The climate cult high poobahs have been pushing to replace gas boilers with heat pumps, because, for one thing, they just can’t mind their own f’ing business, especially since those poobahs tend to be rich and can afford to piss away money. And now?
#ClimateCultFail https://t.co/VUGG8e8ykY
— William Teach2 ??????? #refuseresist (@WTeach2) August 21, 2021
The view of a climate poobah laughing over what he’s trying to push. From the article
Boris Johnson’s proposed green alternative to gas heating is inferior to traditional boilers, the Business and Energy Secretary has admitted, as he insisted that heat pumps were not “much worse” than the technology they are designed to replace.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Kwasi Kwarteng conceded that, while gas boilers had been “refined over many years … heat pumps are still in their infancy”.
Fears that the new technology provides significantly less heat in homes than traditional boilers were being “exaggerated”, Mr Kwarteng insisted.
He added: “I don’t think actually heat pumps are that much worse than boilers. All I’m saying is that they could be improved if there was more investment.”
In other words, they’re worse. And more expensive. And government would force you to replace your existing and working gas boiler with a heat pump. This will, of course, only effect so many, as so many have electric ones.
Speaking as the Government finalises its heat and buildings strategy, Mr Kwarteng addressed concerns about the costs of the policy by insisting that ministers would not seek to achieve the target by “writing cheques” alone.
“We’re not going to get to a hydrogen economy just by the Government writing cheques,” he says.
“We’re going to do that by the Government, yes, writing some cheques, if I want to put it crudely, but critically, by attracting private investment.”
These people think private investors will suddenly pony up lots of money for the hell of it. What’s the financial reward to private investors? If there was one, they’d already be doing this. It is funny that so many of the climate cult solutions are worse than the original.
Our esteemed host wrote:
A geothermal heat pump, rather than one trying to pull heat out of the atmosphere, would be far more efficient, but they are also far more expensive to install.
However, there’s another issue: gas fired boilers are used to create hot water or steam, which moved through some form of radiator system, while heat pumps eventually push warm, or cool, air into rooms. The duct work for those two systems is completely different. Retrofitting forced air ducts into an existing home is no fun.
While I haven’t studied heat pumps lately, they tend to suffer from several liabilities. Air to air pimps are rather inefficient on energy use and are usually only practical where electricity is cheap and available and winters short and mild. On the plus side, air to air is relatively cheap to install and maintain on new construction or retrofit to an existing forced air system. The geothermal systems are quite efficient as to energy usage, but are expensive to install and can be very expensive to maintain. One must always consider the lifespan of residential HVAC equipment is around 15 years before significant maintenance or replacement is to be expected.
Dana is correct that retrofitting air ducts where steam pipes had previously existed is no fun. There are systems that use much smaller ducting, but they tend to be spendy. Another question when heating, cooking, and transportation is all electric, where does all that juice come from? And does one have to decide whether to be warm, have hot meals, or charge the Tesla?
Maybe it’s time to change government?