next five years? And, why was it signed in secret?
The bill exempts high school graduates from having to prove that they have proficiency in reading and math. link
I have a bad feeling that this is one of those temporary things that becomes permanent, like income tax for instance.
Just make sure you fire-test the new cladding.
You have to keep warm somehow when the electricity fails and your gas heater has been outlawed
British housing from what I’ve seen, is poorly insulated. Much of it is brick or solid masonry with no cavity wall, which makes it hard to retrofit. Efforts to add insulation must be applauded.
Not when it’s stupid.
Typically stupid comment, lauding the intention, not the result.
You must be an ArtStudent™.
In the real world insulation and energy efficiency also have to consider pollution, cost and safety aspects as well.
Of course if we built more nuclear power staions we wouldnt have to bother about insulating older properties – we would just throw cheap energy at them.
In the real world they did not take into account safety and real people died. Mike’s comment is commonly referred to as sarcasm.
Thank you.
It was not sarcasm , it was simply ignorant and ill-informed.
modern british housing is so well insulated you have to keep the windows open in winter to stop condensation and mould. the 450yr old wall to my right on the other hand is just a heat sink, and there is nothing cost effective i can do to the 200yr old windows in a listed building. my roofs are all well insulated and doors etc draught proofed, but at the end of the day we need cheap heating fuel – preferably nuclear,
You mean we have older housing stock
Do you applaud stupidity often?
It’s cheaper to demolish and start again
I flew Houston to London for 5 years at the beginning of the century, and I’d take the train in from Gatwick to Victoria. I got a good look at the range of housing, and so much of it seemed quite old. Lots of chimney pots. The only new construction at the time was some apartments across from Battersea and a new neighborhood shoehorned in about halfway to the city.
Coming from a long line of carpenters, I always picked up the current self-build magazines to see what was going on. “Cheaper to demolish and start again” didn’t seem to be an option, because the obstacle course to building anything was daunting.
So much land is protected green, the few available lots were advertised in national magazines and you had to get permissions from dozens of different agencies, and the neighborhood
kgbcouncil had a large say in what you could put up.There was an attitude problem, too. Must have solid masonry, built to last centuries, not the cheap wooden houses we have in America. They last only a few decades, you know.
It’s a lot less expensive insulating a 2×4 or 2×6 wooden stud cavity wall than to build two masonry walls on either side of the cavity, but studs and drywall were considered “experimental.” So you have expensive (old) masonry houses build to last centuries, and you have so much invested in them you can’t afford to buy one just to “demolish and start over again.”
Attempts at the time (2000-2006) to retro insulate were turning up all sorts of problems, much to do with moisture and some common types of plaster when you insert insulation between interior block and exterior brick walls. External insulation has its own set of problems, the Grenfell Tower fire was an example.
I’m guessing that’s been straightened out by now, so the new spending won’t be completely wasted.
I didn’t really see anything in the article that sounded pie in the sky unicorny, other than the expected co2 boilerplate. Just because BoJo is proposing something doesn’t make it automatically bad. I mean, its not like he’s Donald Trump or anything.
“Cheaper to demolish and start again” didn’t seem to be an option, because the obstacle course to building anything was daunting.
The planning laws can be somewhat difficult and expensive, but my point is this. To retrofit is not an economic proposition, the cost is phenomenal. Really phenomenal and the grants they publicise are a joke.
Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has admitted eco-friendly heat pumps are not as good as traditional gas boilers
Boris Johnson dealt blow as Kwasi Kwarteng admits heat pumps ‘worse’ than gas boilers | Science | News | Express.co.uk
My gas boiler cost around £3,000. It’s fast efficient and there’s plenty of hot water at an affordable cost – electricity is 3 or 4 times more expensive.
Heat pumps start at around £14,000 Heat pumps won’t run a shower, so where will you put that electric water tank?. The radiators for HPs are roughly twice as big as conventional radiators, and with all that insulation the rooms are substantially smaller…..
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
My experiences in a “virtue signalling” house in Berkshire with a heat pump and panels on the roof, were it was always freezing cold in the house..plain horrible and uncomfortable particularly at night.
“its not like he’s Donald Trump or anything.”
Bojo is definitely not like Donald Trump. Donald Trump had a crowd of about 30,000 attending his latest poltical rally last Saturday.
The claim is, spending long periods of time in the hospital suffering from the Wuhan virus has the potential to reduce one’s intelligence because the Wuhan virus can attack the brain. Bojo spent a lot of time in the hospital, so that may be part of the problem.
That’s true, Donald Trump was quite successful at creating jobs and wealth for all the citizens. BoJo just creates jobs and wealth for his friends.
Most British housing is brick-built cavity wall.
Those cavities and loft cavities were mostly filled with insulation as long ago as 1980s. Double glazing was the fad in the 1970s.
Most of the easy gains were done decades ago in UK.
Look, it says it is cost-effective. Would your government lie to you? It must be true, I heard it on the BBC!
Follow the Greenback Road. I’m guessing that Clarion Housing Group are not going to complain about government money increasing their property values.
In what world would this be cost effective?
It sounds more like a Stalin economic plan than anything a rational investor would consider.
At GBP6.4M/yr savings an investment of GBP160M would, assuming today’s modest interest rates, cover its cost in somewhere around 30 years. That’s bad, but not completely out of line with large capital projects sponsored by governments.
But wait – the GBP170 million is only the government investment. One can assume that the property owners themselves may be expected to contribute also. And then there is the ‘weasel wording’. The savings figures Paul H uses are based on the the Govt. website where it says there will be improvements for ‘UP TO 38,000 homes’. if you ever see an advertisement that says ‘UP TO…’ you know you’re being deceived..
Mr Nut Nut PM’s insanity is sowing.
But having been sown, I dread to think what the harvest will be.
Don’t worry. The Tory grass roots put him there to get Brexit done, not to promulgate Princess NutNutz climate idiocy, and the Tory Grass roots will make short work of him if he tries to stitch them up for ten grand a house to make his ex-mistress happy.
Ermmm… What are they going to do, vote Labour? Haw haw haw haw…
Oh, dont get me started. – a rapid back of the envelope calculation that I posted (and was edeleted) on a national newspaper has the total cost of net zero by the cheapets means (nuclear power) at £3500 per year per household for the next 50 years. Don’t even ask what it would cost if we tried and failed to do it with ‘renewables’.
If as science suggests there is an urgent need to reduce CO2, frankly this is entirely justified.
from the point of view of the UK govt, acting on the best scientific advice, this is entirely justified.
Opinions to the contrary are marginal political opinions, not science based.
Science suggests no such thing, erroneous thinking and models do
You prove that on a daily basis.
If reducing CO2 is so urgent, then the quicker and more effective solution is to slaughter every single pet animal in the UK. Pets emit twice the CO2 as emitted by domestic energy use.
Good to see the ‘if’.
There is no urgent need. Only climate deniers deny that.
If, as science suggests there is an urgent need to reduce CO2…
Since it doesn’t, no problem!
Hell if it’s that urgent turn off all power in UK now and your computer Griff … do it right now mate.
.
You need to save the planet Griff as taht is what the science demands and if you post again you are the typical left loon hypocrite
and stop importing avocados for your breakfast
So Griff, if the “science suggests there is an urgent need to reduce CO2”, what are you personally doing about it? It seems obvious you aren’t even willing to give up the fossil-fuel created devices and technology that allow you to post your blather on WUWT. Please stop if you are so concerned. The world will be so much better off for two good reasons.
If you continue, we can assume you are not concerned enough to personally employ even simple mitigation measures far less expensive than insulating old buildings.
Basically, it seems, you are full of “schist”. Continue posting your “schist” and prove it.
Leftists don’t do anything, they come up with plans that they want government to force OTHER people to follow.
Griff
Yes indeed. If it does actually reduce CO2. But by the time you move everyone into high density housing (which has to be built first) and do something or other with where they are living now, and move shops and workplaces to where they can hike or bike or bus to…
How much CO2 will you have saved? And what proportion of the global CO2 that is supposed to be the problem?
The science suggests no such thing.
Models do, but models aren’t science. Especially models that fail every attempt at verification.
“from the point of view of the UK govt, acting on the best scientific advice”
And your evidence that the government is acting on the “best” scientific advice is what, exactly?
“there is an urgent need to reduce CO2″
This is so pitiful in it’s desired effect, it beggars belief. A massive PR stunt for the useful idiots of this world.
Some back of the envelope calculations…
Being generous, if you just take local authority housing then that’s 1.6 million dwellings.
They are proposing energy efficient upgrades to a maximum of 38,000 of the worst of those dwellings, so their upgrades will only effect 2.3% of that total social housing stock.
Also according to the government, in 2020, the residential sector emitted 67.7 MtCO2, accounting for 20.8% of all (UK) carbon dioxide emissions. That primarily consists of fuel combustion for heating/cooking but not exclusively.
Residential sector represents 24.7 million dwellings, and the 38,000 upgrades represent 0.15% of that.
I’ll let you work out just how miniscule a reduction in CO² that is for £160,000,000.
(Btw, I’m very happy some people get their accommodation brought into the 21st century, that’s not the issue here.)
Griff, You should take a lesson from Feynman & shut the F up!
Science is composed of doubt.
He also stated it’s easy to fool yourself, because you are the easiest to fool.
The kind of crappy statements you constantly make prove you wouldn’t know what science means even if it hit you in the face!
Somebody like you woul be happy to launch a space shuttle when the rocket booster O rings were embrittled, cos you would be one of the stupid cretins that says “science suggests”…..an launch is justified…
Science only suggests you are without any doubt another one of the cretins!
Does “housing properties” mean only single family homes? If not your math is wrong. Regardless, I doubt the 4,473 per property would cover enough improvements to achieve 170 reduction per property.
Social housing is mostly blocks of flats owned by local councils
It depends on the number of utility-paying “tenants” in each “housing property”. If it averages 26 per block of flats (apartments), that’s a one year payout.
They still have to take dangerous cladding away from many buildings
They don’t want to fund that, they’d rather ruin those poor people with the cost
It’s outrageous
It’s a falsehood. Bait and switch.
found that each house cost £26,957 to retrofit, likely to minimal government mandated levels.
The £170 million for 38, 000 homes comes to £4,474 per house.
My guess, is that the building owner is expected to pony up the difference. Nor is it likely a full house retrofit.
Of course the £26,957 per unit cost does not all go into the retrofit. Maybe about half that after the oversight administrative costs, political skim and other kick backs and bribes.
The “saving” of £170 will not cover the increases in fuel bills already announced.
Oldseadog – some government maths here. In fact, the savings will be even higher as the electricity cost increases, even though the people will end up paying more in real terms for less heating. If the cost per kWh doubles, they’d then be saving £340….
…which are ENTIRELY down to the rising cost of natural gas!
Not true, but what’s one more lie on top of all the whoppers you have already told.
Yes the price of gas is rising at the moment as the world comes out of covid and suppliies are constrained.
But almost 23% of every electricity bill in the UK is not paying for the electricity used but for subsidies for the unreliables you champion. By 2024/25 the UK’s electricity users will be paying £12.5 billion a year in such subsidies.
No, griff, they are mostly down to the subsidies, paid to the so-called renewable generating systems, which are passed on to the customers by the energy suppliers.
They are of course called renewables because they only last for a few years before wearing out and then having to be renewed.
People joke that UK government folk have to take their shoe and socks off to count past 10 …. I wonder why?
Usually the way the sums work is that the bureaucrats who dream up this tosh will have burned through the budget on seminars and consultants before any spending on the actual houses etcetera can start = result.
The recent UK government Green Home Grant run by Virginia based ICF (how does that work?) is aiui mired in a blizzard of non payments to contractors and customer support computer controlled customer service helplines that are based in Fairfax VA. – “inside The Beltway”….?
When you can claim to be Saving the Planet (TM), any expense is justified.
Barbie’s excuse was “Math is Hard”.
Heat Pumps are Money Losers in my Vermont House (as they are in almost all people’s houses)
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/some-ne-state-governments-play-deceptive-games-with-co2-emissions
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 HPs: 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 transit and 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, 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.
Not many people can afford to add $24,000 to the price of a small house.
Ground Source HPs
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/residential-and-other-gshp-systems-in-new-england
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
Boris Johnson dealt blow as Kwasi Kwarteng admits heat pumps ‘worse’ than gas boilers
Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has admitted eco-friendly heat pumps are not as good as traditional gas boilers
Boris Johnson dealt blow as Kwasi Kwarteng admits heat pumps ‘worse’ than gas boilers | Science | News | Express.co.uk
I’ll be keeping my gas boiler no matter what the ground temperature is – and it certainly isn’t constant round here.
Not easy to retrofit to a seventy year old terraced house – which is typical of the housing stock in the UK being considered here. Pumping taxpayers money into old social housing is usually a prelude to demolishing the newly upgraded housing.
The temperature of the ground is only constant if the rate at which you are pulling heat out does not exceed the rate at which heat is flowing in.
Since that rate is very slow for most of the world, unless you create a huge field, which isn’t possible for urban or suburban lots, or drill a thousand foot well (as per your previous example), ground based heat pumps are better than air based, but not enough better to last the winter.
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 known for many years, and yet, RE folks, in and out of government, keep on hyping air source HPs in cold climates.
How many wrongs can there be is this…
In the UK climate, relentlessly damp as it is unless you live where the elites do in the SE corner of England, will turn that insulation fluff into a mouldering spore infested hideousity inside 15 years – requiring it all to be taken away at a cost of easily 5 times more than it cost to install – while making those homes completely worthless. (Unless extra heat or air-con was used to keep it dry)
Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees that shyte as The New Asbestos inside 20 years
We are dealing here with Perfect Muppets who have never heard of Stanley Jevons
Even worse, they are completely convinced that The Broken Window Fallacy is not an actual fallacy and that it is the basis for sound economic policy – i.e. that spending money is the best way to save it
Is there any escape from their incessant meddling? or Junk Science for that matter
edit to PS
Where did all those 500 Euro notes come from
I thought they’d been abandoned because only drug dealers used them – for money transport/laundering
I don’t know where you get the idea the SE isn’t damp and/or prone to flooding
BECAUSE YOU CAN”T PUT A PRICE ON SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!!
Even if it’s just mentally saving it.
“We are no longer a dividend stock. We are a growth stock,”
RWE CEO rejects keeping nuclear power plants open (msn.com)
Welcome to subsidy banking and who needs pesky production and bottom lines nowadays?
PS: Not to worry the watermelons have it covered-
National Grid and SSE to use electricity transformers to heat homes | Energy industry | The Guardian
One of a range of district heating options now being delivered…
“…Trials are due to begin on how to capture the heat generated by transmission network transformers, owned by National Grid, to provide home heating for households connected to district heating networks operated by SSE….”
That’s not really ‘being delivered’ unless one uses different meanings for all of the words…
“£170 a year for 38,000 homes tots up to a saving of £6.4 million. In what sane world would this justify spending £170 million?”
Please tell me where to find a sane world? ‘Cause it ain’t this one.
Look, the climate activists and other progressives live in a world of fantasy and delusion. Politicians live in a world where they will do anything to get and keep power. Votes like “free stuff” and too many people think government spending is free. Everybody needs a solid education in Austrian and Chicago economics.
Is there anything you know, that is actually true?
I beleive the part about diminishing returns is true.
If you have 50 mm of insulation and add another 50 mm of insulation, you don’t get twice the effect of the first 50 mm
Home work- Assuming you live in the typical house in the US – Measure the depth of insulation in your attic and the type. Determine the R value on any of the many self help pages on the internet. Measure the length and width of the house living area. Determine the square footage of the area and plug that into the selfhelp pages. They will give you the recommended depth of insulation. To take mine from R19 to R60 will cost ~$2,000 for just the bags of cellulose [shredded newspaper]. ~$300 for the necessary ventilation channels and another ~$300 for the Eves vents, Double to triple that for Professional? (The ? is because my son is in construction and Highschool dropouts do it).That works out to over $200 a month to reduce my $250 dollar heating bill which I only have for four to five month by about $50. Divide that $50 into $6,000 and that is 120 month or 4 months a year for heat and four for AC about 15, and no less than 10 years to recover my expenditure. I doubt if you could get a loan that would allow you to have more money left in your budget if you did this. Add in “Blown in wall insulation” and Double/triple pane windows and you are making the bank rich and you poor.
Rich,
How long do you intend to live in your house? If it is more than 10 years then by your calculations insulating it will save money and it is worth doing. In addition insulating your house will increase it’s value and you will make it back when you sell it.
I believe you are forgetting or not taking into account interest on the loan AND the lost value of that money put in your retirement account.
It looks like a costly plan without a real purpose.
Even at today high cost of FF if anyone did the calculations of what they are paying for insulating a house to Today’s standards they would quickly realize that they are NOT saving money. it is only accepted because it is built into a new house [because of building codes] and part of the mortgage, making you pay four times as much for that insulation. About 10% of the cost of the home is Insulation and needed accessories for this insulation. Net Zero homes will double this amount. So even with a “Net Zero Energy” home you are Paying for that “unused” energy.’
Do the math. Prove me wrong. Don’t forget the two to four inches of insulation underground and under the basement floor. And the hermetically sealing,of the home requiring an energy recovery ventilator and its maintenance/operating expense, etc. And what kind of health problems is all of this going to cause?
Paul asks:
“£170 a year for 38,000 homes tots up to a saving of £6.4 million. In what sane world would this justify spending £170 million?”
Well firstly he is confusing a saving of 6.4 million per year with a total investment of 170 million. Houses are generally built to last 50 years or more. So the total expected savings would be more like 6.4 million * 40 years = 256 million which is significantly more than the original investment.
Secondly investing money to make sure that the poorest in society have warm homes and do not have to pay excessive heating bills is worthwhile whether or not it saves money overall. Part of the role of government is investing for the common good and using tax dollars to provide decent housing for social tenants is something that any just and democratic society should be doing.
Ok so lets look at the figures in that article-
“Wave 1 of The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund follows an earlier demonstrator phase launched in March 2021, which awarded £62 million to projects across England and Scotland which will look to upgrade c. 2,300 socially rented homes to demonstrate innovative approaches to retrofitting social housing at scale, using a whole house approach.”
So at 5% return that’s 1348 pounds a year for what savings?
“As a result, carbon emissions will be reduced, and it is expected that those living in upgraded properties will save between £300 and £500 on their energy bills each year.”
There’s lots of alternative uses for the resources purloined from the productive sector.
The UK government is currently planning on spending 250 million pounds on a new royal yacht. If there is money to buy a new boat for an aging monarch surely her subjects deserve warm houses?
BBC headline ‘ Govt saves 38,000 homes 6.4 million ‘ .
No mention it will cost 170 million .