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This topic is offered in hopes members of the forum will post here as new developments occur in the race to achieve Net Zero continues.
In the post immediately after this opening, we have an article from The Telegraph about the need for some urgency in Great Britain, and various considerations for home and property owners.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/race-towards … 28275.html
The Telegraph
While the middle classes may not be able to afford to go net zero, they’ve got little choice
Lucy Foster
Mon, March 13, 2023 at 12:07 PM EDThouse with solar panels - Getty
Here’s some food for thought: the Government is to ban all gas boiler installations by 2035. As of 2030, it will be illegal to buy a new petrol or diesel car. Mortgage companies are increasingly disinclined to lend against homes below the EPC (energy performance certificate) rating of C. And the big plan at the moment is for all 28 million UK homes to reach net zero standard – that’s balancing greenhouse gas removal with greenhouse gas emissions – by 2050.
But even big plans can change, and rumour has it that the Government’s net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore, is looking to expedite matters, pushing for more ambitious targets with shorter lead times.
So are you looking at your two petrol cars, gas boiler, 20-year-old windows and badly fitted catflap and starting to panic?
You won’t be alone.
Multi-colored townhouses in Notting Hill, London, UK - Getty
The pressure is undeniably on, and anyone who thinks they can just mail order a heat pump in December 2034 isn’t paying attention. The UK has some of the most poorly performing housing stock in Europe in terms of energy efficiency, and the average cost to remedy this situation is around £30,000 per home (with big margins either way depending on house size, age and general maintenance).
In an unholy tangle of the cost of living crisis, stagnant wages and falling house prices, it’s hard to see where any of this money will come from, and yet the deadlines are not going to loosen – quite the opposite, in fact. While the middle classes may not be able to afford to go net zero, really, they’ve got little choice.
“There’s an opportunity here for us all to start the work and access the finance, and we’ve got to take it,” says Lynne Sullivan, architect and founder of LSA Studios and chair of the newly launched advice service National Retrofit Hub.
“Because there’s no way the Government is going to give us all £20,000 to do our houses.” It’s a startling admission but she’s not wrong. We are all going to have to fund our own domestic decarbonisation, and the short-term expense (but potentially long-term gain) depends on precisely how deeply we wish to retrofit. So, want to know the average costs for a net zero home?
Read on and buckle up.
Step 1
“You have to sort out the fabric of your building first,” says Russell Smith, managing director of RetrofitWorks, a not-for-profit building design company. “If there’s any damp, or a leak, that needs to be fixed.” He explains that applying insulation on top of damp will simply trap the moisture, and the damage will only become obvious in 10 to 15 years when the structure of the whole building has been compromised: “It’ll be a big problem at that point.”“A lot of people don’t know where to start to get their homes to net zero,” he goes on to explain. “I would recommend that you ask a consultant to produce a whole house plan. This means that an expert will look at the size of your home, the insulation levels and the efficiency of the systems within it. They’ll tell you what you need to do and, crucially, in what order.” The work will also be phased, so you can plan financially.
detached house - Getty
Step 2
“The cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use,” says Joanna O’Loan, knowledge manager for the Energy Saving Trust. “So, yes, the more insulation that you can put in, the better.” While we all know that laying insulation in the loft is a smart move (and can be completed at cost by a confident DIYer), there’s a more complex world of insulation out there – especially if you would like your brand new heat pump to work at capacity. “Everyone should do their loft and cavity walls, if they have them,” says O’Loan.However, most walls that were built before 1920 will be solid, and if you are one of millions living in a Victorian semi or terrace, you are potentially losing 35-40 per cent of your heat through the walls. “Solid wall and floor insulation is expensive and, being realistic, a lot of people won’t be able to afford it,” says O’Loan. “Also, it can make your rooms smaller – it may add around six inches to the width of the wall.”
But crucially, if you can’t insulate your walls it doesn’t mean you can’t have a heat pump. “We often pair pumps with underfloor heating, as you’ve essentially turned your floor into a radiator – so you can run at a lower temperature as you’ve got more surface area,” says O’Loan. “But if you’ve already laid an expensive floor, I’d suggest larger radiators – maybe 10 to 20 per cent bigger.”
house at dusk - James Osmond
If you can insulate, however, you absolutely should. “Some people are going straight for heat pumps, and that will work; they’re designed to work in any building,” says Smith. “It’s just that when you’ve properly insulated, you’ll probably need a smaller heat pump, and it will be more effective and require less maintenance.”
Aside from walls, ceilings and floors, windows and doors also need to have a high energy rating (A-A++) and should be well sealed to exclude draughts. Ventilation, however, should not be forgotten because as we seal up our homes, condensation can occur. “I recommend having trickle vents in windows,” says Smith.
Step 3
“Most houses will need an air-source heat pump,” says Smith. “We can’t avoid this technology, it’s coming.” Paul Ciniglio, head of whole home retrofit at the National Energy Foundation, agrees: “The future of heating in this country is very much looking like it’s electric; heat pumps are the main player in town. We are a leader in offshore windfarms and the Government is decarbonising the grid, but as we all get electric cars and heat pumps, we need to reduce the peak demand. We have to insulate homes properly to be less reliant on heating.”country home - Getty
This is the one area where there is clear government help. “The Boiler Upgrade Scheme, or BUS, gives you £5,000 to change your boiler to an air-source heat pump. For an average three-bedroom house, it’s around £7,000-£15,000 to have one fitted,” says Ciniglio. “A ground-source heat pump is generally more efficient but costs around £25,000–£35,000, with a government subsidy of £6,000.” Heat pumps last longer than gas boilers – 20 to 25 years is the average lifespan.
Step 4
Not all homes are suitable for solar panels, but if you have sufficient south-facing space on your roof, they may be a no-brainer. They generate electricity all year round, but clearly do their best work between spring and autumn. “Solar panels make a decent contribution to powering household electrical appliances,” says Ciniglio.“As electricity is so expensive at the moment, I recommend fitting a battery and storing as much of your own-generated electricity as possible. Solar is typically paying back within about 10 years now.” What solar panels are unlikely to do is power your heat pump all year round, which is why it’s sensible to reduce the need for heat, so you buy less expensive grid electricity.
“Banks are increasingly unlikely to lend on really energy inefficient properties,” says O’Loan.
“There are green mortgages where you can get money towards these improvements, assuming you achieve the desired EPC rating. It’s also worth speaking to your installer; some offer credit and ways to pay back over time.”
modern home exterior - Getty
Step 5
After the recent petrol shortages and energy hikes, the benefit of electric cars has never been clearer – plus, by 2030, no new petrol or diesel cars can be sold in the UK. But are they affordable? “Our bestselling car is the Nissan Leaf. It’s around £20,000 for a used one and it does about 150 miles per charge,” says Martin Miller from EV Experts, a used electric car dealer in Surrey. “At entry level, we have an older Leaf for £8,500 that does 70 miles.”But, what other costs does the consumer need to factor in?
“You’ve got to think about where you can charge your vehicle,” says Miller, “but over 60 per cent of houses in the UK have a driveway or garage, so that makes it easier. For a small car, you can charge off a three-pin plug and it would take about 12 hours – and that charger would cost £200 to buy. Or you could install a charging unit at home, and they are £1,200 fully fitted. Then it would take four hours at night, when it’s the greenest and cheapest time to charge.”
So while the upfront cost of the charging unit is certainly a sting (“the government grants and subsidies have all finished on that front,” says Miller), couple it with less expensive services, brilliant MOT pass rates, cheap warranties (“there are fewer components, so less can go wrong”) and eight-year warranties on the batteries, and it adds up to cheap(er) driving. Monthly finance packages are readily available too, just in case you haven’t got £22,000, along with that other £30,000 for your house, in your back pocket.
I note that most if not all points in the article have already been posted here by Calliban and kbd512, and quite likely by others I'm forgetting.
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tahanson43206,
We've already achieved "Net Zero". The people proposing this silly nonsense are zero-sum thinkers with zero understanding of the implications of their ideas. Their ideas have zero chance of working when scaled up to the degree required. They've shown zero proclivity to adjust their thinking whenever objective reality strikes their proposed solutions. Their only effect thus far is increasing rather than decreasing CO2 emissions, so net zero progress towards their stated goal. They are indeed "racing" it would seem, like lemmings off the proverbial cliff.
Germany's "Energiewende" is transitioning right back to burning wood and coal, helping to achieve a "net zero effect" for all the hundreds of billions of dollars they've squandered on photovoltaics and wind turbines. I suppose when they finally "Energiewende" back to burning poop for power, their transition back to abject poverty and destitution will be complete. Maybe we'll end up fighting the Fourth Reich.
Sri Lanka saw a net zero improvement in living conditions by going back to "all natural agriculture", although the net zero advocates are probably pretty happy about so many of them starving to death, because they have net zero love for their fellow human beings.
Russia is working hard to achieve net zero Ukrainian population in Ukraine, with help from our NATO cheerleaders and President Biden's administration- people who love a good war so long as they're not standing in front of the cannons. Given what these same Europeans convinced Sri Lanka to do, you'd think they'd be best net zero buddies with Russia.
President Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal saw net zero improvement in living conditions for the people of Afghanistan. For some reason, his administration also had a net zero policy on repatriation of American citizens trapped behind enemy lines.
There are plenty of net zero results from net zero thinking, as well as net zero understanding of energy, economy, materials, and technology.
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When are we going to have a race to truly sustainable ideas?
All the supposed "new ideas" take planned obsolescence to entirely new and entirely unsustainable levels.
When are we going to race to stop blindly pursuing doomsday ideology over practical ability to demonstrate actual accomplishment?
Emergencies don't happen over a century. If you have 2 generations to prepare to do something as simple as moving away from a giant body of water, you are not in an emergency.
When are we going to learn how to zoom out past what we find aesthetically pleasing and start considering our own limitations?
You were promised electronic gizmos that make you "ooh" and "aah". I get it. Reality got in the way.
When are we going to start valuing results over marketing hype?
If the end result of your ideology is death and destruction long before the climate ever changes, then your ideology is wrong, and by extension, whatever solution your ideology came up with is also wrong (because it caused the very thing it asserted to be preventing).
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Dutch farmers plow into politics with victory for populist BBB Berkelland
https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/03/16/d … erkelland/
Pro-farmer party wins big in Dutch elections after protests over emissions regulations
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dutch-farmer- … 36691.html
Now a farmer-friendly political party BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) has landed a major victory in provincial elections
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