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[Nickbat]

Booker writes in tomorrow's Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8917737/Is-the-global-warming-scare-the-greatest-delusion-in-history.html#disqus_thread

"...by 2016, all new homes must be “zero carbon” in terms of energy-use and emissions. According to official estimates in the Code for Sustainable Homes, this will increase the cost of building a house by up to £37,793. [or around a 66% increase for a 2-bed starter flat- Nickbat]

In rural areas, where there is already a serious housing crisis, this will be made still worse by the Government’s wish by 2013 to abolish the “Fuel Factor”, a relaxation of the rules for new homes in places without access to the natural gas grid. New houses built in outlying areas will no longer be allowed to install oil or gas cylinder-fired heating but will have to rely on wood pellet boilers or “heat pumps”. A paper submitted to the Government by Calor points out that a polluting wood-fired boiler costs £11,000, while “air-source heat pumps” (£15,000) and “ground-source pumps” (£18,000) have both been shown to be seriously inefficient."

Cameron this week unveiled a £400 million plan to underwrite mortgages for first-timer buyers.

Oh, and the whole premise on which these regulations have been introduced has been seriously, if not fatally, wounded by the latest revelations of "Climategate2".

Proof, if proof were needed, that we're governed by fools. 

 

[Dishevelled Den]

Proof, if proof were needed, that we're governed by fools. 

Of that, there is no doubt.

[Rods2]

Although I don't subscribe the climate change as it is an unproven hypothesis. I do agree with making things more energy efficient as fossil fuels are a finite resource that aren't in the long term going to go down in price. But I agree it has to be cost effective.

I have been looking at passive house technology, which typically adds 10-15% to the cost of building. So for a typical 1000sqft house would probably add £10-15k to the cost or £150 per year if the house has 100 year life.

Now passive houses are very well insulated, totally sealed houses that have to take cold air (winter) or hot air (summer) from the outside and use heat exchangers with 85-95% efficiency to heat (winter), cool (summer) the air from the air it replaces in the house. Well designed passive houses need no, or very, very little heating during the winter and stay cool during the summer. Personally, I would be quite happy to save the £500+ a year on heating costs. They are also meant to be much more comfortable to live in due to the 20degC year round living temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

[SIR Philbutt]

Proof, if proof were needed, that we're governed by fools. 

Of that, there is no doubt.

Cannot remember a time when we havnt been   

[Kevin Wood]

"...by 2016, all new homes must be “zero carbon” in terms of energy-use and emissions.....

You see, that first sentence immediately triggers my Bu115h1t detector.

Surely a Zero carbon home would have been built without any machinery burning fossil fuels, using bricks that are left out in the sun to dry and not fired in a furnace (tricky in our climate?). No materials shipped to the site using diesel lorries, or even mules, for that matter, as they generate CO2 emissions. No heating, lighting, power, fresh water supply or sanitation, as that uses energy, some of which comes from fossil fuels.

.. or has some bureaucrat decided that "Zero carbon" is a nice buzzword, so let's re-define a value of "zero" for which we can use it.

What a load of "dange-berries".

Let's actually be honest about what real world carbon reduction all these wonderful new ideas are achieving so we can separate the wheat from the chaff.

I hate wasting energy as much as anyone else although I don't subscribe to the religion that is "Climate Change" but until the right technologies are left to stand for themselves on their own merits instead of lobbied for inclusion in some government prescribed game of buzzwords it's all nonsense.

[Dishevelled Den]

I hate wasting energy as much as anyone else although I don't subscribe to the religion that is "Climate Change" but until the right technologies are left to stand for themselves on their own merits instead of lobbied for inclusion in some government prescribed game of buzzwords it's all nonsense.

right technologies are left to stand for themselves on their own merits instead of lobbied for inclusion in some government prescribed game of buzzwords it's all nonsense.

I'm more than happy to agree with that.  

Personally, and for starters, I would kick these wide boy lobbyists and their make-money-any-way-you-can-bottom-line-hugging business pals the opps out into the gutter where they belong - but that's just me.

[Johnny English]

Although I don't subscribe the climate change as it is an unproven hypothesis. I do agree with making things more energy efficient as fossil fuels are a finite resource that aren't in the long term going to go down in price. But I agree it has to be cost effective.

I have been looking at passive house technology, which typically adds 10-15% to the cost of building. So for a typical 1000sqft house would probably add £10-15k to the cost or £150 per year if the house has 100 year life.

Now passive houses are very well insulated, totally sealed houses that have to take cold air (winter) or hot air (summer) from the outside and use heat exchangers with 85-95% efficiency to heat (winter), cool (summer) the air from the air it replaces in the house. Well designed passive houses need no, or very, very little heating during the winter and stay cool during the summer. Personally, I would be quite happy to save the £500+ a year on heating costs. They are also meant to be much more comfortable to live in due to the 20degC year round living temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

Yes but unfortunately this cost won't return in your lifetime but your child's. Summarised all, if supposedly your children will live in the same house could worth to invest...I will if I have enough money.

[Johnny English]

If I know well, the roughest emissives are The States and China, continuously refuse to undersign The Kioto Agreement about voluntary emission limitation. As their representatives said : "Our economy more important. " Hm...it seems to be a short-term thinking.

[Rods2]

Although I don't subscribe the climate change as it is an unproven hypothesis. I do agree with making things more energy efficient as fossil fuels are a finite resource that aren't in the long term going to go down in price. But I agree it has to be cost effective.

I have been looking at passive house technology, which typically adds 10-15% to the cost of building. So for a typical 1000sqft house would probably add £10-15k to the cost or £150 per year if the house has 100 year life.

Now passive houses are very well insulated, totally sealed houses that have to take cold air (winter) or hot air (summer) from the outside and use heat exchangers with 85-95% efficiency to heat (winter), cool (summer) the air from the air it replaces in the house. Well designed passive houses need no, or very, very little heating during the winter and stay cool during the summer. Personally, I would be quite happy to save the £500+ a year on heating costs. They are also meant to be much more comfortable to live in due to the 20degC year round living temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

Yes but unfortunately this cost won't return in your lifetime but your child's. Summarised all, if supposedly your children will live in the same house could worth to invest...I will if I have enough money.

I reckon 10 to 20 years, currently, allowing for energy inflation, but in Germany where they are building many more houses using this technology, they are now talking about the building cost difference as marginal. If I was designing and building a house I would certainly be doing a cost, benefit and return on investment analysis.

[Dishevelled Den]

I reckon 10 to 20 years, currently, allowing for energy inflation, but in Germany where they are building many more houses using this technology, they are now talking about the building cost difference as marginal. If I was designing and building a house I would certainly be doing a cost, benefit and return on investment analysis.

As would I - even allowing for the tiresome accept-it-or-die message from those who are convinced that MMGW is the word of God - it must be prudent, in this age of increasingly expensive energy, to reduce the cost of using it by adopting technology that allows the various forms of energy we need to use to be used with greater efficiently and intelligence.

I've said many times that whatever people's position on this matter of climate evolvement is, there's no point in wasting whatever resources which remain that allows us, as a race, to survive on this planet.

[Johnny English]

Rapa Nui - it is a small isle on the Pacific Ocean if I remember well. Used to have developed culture and society but nowadays nobody live there. Historicals say they proved that all of raw materials (trees, animals, sweet water etc.) the isle had run out by inhabitant, so all population died out because of sicks, starvation and others...at the end the rest of habitant became cannibal to survive each other. The suicide attitude is coded into the human species, I guess.