By P Gosselin on 15. March 2023
The European Parliament has just given the green light for the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) on Tuesday (14 March).
The law would lead to massive renovation costs for millions of homeowners who are already saddled by inflation and falling incomes as green energies and supply woes plague the continent. Where will the money come from?
First introduced in 2002, the directive has since been revised multiple times, and aims at improving the energy performance of the national building stocks through energy efficiency. The objective is to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions.
The latest directive means updating building laws and forcing higher rates of renovation. It passed on March 14, with 343 votes in favor, 216 against and 78 abstentions. The latest version of the directive is part of the “Fit for 55” climate package.
The Parliament also wants to increase the number of households installing solar panels and to get rid of fossil fuel heating systems. European member states must adopt plans to phase out fossil fuel use in buildings by 2035.
35 million buildings affected
“An estimated 35 million buildings across Europe will be affected by the planned new regulations,” Spiegel reports here. It is estimated it would cost Germany 254 billion euros alone.
Supporters say citizens will benefit from lower energy bills and more jobs. It will also reduce Europe’s dependency on fuel imports from Russia, they claim.
The European Commission has a building energy performance scale for buildings that ranges from A (best) to G (worst) efficiency.
The EU’s target is to get every building to be carbon neutral.
Already there’s broad opposition
However,, with the vote in the EU Parliament, the plans have not yet been decided. The EU member states and the European Parliament still have to approve the targets before they can come into force.
“That’s pie-in-the-sky policymaking from cuckoo land. It’s neither affordable nor feasible,” said head of the Haus&Grund association Kai Warnecke to Bild newspaper.
“There are differences between countries,” said Finnish centrist Marui Pekkarinen. “In some countries, the proposal goes too high”, citing Finland as an example, where heating is largely decarbonized.
Critics warn of government red-tape and an administrative burden that would be caused. Others are questioning how all of it would be funded. Renovating older homes to be highly energy efficient means substantial investments in new windows, rooves, insulation, heating systems, which altogether can run well into the tens of thousands of euros per living unit. This would make many buildings and homes “worthless”.
“A lot of European money available”
Green MEP Bas Eickhout, however, pointed out: “There is a lot of European money available and it will deliver on climate, lower energy bills, jobs and less dependency on Russia. You should be in favor of that,” he said.
The costs will be on addition to those to be incurred through the EU’s plans to force people to buy electric cars and to eliminate all fossil fuel heating systems.
“Supporters say citizens will benefit from lower energy bills and more jobs.”
___________________________________________________________
More jobs? Just hire kids with ball bats to brake windows.
They’d do it for free
The EU bureaucrats are beyond stupid, most countries can’t find skilled labour to fill the vacances they have already and it’s especially dire in the construction sector.
“The EU bureaucrats are beyond stupid”
Yes!
CO2 Derangement Syndrome.
extremely addictive and toxic!
Right! The “Broken window falsity” writ large!
Are the windows going too fast?
I lived in Spain for a short while.
Prior to 2008, dwellings are generally very leaky and surprisingly cold in winter even on sunny coasts.
Many people do not have heating and rely on gas bottles.
Good luck with getting the Spanish to spend a small fortune insulating, replacing windows and switching to electric heating
Typo “rooves” should be “roofs” (unless in old English)
Parts of Portugal, Italy and Greece are exactly the same.
it must be that they’re used to it and don’t mind it- we have to presume they have some common sense and if they’re too hot or cold they’ll do something about it
Growing up in central India, with screens instead of window glass, it was pretty cold in winter with lows around 7oC.
Same in California.
It would be reasonable to promote home energy efficient- but not to demand it. It’ll happen eventually with high energy prices. It seems that there is now a market for such improvements- so job seekers should start companies to provide such services- explaining how making your home more energy efficient is financially smart for the owner- not to “save the planet”.
One thing I have noticed from watching commercial TV over the decades.
When gas prices are low, car commercials emphasize power and luxury.
When gas prices are high, car commercials emphasize fuel efficiency.
when we’re forced to all go EV, I wonder about the ads?
No need to wonder in the UK they are showing young people having fun. Oh, and there’s a car
Mark,I’m curious if your memory matches mine. I recall a time where fuel-efficient cars with small engines could reach up to 40mpg (I had a VW rabbit that was around there). What happened to those?
Best I can tell, they couldn’t make them anymore due to various regulations that forced them to change things in a way that reduced efficiency (much like water-saving toilets that require more water to flush fully)
Yes but they’re not interested in “promoting energy efficiency.” They’re interested in banning fossil fuels, one tyrant step at a time.
Those idiot bureaucrats and politicians who live in Brussels and other “northern” latitudes cannot understand what it is like to live and work in “energy efficient” (during winter, of course!) buildings of Lisbon, or Seville, or Madrid, or Athens, or…
Same goes for Malta were no one has central heating and the stone of the buildings absorbs and retains the damp. Some dwellings have boxes but you still need an indoor coat to keep reasonably warm. The floor tiles are often glasslike and therefore pure ice.
Thankfully, the U.K. escaped the undemocratic clutches of the EU years ago – but we are still saddled with a bunch of nincompoops (or ‘politicians’ as they are known). The current lot are absolutely clueless.
I can’t speak for EU countries but here is the loony tunes scenario for my country. The U.K. government has committed us to achieve Net Zero, that is we have to move to a lifestyle in which we do not add more CO2 to the atmosphere. Currently, the amount of manmade CO2 that the U.K.emits represents 0.000012% of the global atmosphere. And from there it is obviously vitally important that we move to Net Zero (please excuse the sarcasm).
When it comes to home heating, however, the situation is even more dire. The amount of CO2 generated by home heating (largely gas-fired boilers) in the U.K. amounts to 0.00000204% of the global atmosphere. Yes, that’s five 0s to the right of the decimal point. As a result, we will have to ditch our economic, flexible and efficient gas boilers and install hugely expensive heat pumps that don’t actually heat anything.And both sides of our bonehead House of Commons are committed to pursuing Net Zero.
There has never been a time in human history when so much money and time was invested in achieving so little. It’s pointless. Striving for Net Zero in the U.K., and all the other carbon-neutral initiatives on earth, are literally pointless.
Back in 1935 Sir Stafford Cripps had called Ramsay MacDonald a ‘nincompoop’ across the dispatch box.
Robert Bernays MP was at first shocked thinking it was unprecedented for the PM to be called a nincompoop but then it was unprecedented for the PM to be a nincompoop (Appeasing Hitler, Tim Bouverie).
Apparently they are now mostly nincompoops.
The UK has the same problems Australia has. Circuses can’t find clowns; they now go into politics.
Real clowns are fun and make you laugh. This mob wants to send you to jail for laughing at them or using satire to expose their foolishness.
Currently, the amount of manmade CO2 that the U.K.emits represents 0.000012% of the global atmosphere
China emits, using your numbers, 0.0001%. So what? The whole world emits annually less than 1% of the total CO2 content of the atmosphere. So what?
You may be arguing that its too small to have any effect. Maybe so. But if that is the argument, make it and justify it.
What percent of global annual emissions does the UK emit annually?
When it comes to home heating, however, the situation is even more dire. The amount of CO2 generated by home heating (largely gas-fired boilers) in the U.K. amounts to 0.00000204% of the global atmosphere. Yes, that’s five 0s to the right of the decimal point.
What percentage of global annual emissions is that?
The powerful argument about UK emissions, and UK boiler policy, is not the tiny percentage the emissions represent of global atmospheric content. Because that argument applies to the global total of annual human emissions.
The powerful argument is that the UK is doing a negligible proportion of global annual emissions, about 1.2%. And its home heating emissions are even smaller percent. This is what shows that its pointless to try and reduce them in the effort to, as the phrase goes, ‘tackle climate change’.
The reductions can have no effect on it because they do not affect total global emissions. This is the powerful argument. Even if the theory is correct, even if human global emissions are having a powerful effect, the UK unilateral reductions are pointless because they do not reduce them.
In the time that it took me to write this comment, I calculate that China’s CO2 emissions increased by very nearly the UK’s entire annual output.
No wonder it is known as the EUSSR!
European Union of Stupid Socialist Repubics?
Quote:-
“Green MEP Bas Eickhout, however, pointed out: “There is a lot of European money available and it will deliver on climate, lower energy bills, jobs”
A lot of money available that presumably grew on trees. (sarc)
It is very easy when you don’t define “a lot”.
Politicians are eager to spend your tax money.
To “achieve” absolutely nothing. EVEN IF they were right about “climate change,” which they are not.
More like “Money we haven’t taken from the people…yet.”
They forgot the word “nothing” after the word “deliver.” Once you insert the missing word, it all makes perfect sense
“EU Takes Step to Force All Homes, Buildings to Meet Crushing Energy Efficiency Standards”
The Russians will take care of that I’m sure…(Johne from Colorado where we still have fracking. It isn’t too late to turn around, Europe)
“It isn’t too late to turn around, Europe)”
I think it is too late. These crazy politicians are going to push this Net Zero insanity until they break the economies of their nations. I don’t see them changing course until that happens. They really are deranged over CO2.
Yes. And when that happens, there just might be lots of CO2 emissions. After all, burning buildings emit lots of CO2 and actual pollution. Mobs of desperate people are known to do things like that (torch buildings, especially gov’t buildings).
UK has a statutory Climate Change Committee run by a fatuous Lord which has no discernible plan to decarbonise (ugh) aviation, shipping, construction, agriculture nor even motor transport. (Vast diesel lorries – forget the EV campaign it hasn’t met peasant resistance yet)
Run by an ex UK Government minister who displayed all his intellectual acumen during the BSE period and showed what a caring parent he was too……take a bow John Selwyn Gummer.
John Selwyn Gummer. … despicable little oik.
So if the Russians launch an invasion the people of Europe just might cheer them on just think of that you greentard politicians , hell the might even help them
Well, the people of Ukraine welcomed Hitler’s armies as liberators in 1941, until he sent Himmler in to do his thing.
Whether Putin would be a more benevolent conquerer than Hitler is anyone’s guess, but given his army’s performance against Ukraine, he’d better wait until the EU Eco-Nazis convert their military to solar and wind powered tanks, etc.
Otherwise, he’d probably just get an even worse ass kicking.
We have a shortage of affordable housing in Ireland, both to buy or to rent. How can any EU government impose these onerous burdens and then expect the situation to improve? Will they fine or jail the tens or even hundreds of thousands that cannot afford to comply? Perhaps they will add taxes to hard working people to subsidise those who need their properties retrofitted – a wasteful and worthless endeavour (see M Kelly Energy Utopias)? The worst political culprits are the clueless green politicians and the sheep that follow them. It seems they all flunked Maths at school and learnt nothing of logical reasoning.
Well, I’ve said manys a time before that we are ( have already been) going back to the Medieval ages. ( THe Dark Ages ) – History as for remembering dates was never my strong point.
“as for remembering dates was never my strong point”
.
The Dark Ages – The six and a half centuries between the end of Roman rule around 410 and the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The Medieval period is the time between 1066 and 1485.
The Renaissance refers to the period between the 14 th and 17 th centuries.
Hope that helps.
“We have a shortage of affordable housing in Ireland…”
Same with many parts of the world. Part of the problem is high costs for materials, especially wood. But the climatistas now want to end all tree cutting – to have trees store carbon- to save the planet. A really stupid idea. Try telling them that it’ll make the housing crisis much worse. They don’t care- most already own nice wood homes.
I love how the phrase “affordable housing” is thrown about so often by so many. Perhaps one day someone will provide a definition of “affordable housing”.
The EU leadership made a law, but they won’t get it though the States which requires a unanimous decision. I don’t even think they’ll get the majority in the second round. This is just too disastrous for everybody.
Unless Bidet cooks up another E.O.! His latest 2nd Amendment diktat will either eventually get shot down but in the mean time will simply be ignored in many parts of the US.
The biggest problem with gun laws is that the only people who obey them, weren’t part of the problem in the first place.
Not sure i really understand this kerfluffle. The greenies want us to live in thermos bottles to save the planet. Normally this would be problematic. Not today. With off-shore wind turbines decimating the whale population it’s just a short time before the Enterprise shows up with transparent aluminum.
In the book, after they leave the plant, McCoy grills Scotty about the possibility of changing the past.
Scotty tells McCoy that it isn’t a problem, because according to the history books, the person who is credited with inventing transparent aluminum has the same name as the person Scotty just gave the formula to.
That solves the changing the past dilemma, but raises a new one. Where did the bloody formula come from in the first place.
Really bad news if you own an older home, as many do in the EU
Electric heating won’t get enough electricity from windmills and solar panels at dinnertime in the winter months. No sun. And sometimes no wind. And some people could not afford the electric bills. Because the price of electricity will have to be higher for the normal Duck Curve peak demand hours to reduce demand. People won’t be allowed to charge their electric vehicles during peak demand hours.
If they are pushing heat pumps, those require a lot of insulation and good windows. In the colder months they will use a lot of electricity anyway.
An article I read and recommended yesterday covered the subject well:
Heat pumps will not work for Britain’s Victorian houses, one of the largest makers of the devices has warned. Bosch is soft soaping the problem — few homes built before the 1980s have lots of insulation.
Over a third of the homes in the UK were built before 1945 and three quarters before 1980. This puts the UK at the top the rankings for the oldest building stock in Europe. Often these older homes are single dwellings with poor insulation and inefficient heating systems.
Do UK houses built in 1960 have insulation?
Before 1960 – NO – Your walls are uninsulated unless a previous homeowner had it done.
1960-1964 – MAYBE – You have a 25% chance the walls are insulated.
Code changed in 1965 where walls had to be insulated, but some builders gave an option before that.
The first regulations on home insulation issued by the UK government came in 1965. These were modest by today’s standards, specifying a mere 28mm of insulation for the loft. The requirements have been gradually increased, though, with each update of the regulations.
For decades, the British construction industry got away with building scantily insulated, poorly oriented houses. UK was quick to industrialise, so burning cheap coal could take the edge off the coldest days, while summers were cooler than they are now.
Only since 1990 have UK Building Regulations required that ground floors be insulated in order to save energy.
Heat pumps won’t work in old homes, warns Bosch | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com)
Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog
Due Diligence: We own a Bosch dishwasher.
They make good dishwashers, says the wife.
I don’t know about their heat pumps.
“few homes built before the 1980s have lots of insulation”
I should think some entreprenurs would see this as a opportunity. Insulation isn’t terribly expensive. It should be easy to prepare a benefit/cost ratio showing the benefit of insulation. I’d think that some company would build a very large factor to make insulation at low cost. Oh, that’s right- capitalism in the UK is obsolete. But with only some of the money now wasted on wind/solar energy in the UK, all buildings could be insulated.
Insulation isn’t expensive, but installing it into existing building can be very expensive.
In the early 2000’s the UK Government sponsored a scheme to insulate cavity walls in homes across the country. Grants were available via Local Authorities. Cue lots of bad installations and a further scheme introduced to remedy the situation which in fact made things worse for millions of people. There are still something like 4m legal cases going on.
Now the Government plan is to install 600,000 heat pumps across the country every year from 2028. The heat pump people say they can train installers in a week! What could possibly go wrong?
“The heat pump people say they can train installers in a week!”
Maybe, if they’re all mini-splits with no changes to the run length. Somehow I doubt that’s the case.
Our house built 1806 – solid stone walls 3 foot thick, no damp proof course,
un-insulated stone floor, 100s of similar buildings in area;
we’ve insulated roof & put double glazing, plus heat recovery vent system in.
Heating is a mix of oil, tank LPG, wood burn & electric.
Could insulate inside … make rooms smaller & dramatically increase damp problems.
Could clad outside (using stone walls as a heat-sink)… expensive & difficult to keep waterproof.
Heat pump would be useless & expensive to fit & run.
Insulation isn’t terribly expensive
From what I’ve read, the cost of retrofitting some of these older homes with insulation can be, because they’re not designed in a way that it can be done easily.
I’m guessing that would be a case-by-case basis. No argument at all with your main point.
“You’ll own nothing”- and “you’ll be happy about it”
Well, finally. Hit Putin in the shorts…
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/13/biden-interior-approves-controversial-alaska-oil-drilling-project.html
Russia does not sell oil to the US
Canada and Mexico do
maybe we hit Jusin TrueDope in his shorts?
No, but Biden appears to be finally having a change of heart, and if the USA ramps up energy production, the price of Putin’s precious black gold will fall along with the rest of the energy sector. His revenues will fall.
Anything that increases the world wide supply of oil will cause the world price of oil to drop.
Since Russia gets almost all of their revenue from the sale of oil and gas, such a drop would hit Putin in the shorts.
He’s already having trouble paying for his war.
THERE IS NO OIL FROM THE NEW PROJECT YET
Oils and gas exploration capital spending has been declining since 2014.
A new oil and gas production investment in Alaska may just mean less money invested elsewhere.
How do you know Putin is having trouble paying for his military?
Based on an estimated 5 to 1 kill ratio, he must have plenty of money.
Green groups are already trying to stop this project.
– – – – – – – – –
Environmental groups sue Biden administration over approval of Alaska oil project
The Willow project’s opponents had argued the development conflicts with President Joe Biden’s efforts to fight climate change and transition off fossil fuels
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/environmental-groups-sue-biden-administration-over-approval-of-alaska-oil-project
“The EU’s target is to get every building to be carbon neutral.”
Bonkers!
Propose lofty goals with absolutely no realistic plan as to how to reach those goals, but knowing it’s going to cost hundreds of billions of Euros to retrofit over 35 million buildings.
Yeah, that’s going to work out well.
Only in a world with crooked accounting for the carbon costs of conversion and loss of productivity.
For some reason, an image of Hillary Clinton asking if she was responsible for every underfunded business in the country, when asked about businesses that complained they didn’t have the money to pay for new ObamaCare costs.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/06/16/draft-n2012995
For the last 10 years Germany has already spent € 340 Billions for the same purpose but to no avail.
Indeed the govt had to acknowledge that this led to no substantial reduction of energy spending by the german homeowners and homerenters: Instead, since their homes were better insulated they proceeded spending the same energy amounts with the aim to get higher heating levels than before their insulation works
“There is a lot of European money available and it will deliver on climate, lower energy bills, jobs and less dependency on Russia. You should be in favor of that,”
Seems we are in the era of free money.
The European Union is a bad organization. It wasn’t meant to be but with no checks and balances it has turned into one. Paraphrasing Lord Acton: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Every member state needs to leave the union now, at this point it is hopeless.
This is beyond insanity, all in the name of “climate change.” Since we are now totally locked into ‘climate change’ insanity, someone has to ask the unthinkable question, so I’ll be that guy: When are they going to notice that every human being puts about 2.5 lb. of CO2 into the air each day, and when are they going to demand that we breathe less? And how are they going to enforce it?
The house I own came with a Heat pump and was insulated to meet the Electric Utility requirements, when I bought it 25 years ago. Although it met the HP Insulation requirements. About five years later I looked into doubling the thickness of insulation in the attic to save money. Result. it would take me 20 years to recover the price of blowing in the 15 in of insulation, Every five years since I get the same result. And that ignores lost value and assuming cash payment. Also, my son and I were going to do it ourselves. For those that borrow the money it takes over 25 years to recover the cost. With today’s inflation and the much higher labor cost you can double the years needed or triple if you have it done.