Gas Boilers Could Be Banned In Next Decade
By Paul Homewood
Don’t say I did not warn you!
Homeowners could be forced to replace their gas boilers to ensure the UK meets its target to be carbon neutral by 2050, ministers are warning.
The Government will publish a White Paper later this year which will set out the "bigger decisions" that the UK has to make to meet the target.
Lord Duncan of Springbank, the Climate Change minister, said that the White Paper will consider whether the Government should ban gas central heating altogether from all homes.
It is not clear if homeowners will have to pay for this new strategy – which is planned to be introduced incrementally over the next decade – and whether there are enough plumbers to carry out the work.
It comes after Ofgem, the gas regulator, said last week that Britain will have to change "the way homes and businesses are heated" to ensure the UK can hit its target.
The Government will set out the radical plans in the months leading up to the COP 26 environmental summit in Glasgow later this year.
Last June the UK became the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050.
Lord Duncan said that to hit this target the Government was now looking at a new "domestic decarbonisation approach" to hit the target.
He said "There will be an overarching energy White Paper that will look at the bigger decisions that we have to take. Decarbonising domestic heating will be a real challenge. Shall we electrify the entire grid?
"If we do so, bearing in mind that electricity tends to be more expensive, we need to address fuel poverty head on if that is the case. Or are we looking at putting hydrogen into the grid in a hybrid or pure form?
"We will resolve that question this year. We will make a decision to determine that and to support the way forward."
He added: "We will need to do so in tandem with fuel poverty; again, there is no point in decarbonising while making people cold and sick. We need to make sure we go hand-in-hand with that just transition for all the people.
What I find most astonishing about this report is its total failure to mention how much all of this might cost. There is no excuse for this, given that the Committee on Climate Change have already provided an estimate of £28bn a year.
Like all official estimates, that is likely to be an underestimate of the eventual cost, and itself is netted off against speculative energy savings.
What is also significant is this statement:
It is not clear if homeowners will have to pay for this new strategy – which is planned to be introduced incrementally over the next decade
No longer is this something which might happen in decades time. Just like the bringing forward of the ban on petrol cars, the new heating strategy will affect us much sooner than we thought.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Another rip off! Gas boilers banned so you have to heat your home with more expensive electricity, which uses your cheap gas to manufacture.
The following link is perhaps a fine example of what this Government in it’s infinite wisdom has in store for us all… https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-7966625/The-eco-boilers-cost-5K-year-green-energy-deal-gone-wrong.html
I read the article in thisismoney – shocking! I then checked out the Thermaflow website (makers of the electric boilers) and in their testimonial section the first entry is a glowing recommendation from Falkirk Council! It really beggars belief.
Ian Plimer’s brilliant book.. not for greens.. should be required reading for all politicians, interestingly the foreword is by Patrick Moore ,co-founder of Greenpeace ,if you haven’t already read it you should, it’s seriously good.
as they switch to zero-carbon options which have lower costs than fossil-fuel technologies
Somebody is having a laugh, and it’s not the bill payers.
Where will the extra electricity come from,?Solar in winter?
Maybe it could be ‘inducted’ over from all the electric cars that are parked up and not using their’s.
The cost of electric heating in the UK is about 4 times the price of gas heating .
But in 2016, a committee headed by Lord Oxborough ,
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Terry/My%20Documents/Downloads/Parliamentary_Advisory_Group_on_CCS_-_Final_report%20(1).PDF
Concluded that if all homes were insulated up to the highest spec , [ so quite a few £billions there ] , then it would still take 200GWh of generation for heating them .
So that is the odd £ Trillion for new power stations , plus the same again to upgrade the grid
The whole idea is total insanity .
Instead of wrangling over how much it will cost and who pays for it, someone ought to point out that they are completely barking.
My borough council have declared a climate emergency. Appendix A of the minutes of that meeting is titled “Becoming a Carbon Neural (sic) Borough by 2040”.
Here in Shropshire, too. A week after declaring the ’emergency’ they removed all recycling areas from the county! As well as being limitlessly stupid and corrupt they dont even know what they’re voting for!
Better start building 20 fairy dust power stations now! And plant a few more money trees!
Do you think that they have any idea of how irrelevant we are with our co2 or any better idea as to the consequences of their green pronouncements?
Write to your MP and protest, if enough do then perhaps there may be a way out of this madness and where is the electricity going to come from?
I’ll have probably shuffled off my mortal coil by 2050 but in the run up how am I going to afford ripping out the gas boiler and the 4 fold increase in electricity prices?
I recently read an article on proposed cheap bank loans (1%?) for household ‘green’ improvements. It listed a few things that might be done, usual; heat pumps, insulation, PV etc. Despite the IMO exaggerated claimed annual energy bill savings of £500, and grossly underestimated insulation/heat pump costs, it was easy to see the break even point was 50 years! Who in their right mind…………
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7980121/Nationwide-offer-1billion-loans-rates-low-1-eco-home-improvements.html
History quickly forgotten.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347018/3billion-flop-just-homes-eco-loans-install-energy-saving-measures-months.html
Nationwide are going to offer these for which savers will obviously pay with crap returns.
Yes, found the article thanks Gerry. I thinks it’s fair to say EVERYBODY loses!
With COP 26 to be hosted in Glasgow, UK, at the end of the year, the UK government is keen to lead by example – even if nobody else will follow our example! This requires the UK population to be the guinea pig and so we will be thrown under the bus financially speaking in order that our political leaders can preen and strut upon the world stage during COP.
As is usual in such circumstances, expect the rent-seekers to have their preferred but highly expensive “solutions” available for the government to turn to and then mandate for our use. So we will continue to pay through the nose for energy and, increasingly, transport – all in the name of saving the planet from CO2-induced climate change.
Of course, these “solutions” will make, at most, only the slightest difference to reducing CO2. But the “solutions” will make a lot of money for the firms that sell them!
In short, expect to pay – and pay big time – for years to come unless political action starts to challenge this extortionate nonsense.
Regards,
John Cullen.
Hi-Speed Gas. Comes in Bottles or at great Enviro Expense – we dug up half the country’s drains etc to lay Gas Pipelines …. remember ?
Like we dug up our Railways in the 80’s onwards, like we are re-installing Overhead powered Rail Trams, like we are re-building rural & other rail networks, etc etc.
TIme to Re-build the Real education system – Pronto style like the Chinese ‘Flu Hospitals. but changing / re-building ATTITUDES cannot be done like that. Social Engineering is quite something different. Where to start ?
How are those wind turbines doing today?
Actually quite well, unlike earlier last week.
There will be small fortunes being taken in constraint payments because of the gales in Scotland, I’ll bet. And not much power generated.
8 gw which is less than 50% installed capacity. 22.7% of required electricity. Fossils 37% inc 6% coal and 1% gas open cycle. So not so good
Solar panels will be mostly dead on this gloomy day, whilst I would imagine the turbines are braked because of the storm
Probably being paid NOT to (oversupply) the Grid.
Guess who pays for that nice little earner!
Heads they win, tails we lose…..
The real catch is who is paying and just to show how ignorance is no bar to government or becoming a ‘lord’, Duncan says he is not sure is homeowners will pay. As Dr North points out in his piece on this today – noting that the late great Booker warned of this insanity in 2014 – the government has no money other than that extorted from the people so of course homeowners are going to pay no matter how it is dressed up.
The only way that Hydrogen can be green is if the CO2 generated from the Natural Gas it is made from is removed and stored. CO2 is dangerous as a pure gas, it asphyxiates any air breathing organism and is heavier than air so it is not so likely to disperse naturally in confined splace.
The safest bet would be to disolve it in Water. It is extremely soluable and the oceans already contain a vast ammount of CO2.
Sounds like an extremely dangerous and expensive business.
Massive energy bills due to forced switching from gas central heating, came up twice this week.
£100 a week bills
How come some bright spark says gas is evil and comes up with the isea of replacing gas boilers with electric boilers heating radiators.
IMHO that is dumb cos why heat water pipes when putting in an electric fire cuts out the middleman ?
#1 Falkirk Council imposed electric boilers on tenants.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-7966625/The-eco-boilers-cost-5K-year-green-energy-deal-gone-wrong.html
#2 Thursday’s Radio 4 You and Yours talked about the new fines in April for landlords whose buildings are at the lower bands in Green ratings F & G
and one way they got a higher rating was by replacing gas/oil boilers with electric boilers or electric radiators.
That stopped them getting fined, but gives the tenants huge bills.
See minute 31
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dxt7
Will this mean that the gas powered power stations are also to be closed down? And that we will no longer import gas from Russia? Where will any alternative source of power come from if along with gas, oil derived fuels are also banned? They have either no clue – or they are on a program of genocide and well aware of it.
Just read the UN Agendas.
Of course, there’s plenty of gas under Britain – you just have to drill and frac for it. Oh – yes…
The really laughable part about adding Hydrogen to our gas supply is that they are supposedely basically banning gas antway and on top of that if they do hydrogenise the gas supply they will create more CO2 creating the hydrogen than if they just burnt the gas.
You couldn’t make up this kind of wacky thinking to completely waste the tax payers money, but they can.
There are 26mn gas boilers in the UK. Thats replacing 2.6 mn boilers a year. Good luck on that
https://www.phamnews.co.uk/global-gas-boiler-sales-revealed/
That is also 2.6 mn alternative heat sources that will need to be installed each year. Good luck again.
its not just a matter of taking out the gas boiler and neatly slipping in the alternative. you need to add in the digging up of the garden for piping or the ground floor for under floor heating or oversized radiators and much better insulation.
if you don’t have a big enough garden for the heat pump, don’t have a suitable roof for solar panels or don’t have a driveway so you can charge your electric car or can’t afford any of this, then tough. You will be in the majority but I bet that doesn’t include the elite who get more barking mad by the day
I have just moved from electricty to gas to heat my home and the new bills are one third of the old ones. Despite the capital outlay, this has made a huge difference to me, as I am nor rich (unlike all our lawmakers) and now I am told I have to remove the boiler and the radiators and the pipes to be charged a fortune for inadequate heating. And all this from a supposedly conservative government! Boris is obviously implementing a far-left agenda across the board, which even Corbyn would have blanched at. As someone once said, if voting changed anything it would be abolished.
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”.
Is mankind’s greatest folly – to believe in politicians?
How did we ever arrive here, with an elite and their political puppets all of whom despise their own nation and who would make immiseration and impoverishment as a key strategy, do they hate us that much and one can only surmise it, that yes, yes they do hate us with an uncontrolled fury.
What is painful to record, so many people fall for, buy into their siren calls and thus do the people beckon and urge on their own destruction.
Incredible but the truth. They’ll put out the lights and then extinguish us all, evidently the plan, the daft bit – the sheeple keep voting for it.
So true .unfortunately.
Take a walk down any British high Street.,50 percent of the population minimum are out to lunch. We’re doomed I’m afraid and have been for some time
What about my oil boiler ( and the other 2,999,999)?
If you could let us know your address we will come and shut it down immediately
Im working on making my own biodiesel, it’ll work fine as heating oil. It maybe we will have a prohibition style blackmarket but illicit diesel/ kerosene is the future . Smugglers rule ok.
These reports on what our government is planning in order to save the planet is like reading another dystopian novel. First unbelievable then comical then the population finishing up dead. Somewhere in there is the screaming helplessness of ordinary people caught up in this madness. God help us all.
Aldous Huxley territory.
Hyperbole Hypocrisy Hysteria Hubris
The 4 Horsemen of the Climate Monster Scam
Surely it all comes tumbling down / wheels come off / reality catches up. Sometime ?
Before that we are exposed to nonsense like abandoning the cheapest form of domestic heating . Madness rules Ok ?
There seems to be a disconnect between government policy and what the utilities are doing – at least round these parts:
“A major project to replace ageing gas mains in North Walsham, that will see some interruptions to supply, starts on Monday, January 6. The new pipes will help keep the town connected to safe and reliable gas supplies until the 22nd century“
https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/town-s-gas-mains-renewal-project-starts-on-january-6-1-6450528
Unless these new pipes are capable of carrying 3 times the volume of the old ones, they won’t be any use if Hydrogen replaces Methane. And if Electricity completely replaces it, what an utter waste of money – like just about every other government idea…
Let’s just hope that what’s going on in the real world will eventually filter through to the unreal world occupied by Boris with his talk of us having ‘put so much CO2 in the atmosphere collectively that the entire planet is swaddled in a tea cosy of the stuff.’
Some friends are looking forward to moving into a brand new house this week with gas central heating and a gas hob for cooking – just another example of what is happening here in the real world.
Phew, than goodness, no mention of oil boilers. I suspect the government, in their usual ignorance, don’t realise that there are millions of oil boilers outside the M25.
There’s something outside the M25? Who’d have thought.
Meanwhile at Peak Ciara demand is 34.5GW and wind is still generating less than gas – about 9.5GW each
This proposal of making homes more energy efficient usually involves hermetically sealing them so there is no fresh air ventilation. A medical assessment recently pointed out that this would be a new health hazard. Just imagine – freezing cold and breathing an increased concentration of your own CO2!
I still cannot imagine living in a house without insulation. There’s fresh air, but not as much as when your house is uninsulated with crappy windows and doors. My house is not hermetically sealed, but it is insulated and holds heat very well. Plus, I can open my door when I want fresh air. Or a window.
That being said, it’s likely if all homes are well insulated, you will need radon abatement and radon testing. I live in a mobile home so did not have a problem, but many homes in the US do have the problem. It depends on the area and the soil beneath the house.
Much of this sounds like scare-mongering from the “never insulate” crowd. I have to wonder who monetarily benefits from that stance.
It’s not scare mongering, it’s long been know air in homes is the most polluted that most people experience (worse than traffic etc.), any reduction in air exchange will only increase that. Increase in insulation also causes increased humidity and fungal spore problems. The healthiest home has high rates of ventilation/air exchange – of course that is completely at odds with energy saving. Asthma etc. is certainly more linked to the home environment than anything else.
This is not contradicted by any ‘reality check’ in accepted mainstream understanding. Hence, in order to keep the levels of ventilation after insulation, you have to install very expensive heat exchanging ventilation systems with yet another CO2/environmental manufacturing cost, before you can start to ‘save’ the environment.
The insulation manufacture itself has a large energy/environmental impact and has been shown, China etc. are still using illegal blowing chemicals to reduce the cost which have a greenhouse effect and a supposed ozone depletion effect too.
Also demonstrated in the UK, highly insulated homes start to overheat in the summer, so you now require expensive air conditioning machinery and even more energy use!
You can see how this all results in diminishing returns for the environment – in fact often negative. It’s just an example of how wrong-headed ‘green’ views and policies are.
“Also demonstrated in the UK, highly insulated homes start to overheat in the summer,” Odd. That is not an issue in Florida or Arizona or any other area in the USA. Sounds questionable to me. Very questionalbe. Poor insulation installation?
Again, YOU CAN OPEN A DOOR. And we don’t nail our windows shut in our homes (commercial buildings often do not have windows that open but do have air exchange) and in commercial buildings people go in and out all day long through an open door.
I have never seen any study that shows the air exhanger takes more insulation that heating a corn crib. I still call bunk on this. I live where insulation is everywhere and I cannot see any validity to your assertions.
I am not for hermetically sealed homes, but it’s not a either or choice. You make it sound like instant death if one puts a bit of fiberglass in a house wall. There is a gradient and works very, very well.
Never mind heating Homes , I have had to visit Local Hospital recently , the place is literally the size of a Small City ! It has 5 Huge Gas Boilers , they provide all the Heat and Hot Water. How are they going to replace that ? Electric generated by Wind power from Windfarms 100 Miles away in North Sea during a mid-winter calm ? Scientifically illiterate idiots here in office , being run by the hidden hand Davos gang and the Open Society Foundation , because they stand to benefit from failure of our Society. And this only 2 months after an Election , when we thought that we were supposedly leaving unaccountable Tyranny ? Lord Duncan of Springbank my Arse..sorry could not think of ‘ Scientific Description’ ha..
“It comes after Ofgem, the gas regulator, said last week that Britain will have to change “the way homes and businesses are heated” to ensure the UK can hit its target.”
Interpretation: Homes and businesses will not be heated or we will never hit the targets.
Heating water directly with home boilers is about 95% efficient.
Gas-fired power stations aren’t going anywhere soon. The maximum efficiency of the Rankine Cycle is 63%
None of this will save either CO2 emissions, or the planet.
China, India, Japan, Russia, & the United States of America, have no time for the fraudulent hoax that it is. Germany and France openly admit they will fail to meet their emission targets.
We produce 1% of emissions.
What the hell are our politicians trying to prove, and why are we embarking on such an economically suicidal path which will unilaterally create nothing but poverty country-wide while the rest of the world romps ahead and gets on with raising its living standards .
Its all so obvious, so why don’t they GET IT ?
With impeccable timing the latest stormy weather is reminding us how the electricity supply can be interrupted. We’ve had a few power cuts today in rural Devon, where mains gas is non-existant. No heating, no cooking.
Who needs gas?
(Who needs gas?) – Actually, in South Africa – WE do! Our bankrupt electricity monopoly finally has a manager who ISN’T a politician or political crony, and who is insisting that all of the aging infrastructure is maintained regularly. How unusual! Unfortunately for us sheeple, this requires that generators are shut off for the work, leading to rolling blackouts (‘Load Shedding’) of 4-5 hours per day. So, you now have to take the blackout calendar into consideration when planning and buying groceries in an all-electric house. Nothing you can’t cook on a portable two-ring gas hob placed on the non-functioning electric stove. No grilling, roasting or baking. Fortunately, as a kid, the family used to take our holidays in a small fixed caravan in a farmer’s field, so I’m not too bad about ‘roughing it’. But all that frying has gotta be unhealthy!
Australians – take note of what’s happening in South Africa – and this has NOTHING to do with ‘ruinables’ – they are still to come!
The “plan” is to de-populate the UK.
Leave soon. Take your talents and money with you.
I realize this is free advice, but it can save you much grief.
Also clear that Boris is stupid /crazy and a Marxist mole. No wonder the Labour party did their utmost to lose the last election.
So the UK is committing economic suicide, I guess freezing old people to death will lower CO2 emissions and save a bunch on their health care. Sounds as stupid and cruel as Abortion, kill them when they’re to feeble to object.
Alas Philip, I think you are right. this is a covert plan for euthenasia. Boris the murderer will go down in history. Green policies are murder.
Reminds me of a Private Eye gag, during the Ted Heath era of 3-day-weeks, a spoof party political broadcast, ending “….and remember: your early death can help me win the general election…”.
Hard to say whether Boris is really thick enough to belive all this bollocks on stilts, (Gove obviously is – and probably most other MPs), or whether this is a consequence of ‘sleeping with the enemy.’
Just like Cameron and Carney, for that matter.
Which raises the question in my mind, is Boris’s partner a GangGreen activist who by happenchance just thinks Boris is gorgeous? (Sorry, Boris, very unlikely), or has she been put there by an ‘unfriendly’ power?
Who remembers the Radcliffe Power Station “protesters” who took over a coal train and shoveled coal out all over the tracks.
Found guilty on a number of counts and jailed. But then it turned out that one of the GangGreen ‘women’ had been ‘intimate’ with a Special Branch copper who had omitted to point out his true identity to the “lady” in question.
Result, all acquitted and released with generous compensation paid for by you and I. The Special Branch guy last seen, I think, in a Yurt in West Wales.
Some people will do absolutely anything for a few quid. Or to further their insane beliefs. Even shack up with a Tory.
Read Delingpole at Breitbart. What’s been decided over the last few weeks is far worse than anything the EU would have chucked at us. It was to get away from this sort of nonsense that we supposedly left. I think Johnson sees himself as placating the ex Labour voters who went for him at the GE. But he’s probably never met a working class person in his life except at a photo op, and if he had he would have known that they hate all this extreme climate bollox as much as we do
What about the ‘scientists’ who are spewing out ‘global warming’ ‘global warming’ caused by CO2 at any and every weather event and clearly have ‘convinced’ the politicians that we are in mortal danger?
Yuk. Imagine the days of power cuts in a Super Grand Solar Minimum with Winter all year round. This is genocide.
I will only give up my gas boiler if I can have a solid fuel burner with a back-boiler that heats my central heating and hot water.
Would you believe it? BBC Scottish News report this morning:Cost of Energy etc.. BUT More people are changing to GAS heating for reasons of affordability …… ‘nuf said.
The hydrogen option is still under development around the world. Almost the only real possibility is to base this on natural gas as electrolysis is a very small scale expensive process. The Russians, who have a vast amount of gas are looking at direct conversion to hydrogen and carbon, cutting out the wasteful syngas step in the current process. So, hydrogen could be the replacement if the developments prove successful, or at a high price otherwise.
The madness is that all of the predictions are based on climate models that are improperly based science and now, after about 20 years of their fantasies, clearly do not model the real climate.
I presume that they will be coming for our gas cookers next.