From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
What is it about the BBC’s climate reporters? They seem to live in their own little bubble, oblivious to what is going on in the real world!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjqzj8rnvyo
You’d think from reading this that people are queuing up to but heat pumps and EVs.
Last year, according to official government statistics, just 41,723 air heat pumps were installed in the UK using government support schemes, such as the £7500 bung via the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.
That’s just 0.15% of UK homes. It would take 650 years to get every home in the country fitted with a heat pump at that rate!
As for EVs, only one-in-ten private buyers are going electric, despite avoidance of driving taxes.
The renewable lobbyist, Emma Pinchbeck, thinks that demand for this wonderful “clean” technology is suppressed because the cost of producing electricity from renewables is so high.
Has it not occurred to her that once the subsidies for heat pumps and EVs are gone, a slightly lower electricity price will not make the slightest difference!
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Another day, another propaganda piece from the BBC; the nation’s gaslighter.
“More EVs sold” is the (standard BBC) Orwellian phrase for “can’t sell these damned EVs”. But the main tactic the BBC utilises is omission, to blank it out. The Morning Midas finally sank a day or two ago. CBS News had this…
“A cargo ship that had been delivering new vehicles to Mexico sank in the North Pacific Ocean, weeks after crew members abandoned ship when they couldn’t extinguish an onboard fire that left the carrier dead in the water.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cargo-ship-sinks-3000-new-vehicles-fire-alaska/
A search of the BBC’s labyrinthine website for the name of the ship yields:
Nothing at all.
Lately on the radio (R4) the BBC has been huffing and puffing about its new relationship with CBS:
BBC News and CBS News join forces around the globe
BBC News and CBS News announced today a new editorial and newsgathering relationship that will significantly enhance the global reporting capabilities of both organisations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/bbc-news-cbs-partnership
Should the BBC choose to report it.
And yesterday evening Channel 5 transmitted a programme about the safety of EVs.
Mostly a whitewash although it had a firefighter saying that EV fires are almost impossible to put out, they have to be left to burn themselves out.
It was another in a long list of green/climate propaganda from C5.
They lead the viewer in with a title that makes it sound like a balanced considered program, say, ‘Heat pumps are they worth it?’ puts the well known issues, then brings on ‘experts’ demolish them. They do notable weather events, say, ‘The great flood of….’, which are very interesting and factual, ready for the climate change lecture at the end; will become more common, worse, etc.
A flaw in heat pumps is they don’t spontaneously combust.
Glorified refrigerators
Another EV goes up in smoke:
Electric Mercedes Worth £50,000 Explodes After ‘Battery Fault’ – Destroying Two Cars Nearby
I’m amazed that any Mercedes, EV or not, could be purchased at that price.
I suspect it was bought for double and was 12 months old at the time of the ‘mishap’
Current value is nil
“A search of the BBC’s labyrinthine website for the name of the ship yields:
Nothing at all.”
This is the only place I heard about it at all. Never made the local news.
Story tip – not in the BBC, obviously…
“There have been speculative reports in the Telegraph that Spain may have been ‘conducting an experiment’ before the system went down back in April. It is possible that the government was testing the extent to which renewables could be relied upon when Spain’s nuclear plants go offline. Red Eléctrica has declined to comment. If this does prove to be the case…”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/26/we-must-heed-the-warning-of-spains-net-zero-blackouts/
The majority shareholder is the government.
Old news Strat. Also old news, the UK grid is aiming for the same.
“Old news Strat”
So, you know what really caused the blackouts in the Iberian peninsula. Source? It could well be useful…
Eh? Did I say that? No. The story is not new, the ‘grid experiment’ angle was out there almost immediately.
Reminds me of the experimental procedure being conducted at Chernobyl that cause it to self-destruct…..
The recent bombing of nuclear sites in Iran was a test to be applied to other places.
You build it, we will destroy it, and you will not see us coming or going.
To be fair, after years of sanctions etc they have no real air force. They don’t even have air raid sirens.
Most of the time complete superiority in the air is what they [Strangelove’s] dream of. In Iran they have it.
Iran has Chinese-made air defense weapons. Were any left operational at the time of the B-2 strike, or did they just not work?
“You build it, we will destroy it, and you will not see us coming or going.”
Who is the hypothetical builder and who is the hypothetical destroyer?
The role of the BBC is simple. It’s to spread propaganda on behalf of various government agencies, who often work with private interests
The article is defined by the headline, they don’t expect most people to read further
The headline acts as an advertisement for these technologies, basically sending the message that they are becoming popular (so obviously they must be good, right?) and you shouldn’t hesitate to get one
They hope that nobody reads beyond the headline, and if they do then the brain is not engaged too much
Graham Couch
Lansing State Journal
Scan and Scroll
Article was published more than a decade ago.
There is plenty of evidence (youtube is helpful here) that UK EV sales figures are being manipulated, the key thing being that just because a vehicle is registered – the point at which it can be classified as a ‘sale’ – it doesn’t mean that it has gone to a customer. One-, two-, even three-year old EVs with delivery-mileage have a habit of appearing for sale on Auto Trader (historically the main car selling platform for the trade in the UK) in surprising numbers, all of which would have contributed to a previous year’s sales figures but none of which have ever been used on the road; they’ve just been sitting around in a warehouse or maybe in outdoor storage.
As for heat pumps, a system that is expensive even after a £7.5K bung is simply not sustainable.
BBC did a puff piece on heat pumps yesterday but had to admit that the installer they were interviewing was still installing more gas boilers than heat pumps.
Pre-registration is happening in China too:
Also, recently read in motoring press that 96% of secondhand sales in UK were petrol/diesel.
its so close to Zero that it gets Zeros mail sometimes …
In another part of the UK swamp a similar creature surfaces and belches. From the Guardian, home of the ongoing climate crisis and climate reporting style guide:
One third of people across the UK are overdue their cervical cancer screening, while in parts of England some are at greater risk of the disease than others due to a low uptake for the preventive vaccine, experts have warned.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, cervical screening attendance rates for women and other people with cervixes have been steadily declining, from 72.2% in 2020 to 68.4% in 2024, NHS England data shows.
After you get through being baffled who these ‘other people with cervixes’ might be, you realize that the problem the writer has is that he or she has no objection to using the terms girl, boy, man, woman in their usual senses in other contexts. Indeed were he or she not to do that, the result would be very odd indeed. You might get away with the aside in the second para, but be consistent and it would all be over. As for instance:
It also highlighted the main barriers people cited, with …. 40% not wanting a man to carry out the screening test…
‘A man’? Are you sure you want to use that term? Do they not want it to be a man, but are fine with it being one of the many other sorts of people with a penis? Or do they want none of these people with penises? If that’s what you mean, say it. Inquiring minds want to know! Not least because if we are involved in providing screening programs, how do we know to meet what they want?
Then we have, a bit later, on HPV Vaccine:
Separate figures from the UK Heath Security Agency (UKHSA) have found that uptake of the HPV vaccine greatly varies by region, with girls in London by year 10 having the lowest uptake (64.9%) and girls in the south-east the highest (82.7%).
Among boys of the same age, it was also lowest in London (58.9%) and highest in the south-east (77.3%).
HPV refers to a group of viruses that can be transmitted through sexual contact and cause no symptoms. About 13 high-risk types of HPV are known to cause 99.7% of cervical cancers.
Each year, about 3,200 women in the UK are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 850 die from it. It is the 14th most common cancer affecting women in Britain, with women aged 30 to 34 most likely to receive a diagnosis.
Girls in London have the lowest uptake? Don’t you mean, girls and other children with cervixes? Its the 14th most common cancer afflicting women. Don’t you mean women and other people with cervixes? So why not say so, and be properly inclusive?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/20/third-overdue-cervical-cancer-screening-uk
I guess this is a story tip.
I recall reading about ten years ago that it was discovered that HPV is also the main cause of throat cancer in men. Much more than smoking. Related to oral sex.
Yep. Mouths are not meant to go there. How about this for an HPV related throat cancer prevention campaign? “Stick it. Don’t lick it.”
I’ve delete my own response. Please pretend this comment space says someting profound.
“ It would take 650 years to get every home in the country fitted with a heat pump at that rate!”
That assumes no increase in the population over that time period.
With the other energy policies being put in place, a decrease in population seems more likely.
“That assumes no increase in the population over that time period.”
That assumes the number of homes in the country tracks population.
The “independent” Climate Change Committee. it’s not – it’s staffed by activists, not a remotely sceptical voice among them.
I have been using heat pumps for nearly two decades. They barely make sense if you have no other energy source than electricity. They work really well when you don’t really need them, in mild weather. Useless in severe cold. Repair costs are high. I rely on wood burning.
Your 20 year old heat pump is just an air conditioner running in reverse. The compressor and fan in the outside unit run at a constant speed so they’re on or off, they either cool or heat at exactly the same amount while running. The only way they can vary the temperature in the house is by cycling on and off and having a multi-speed blower fan.
Modern heat pumps use continuously variable speed compressors and fans. With that plus other advances they can heat without backup resistance coils to as low as -5F outside temperature. And should it get up to +130F they still have over 70% of their cooling capability.
Also, they’re inexpensive. A DIY mini split with a wall mounted or in-ceiling indoor air handler starts at around $2000. For replacing a central system it’s around $4000. If you want even more Yourself in the DIY, you can source them for quite a lot less, but you’ll also need to have a vacuum pump and some tools for cutting and flaring pipes.
As for repair costs, Mr Cool’s DIY mini split heat pumps with wall mount or ceiling cassette air handler have a 5 year warranty. The downside with Mr. Cool and other DIY kits that don’t need a vacuum pump to install is the line sets only come in a couple of lengths, so you either need to position the components to use all the length of the lines, or leave some coiled up behind the outside unit.
With the regular style that needs a vacuum pump to install, you do not need special equipment to charge the refrigerant. It’s packed into the outside unit. Once the lines are holding vacuum, there are two valves to open on the outside unit to release the refrigerant into the rest of the system.
In most US States homeowners can do all their own HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and carpentry. Inspections and permits may or may not be required depending on State or County rules.
All-electric homes are common in the rural US. Like many others, I have a heat pump system in my home.
If I were building a new home, I would only install a ground-source heat pump.
Paul,
A typo:
“are queuing up to but heat pumps”
are queuing up to buy heat pumps
If the subsidy per unit is correctly reported above then on the face of it the UK taxpayer has picked up an unbelievable £300m tab to fit these useless things. I could bloody weep.
“As for EVs, only one-in-ten private buyers are going electric”
Now imagine if England were as big as Texas.
From ehow.com:
Pinchbeck, also referred to as “Pinch,” was created in the seventeenth century by Christopher Pinchbeck. Pinchbeck is an alloy–a mixture of copper and zinc–that was used extensively in the art of jewelry making as an inexpensive, but appealing gold substitute.
The lady would seem to be a relative.
Maybe this what is meant by Net Zero; i.e., the numbers of sales are so low for EVs and heat pumps that they’re negligible or as close to nothing as absolute zero.
Remove government mandates, subsidies, tax preferences, grants and all of this goes away. The government has zero business involving itself in this matter. The sooner they exit the sooner we will have dependable, affordable power and transportation that won’t compromise the grid. Move along government you have caused enough havoc.
So the UK government is offering a 7500 Pound subsidy to upgrade to a heat pump. How much of a massive ripoff are HVAC contractors charging to install a mini split unit over there? I can get a DIY Mr. Cool mini split and install it myself for around $2000 USD. Their cental systems start at around $4000 USD. That’s less than $3000 UKP. Some heat pumps in the UK qualify for zero VAT. Even if they have to pay the 20% import VAT that’s still only 3600 Pounds. Are they charging 200 or 300 Pounds labor per hour?