Did you see the report that boilers sales are to stop 2025

[TominDales]

Plastic is terrible stuff, made from fossil fuel, does not biodegrade, and in most cases there are a much more environmentally friendly alternatives. When those ground source heat pump fields have passed their useful life, is someone going to dig all that plastic pipe up and dispose of it properly? Nope, they'll just trench through it and lay some more. It amazes me how much environmental damage people are willing to do to save some carbon. Like the all the nasties used in the manufacture of solar panels, or electric car batteries, and the cost to the environment to make them. And when those solar panels and batteries die, what are they going to do with them?

You are right to highlight the potential 'unexpected consequences of new tech' such has heat pumps, solar panels, electric cars. Its happened before, CFCs were introduced to remove toxic materials like ammonia in refrigeration, compact fluorescent lamps replaced icandecent lamps but contained mercury (current LEDs are benign, although some of the early ones contained cadmium phosphors). Industry has learned from this history and legacy, modern products are more carefully assessed for environmental harm and European legislation under REACH and other stringent regulations requre extensive research into SHE before a new product is introduced into the market

The drive for 'environmentally friendly products has caused industry to do far more due diligence on its supply chain with life cycle analysis. Its pointless developing and selling an EVcar as greener product if its made unsustainably or leads to pollution. Car companies are requiring analysis of the raw materials and the energy that goes into new batteries, hence the recent announcement by JM that there Polish battery plant will use renewable energy.
Its also why the latest generation of batteries are low in cobalt as mining from the DRC is problematic and why recycling of batteries is already being planned. They are virtually 100% recyclable with valuable metals to extract.

Wind turbines are difficult to recycle, the industry is carrying out extensive R&D on how to do it as it does not want to tarnish its reputation when turbines come to be decommissioned en mass. PV cells are are quite recyclable, they last a long time - design life of 25 to 40 years,the glass, silicon, metal can be recovered. A bigger issue right now is throw away electronics, phones, TVs etc.

Its too much of a generalization to say plastic is terrible stuff.
I know we are woodworkers, but we have to acknowledge that plastic has hundreds of uses, most of which are essential to health and wellbeing. The problem with plastic, is its cheap to make and so useful that it has become ubiquitous. Most applications don't cause a problem, the real issues with single use plastic getting into the environment.
Plastic is essential for medical and healthcare and for preserving food, so its a vital resource.
In terms of pipes, that is a very good use of plastics, they require little energy to make as they are made at low temperatures, the require little energy in the application and they last for a very long time.
The latest Underground PVC water pipes and pipes for heat pumps have a design life of up to 100 years, it has crept up from 40 years to 70 and now 100 years in use. It has a very low carbon footprint. See bellow for the relative emissions of different uses and industrial materials.

The highest emissions is space heating of buildings, that is why there is pressure to ban coal, gas and oil heating. Transportation is the next single biggest emitter of CO2, which is why electric cars are so high a priority. When its comes to industrial processes, cement and steel are the big emitters, both of which will be hard to change as carbon is integral to the manufacturing process. There are experiments steel mills trialling use hydrogen to reduced iron oxide (replacing coke) and there is research into low carbon concrete - a very tough nut to crack. Plastics represent 2% of CO2 emissions ( 5% of 36%), less than paper, so its lower down the priority list, however zero net carbon plastics are being researched, also plastics are theoretically almost 100% recyclable, its down to economic and structural reasons why only 9% is recycled. Glass is contained in the other box, but that has a higher carbon foot print than plastic.

The biggest problem with plastics, is not that they come from fossil fuels, but from pollution by discarded plastic. This is a priority in the UK with Unilever and P&G leading the research and engineering efforts to eliminate single use plastic - a plastic packaging research centre has been established on the Wirral to lead this work. Its an absolute scandle that plastic is being flushed into rivers globally and the sooner the industry eliminates it the better in my view. However solutions to several health/medical/food application are needed or we will see an uptick in illness and food shortages.

As for our plastic pipes in a heat pump. Provided they are left in the ground they will come to no harm, they should last 50 to 100 years and could be extracted and recycled if need be.

 

[TominDales]

I hope that this contribution will be contradicted by someone with more than anecdotal evidence but!
When I was a student in 1970 Friends of the Earth was becoming a big thing in my college, a chap called John Symore publish books on self sufficiency, Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, the need for recycling of materials from waste was well documented by Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papernak was touring design colleges, in this country and the US promoting Designing For The Real World. All of these sources were predicting an energy and environmental crisis. We had coal strikes, power cuts and trouble in the middle east disrupting oil supplies. There was plenty of evidence that we could get far more energy for the whole planet's needs from the Sun, though the issue would be distribution. Governments of either colour had plenty of good advice about what course they should take, but here we are 50 years later only just thinking seriously about heat pumps in passive houses. Industries in other countries, notably Germany, the US and even little Denmark were not so slow, more recently China. So if you want a ground source heat pump you probably have to buy a German or American one. If you want to build a wind farm the licences are snapped up by companies from those countries, if you want battery storage you have to get it from Elon Musk. Where is the large scale manufacturing of these things in our country? Even the insulation on Grenfell Tower was imported!

As I said here we are more than 50 years later, a forum of people with more than average practical talent, discussing if its fare to require new homes to have carbon free heating, how practical public transport is or electric vehicles and still sending our recycling to pollute the roadside veges of Turkey. What is wrong with us? As a country that bangs on about being the home of innovation we are a load of ostriches heads in the sand and only worried about short term profit and risk adverse.

As I said I hope someone can contradict me.

Its a big worry.
Part of the problem in the UK is its easier and lower risk to get a return on capital from financial services (the city) and from property investment. UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s).
In Germany the government releases land on demand for housing ensuring that there is enough supply. The result is in Germany and Asia, the banks, investors and financial institutions don't have such soft ways to make money and are prepared to support longer term riskier innovation.
My experience of 35 years in innovation is things are changing for the better in the UK, young employees are up for taking the types of risk and there is more of a supportive culture. But while it remains easy for those with capital to just invest in land and property that is where the bulk of UK capital will continue to go. If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
Your are dead right, the UK were leaders in wind energy, we invented the lithium battery in Oxford and licensed it to Harewell (AERA) and Sony. AERA built one small battery factory next to Doonray in Thurso ( making military batteries) whilst Sony and Panasonic made world beating consumer batteries, Panasonic is one of the worlds biggest battery makes (its the cells in a Tesla) whilst AERA made the same battery for 15 years before going out of business - its now owed by the start up AMTE power, who are a millon times smaller than Panason.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s) ...

My wife has worked for banks for nearly forty years - she says there is no such thing here (Cornwall, at least) as banking, just pawnbroking.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It is something that has always been around, once upon a time just accepted but now is frowned upon but still there. Happens at all levels and unfortunately not easily dealt with because as they say everyone has there price.

Reminds me of my late father's favourite joke -
a chap sees a woman he fancies, goes up to her, buys her a drink then asks her if she'll go to bed with him for a £1000. Yes, she says immediately. I'll see you later, he says. He goes back to to her later and says look, I'm still game, but I've checked and I can only afford a tenner. What on earth do you think I am, she says. Oh, we've already established that, we're just haggling over the price.

... give more incentives to go LED, this will be a good start in the right direction.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a subsidised scheme like the one several years ago for CFLs.

 

[Jacob]

...... If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
......

Ooh politics!
Simple fact of life that the easiest way to get money is to own property/land etc and charge others who want to use it. If you get enough you can buy more property - "earn" isn't the right word as you don't have to do anything much.
It is also the world's biggest millstone around the largest number of necks of renters/ tenants of all sorts, and a constraint on development and personal freedom at so many levels.

Politics aside - change is on the way. I wonder about EV and batteries etc. Is "sustainable" mass personal powered transport possible at all? Bearing in mind it has only been with us on any scale for about 70 years - there was one car owner on our street 70 years ago and no cars parked at all, except occasionally, briefly in transit ; it was an event in itself
A massive change in a lifetime - even greater changes to come, in personal behaviour and lifestyles?
To be adopted voluntarily, before they are forced upon us by rising sea levels and so forth?
Not to mention the rising aspirations of the "developing" world.
This is interesting Top CO2 polluters and highest per capita - Economics Help

Interesting stuff coming from TominDales - thanks for that!

 

[TRITON]

yup, it will be something like electric heating only, maybe storage heaters or that ilk.
And when the law is fully in and the majority have them, watch the price of free to produce renewable electricity skyrocket

 

[Stevekane]

Wow this is an intresting thread and so long now that I dont have the time to read every post so forgive me if this has already been said, we live in an old house that is cold, solid walls and floor. I know that with modern materials its possible to “engineer” a house that takes very little energy to warm it up, some being provided by the people in it giving off heat. Then on the evening news we see people living in terrible conditions, houses where the walls are covered in black mould,,how is it that you can seal up a designer house and its bright and clean and dry without suffering from damp and mould?
Im not knocking them and I would give one a go myself if I could afford it but the two people Im aware of that have tried ground source heat pumps both feel its been and expensive mistake,,Perhaps the installers dont really know how to fit them correctly?

 

[Stevekane]

How wonderful to be able to do without a car, were lucky with a reasonable bus service every 30mins to two big towns but none at all to Southampton, but if I had to buy a ticket I would have to think twice,,very expensive, certainly much cheaper to use the car, and there would be so many things we couldnt do because there are no bus services connecting us to them.
I know this is contensious but is the “Green Belt” around our towns and cities partly responsible? Take for instance London, instead of the great conurbation it presently is, take each borough and have miles of green belt between them, then see how good a transport system you could operate. London has an excellent public transport system that is relatively cheap because its big and joined up, Bournemouth couldn't because its too small with the neighbouring small towns 10 or 15 miles away. All new building should be added to existing large towns.

 

[John Brown]

mould,,how is it that you can seal up a designer house and its bright and clean and dry without suffering from damp and mould?

The heat is extracted from the stale air as it's pushed out, and that same heat is used to hear the fresh air being drawn in.

Obviously, there are losses. I'm no expert, but you could probably Google the efficiency.

 

[John Brown]

Here you go. I've done it for you.

I was curious myself.

Heat Recovery for Ventilation Systems
Thermal wheel ventilation units can deliver a maximum of 80% efficiency, and typical values can vary between 65 and 75%. Plate heat exchangers offer a maximum efficiency of 80% with normal variations between 55 and 65%.

 

[Cooper]

Its a big worry.
Part of the problem in the UK is its easier and lower risk to get a return on capital from financial services (the city) and from property investment. UK banks lend by far their largest capital to property. Its been a one-way bet for 60 years ( with a couple of short lived downturns in the 70s, and mid 90s).
In Germany the government releases land on demand for housing ensuring that there is enough supply. The result is in Germany and Asia, the banks, investors and financial institutions don't have such soft ways to make money and are prepared to support longer term riskier innovation.
My experience of 35 years in innovation is things are changing for the better in the UK, young employees are up for taking the types of risk and there is more of a supportive culture. But while it remains easy for those with capital to just invest in land and property that is where the bulk of UK capital will continue to go. If we solve the UKs property crisis or have a prolonged property crash, then capital may look for other opportunities such as innovation.
Your are dead right, the UK were leaders in wind energy, we invented the lithium battery in Oxford and licensed it to Harewell (AERA) and Sony. AERA built one small battery factory next to Doonray in Thurso ( making military batteries) whilst Sony and Panasonic made world beating consumer batteries, Panasonic is one of the worlds biggest battery makes (its the cells in a Tesla) whilst AERA made the same battery for 15 years before going out of business - its now owed by the start up AMTE power, who are a millon times smaller than Panason.

You mention Germany. Our daughter lives in Munich and her previous flat, a new build and their new home a 1970s house, both are heated by a ground source heat pump, their building standards require a high standard of insulation, even the 1970s, and in their really cold winters they are able to wear T shirts etc indoors. The quality of build seems much better and their energy bills far lower. It can be done, as you say.
Here we are ruled by short term profit and company share prices determine senior management bonuses (see BooHoo this week). Politicians, if a recent previous PMs is typical, stay for a short while and their priority is their own earning capacity after office and "who case about the green stuff". So we have pretty feeble regulation. Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?
It isn't a choice, preventing more climate change is essential. Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.

 

[Spectric]

Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?

No more than Diesel cars by 2030, if you think a Kwh of gas is around 0.02225 and electricity 0.1345 so about six times the cost, there is already a lot of fuel poverty so this will just increase the numbers. These are also only words, so far there has not been any action otherwise we would have seen the beginings of change, ie only building well insulated properties that could be kept warm by an old 100 watt bulb.

 

[Jacob]

....
Here we are ruled by short term profit

It's known as free market economics. Very much the ideology of the right. Probably going out of fashion though, and about time too!

So we have pretty feeble regulation....

We voted for feeble regulation. De-regulation was the big issue with Brexit. It was second on the bill after immigration. Some re-assessments going on, perhaps?

.....Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.

Just a detail but migration and asylum seeking, including entry to the country, are not illegal. They may be treated like criminals but are perfectly legally here until applications to remain are duly processed and refused. It was always an imaginary issue, as the benefits of immigration have always out-weighed the disadvantages.
An odd comparison to make anyway, as climate change could be the greatest disaster to ever hit the human race. Increased migration as a result of climate change may become a bigger issue, arguably it is already underway.

 

[TominDales]

Reminds me of my late father's favourite joke -
a chap sees a woman he fancies, goes up to her, buys her a drink then asks her if she'll go to bed with him for a £1000. Yes, she says immediately. I'll see you later, he says. He goes back to to her later and says look, I'm still game, but I've checked and I can only afford a tenner. What on earth do you think I am, she says. Oh, we've already established that, we're just haggling over the price.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a subsidised scheme like the one several years ago for CFLs.

The subsidised scheme for CFLs was to encourage a switch from incandescent (a 75% reduction in energy use), which preceded an outright ban of the sale of incandescent lights in the EU - at that time. The UK has maintained the ban post Brexit. LED lights are about twice as efficient as strip lights and nearly 3x more so than CFLs, (use about 10% of the power of an incandescent), the prices is such that for most people the payback is a year or so. As the technology is maturing the reliable lifetime of LEDs is rising, I've had some going for 4 years and the failure rate is falling with each new batch, so I guess there is no need to subsidise the switch. The other benefit of LEDs is the new phosphors give out a decent colour light and there is a wide choice of colour temperature. The biggest issue with CFLs was the poor light quality. So I guess there is no need to an incentive.

Its less clear what will happen in heat pumps.
At the moment they are expensive, when I looked at our house a few years back it was £5k for a condensing boiler and £20k for a German made heat pump. However the inherent manufacturing processes are not difficult I can see mass production leading to a crash in cost. Also clever ways to install vertical boreholes will be developed lowering that cost (where vertical boreholes are acceptable - not in Ripon due to gypsum issues).
The other big cost for heat pumps is in the survey, its very important to size the pump correctly or the house will be underheated or the outside pipes can freeze up. At the moment the surveys are done piecemeal by qualified engineers. Over time someone will build smart software that will automate the process enabling a more manufactured solution - not trivial as there are a lot of variables to get absolute right.

 

[quintain]

A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.

IIAC, if a developer builds less than four hundred houses, they are not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure.

Nigel.

Nigel, I am very interested in your comment and welcome knowing where it is from "not under any obligation to provide any addition to the local infrastructure."
You can Private message me if you prefer.
Regards
Richard

 

[Just4Fun]

No more than Diesel cars by 2030, if you think a Kwh of gas is around 0.02225 and electricity 0.1345 so about six times the cost, there is already a lot of fuel poverty so this will just increase the numbers.

Comparing fuel costs from a purely financial aspect is one approach, and of course many people have no option but to take that approach. However, the comparison is not so simple as just looking at those 2 figures. There are other factors. For example: How efficient is gas heating compared to electric? How often do you have to get gas & electric appliances serviced and what does that cost? What is the realistic lifetime of gas and electric appliances and how do their replacement costs compare? Comparing the 2 fuels is not simple, even before you look beyond the financial aspects.

 

[TominDales]

You mention Germany. Our daughter lives in Munich and her previous flat, a new build and their new home a 1970s house, both are heated by a ground source heat pump, their building standards require a high standard of insulation, even the 1970s, and in their really cold winters they are able to wear T shirts etc indoors. The quality of build seems much better and their energy bills far lower. It can be done, as you say.
Here we are ruled by short term profit and company share prices determine senior management bonuses (see BooHoo this week). Politicians, if a recent previous PMs is typical, stay for a short while and their priority is their own earning capacity after office and "who case about the green stuff". So we have pretty feeble regulation. Does anyone believe that 2025 will see an end to new gas boilers?
It isn't a choice, preventing more climate change is essential. Even from the most right wing perspective (not that anyone here could be described as such) environmental degradation is going to make current illegal migration look like a Sunday school outing.

My experience on continental housing is the same. I worked briefly in the EU (30 years ago so a bit dated) and my experience was that house building for the private sector was done very differently. In the UK largish companies tend to build development in one go ie several fields worth, and build to a budget, on tight prices (partly because land is expensive and in short supply). The home owner then spends years upgrading the initial build - replacing, doors, windows upgrading insulation etc. Whereas in Northern Europe - my experience, most places tend to see organic growth or more architect designed and small scale development in towns and village each year adding to the stock. The quality of the initial build is far superior and needs little upgrading by the owner/tenant.
That is not to say the France etc didn't build some terrible modernist state build suburbs in the early 1960s.... But the majority of private homes in Northern Europe are built to a very high standard.

I suspect the 2025 deadline will apply to new build homes and start a process of replacement. The UK will be under pressure to make announcements for COP26 later this year. We will of-course import the tech to start with. Worcester is owned by Bosch who have a huge range of heat pumps.

 

[TominDales]

A colleague of my wife lived in New Zealand for a number of years. The property they lived in had heating provided via a ground heat pump. In her opinion, it just about took the chill off the house.

Nigel.

That can happen when the system is poorly designed. Heat pumps have to be very carefully designed or you end up with this outcome or at the other extreme end up freezing the soil outside your house. Heat pumps are best at providing constant low grade heat - so a continental type climate where the days are consistently cold in winter and hot in summer works well. . They are best when houses are very well insulated so that the heat does not escape. In a maritime climate like New Zealand the the UK where changes in temperature occur on a daily basis, we may need a direct boost to heating with either a hydrogen boiler or electric rads that can boost the heat output during a cold snap. Its vital that the property is properly surveyed so that the right installation is made as they are costly to install and change.

 

[Spectric]

The home owner then spends years upgrading the initial build - replacing, doors, windows upgrading insulation etc. Whereas in Northern Europe - my experience, most places tend to see organic growth or more architect designed and small scale development in towns and village each year adding to the stock. The quality of the initial build is far superior and needs little upgrading by the owner/tenant.

For some reason the builders have this concept that they need to deliver something cheap and neutral because the new owners will want to put their stamp on it, but once mortgaged to the hilt that can be a long way off. House building is like the auto industry in the sixties and seventies when they just built as many cars as they could and people had no choice but to but them, then the japanese came along and started to ask people what they wanted and only made to demand, much more efficient. Smaller developments and getting buyers involved before starting the build would deliver better homes for people so they start paying for what they really want and there is no need to replace anything, got to be more enviromentaly freindly.

 

[TominDales]

Ground source heat pump systems

In theory, seemingly great idea, especially if you have the land space.

There is one glaringly obvious problem with them when used enmasse, like entire housing estates.

If you continually extract the ground heat on a large scale, then obviously the ground temp will decrease over time in that area, affecting the local habitat greatly, even to the local extinction of insects first, then the obvious knock on effects.

The simple answer to your questions is the ground warms up in summer by extracting heat from the air. This leads to global cooling in the summer, which is a good thing.
In simple terms the solid earth acts as a large reservoir of heat, not unlike the sea provides a reservoir for water to create rain to replenish local reservoirs. The sun provides a huge amount of energy, there is enough solar energy to re-heat the ground each year. ca 170w/m2 of solar energy averaged over the earth - 340 at equator and 72 in Scotland. The UK land mass of 240,000km2 receives enough energy to power the entire worlds energy needs (at 100% efficiency). Essentially the energy is extracted in winter cooling the ground and the ground re-heats up in the summer months. Newtons law of cooling means that the more the ground is cooled the faster it heats up ie it extracts heat faster in the summer if its cooler than when its at normal temperature.

In reality is much more complicated, if the pipes are not sized correctly then you get local freezing of the soil. This can build up over time, so good design is essential for an efficient system. Furthermore if the piping is optimised and benefits from fast solar re-heating the heat pumps are more efficient turning 1Kw of electrical power into 6Kw of heat (theoretically 8kw can be achieved) whereas if the system is inefficient the return is only 2kw of heat for every 1 put in. For example putting the pipes in a pond or lake provides the most efficient system that into certain rock materials. This is so important the the EU is doing geological surveys to provide installers with this information. High thermal conductivity is good. Where we live in Ripon is a a very poor areas for heat pumps as you cant build vertical boreholes (the most efficient) in a gypsum area (due to subsidence) and its heat conduction is poor.

Heat pumps in effect are pumping the summer sun into our homes using the earth as a big storage reservoir. Another factor is air conditioning. In hot countries the heat pump is reversed in summer, heating the ground in return. This means a more compact system can be built as the cooled ground is more efficient as a cool source in summer and vice versa in winter. We wont benefit from this in the UK.
I hope this answers your concern.