Monday
Jun242013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Green no deal
Jun 24, 2013 Climate: Parliament Climate: WG3 Energy: other The government have discovered that merely putting the official stamp on a loan scheme for energy-saving measures in homes is not actually sufficient to make people sign up.
Just two households have installed energy-saving measures under the Government’s six-month-old ‘green’ scheme, it was claimed yesterday.
Critics say the £3billion scheme will fail to meet ministers’ predictions that 10,000 homes will take up the offer by next year.
The Green Deal, launched by Chris Huhne, offers homeowners loans for works such as cavity wall insulation and energy-efficient boilers, in the hope of reducing their energy bill.
When you think about it, the official stamp seems to be making most sane people run a mile in the opposite direction.
Reader Comments (42)
Nobody with any sense would touch anything that had Huhne, Davey and "Barking Mad" behind it. There are three people who are unerringly able to pick losers and place tax-payers money on them.
I read this article in the Sunday Times & the most damning point was the virtual destruction of the cavity wall insulation industry due to the failure of the green deal system to approve grants- down from 50,000 installations per month to 3,000
Launched by Chris Huhne (as if that weren't bad enough), and conceived by
Ed Miliband.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmphhhhhhhhh
Unintendeds from saving electricity by reducing hot water temperature
Murdoch walled at
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/five-hospitals-have-now-returned-positive-tests-for-legionella/story-fnihsrf2-1226668619570
Socialists have never understood business.
To them, everything is a command economy!
Sounds like a wizard scheme.
Our country’s problem is excessive debt so let’s lumber the struggling households with more debt and just as a kicker ramp up their energy costs through bad planning, dithering about new power stations and paying for wind farms, timber burners and dodgy solar panels. Good for the tax-spenders though – extra VAT on everything.
I wonder if having been persuaded to take out a loan with a 7% interest rate Don Carter, from Tyne and Wear will lead the way claiming compensation for miss selling?
“You can’t say it has been a success or failure over a number of weeks. That is just doom-mongering.” Said Greg Barker climate change minister. A number of weeks? It’s JUNE! No wonder they can’t understand sceptics we don’t use the same counting base. We go ‘one week, two weeks, three…on year’ they go ‘soon, slightly delayed, fantastic start, too soon to tell, a number of weeks… scrapped.’
“The Department of Energy and Climate Change described the scheme as ‘the biggest home-improvement programme since the Second World War’.” Yeah well you could refer to the mass bombing of cities like that but most of us would call it a tragedy.
Sort of reminds me of that old Regan quote... "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
"they go ‘soon, slightly delayed, fantastic start, too soon to tell, a number of weeks… scrapped.’"
TinyCO2
Wonderful. Worthy of the original Yes Minister.
Considering the large numbers of people who pay fervent lip service to the alleged crisis demanding "green" policies, it is amazing that the govt can't even get true believers signed on. That shows just what a farce this program is.....
How many civil servants and Quango-members have been sacked for sheer incompetence in so significantly over-estimating take-up of their scheme?
And managers at DECC would have increased staff levels accordingly to cope with the increase in administration.
Estimators in a commercial company predicting 'sales' of 10,000 which produced just 2 orders, would be immediately dismissed, (if their employer was lucky enough to survive).
It does go to show the real lack of public interest in this nonsense - strangely enough, in the midst of a recession, people are unwilling to take on debt.
Also highlights if people really did believe the world was going to end, then they would act like it - but they don't - so they obviously don't believe it. QED.
They will now hire expensive academic 'consultants' to write a lengthy report.
Expect newly-resident Lewandowsky to be asked to contribute a chapter on 'motivated denialism'. Phil Jones will do the sums (with help from Harry), Mikey will do the Tricks to Hide the Decline in interest on the graphs, gorgeous Gergis will opine that they will accept no further correspondence. John Cook will compare its impact to Hiroshima and Gavin Schmidt will explode himself with teenage outrage that a 'sceptic' was allowed near a microphone.
Overall it will be a triumphant piece of work - showing conclusively that Tractor Production has hit yet further record highs. Environmental correspondents world-wide will be in ecstasy. Bob Ward will drool with joy as he high-speed bombs anybody who raises an eyebrow.
And then Climate Audit and BH will get hold of it.
It'll be like deja vu of the Hindenburg all over again......
Dave Salt:
Panel of experts.
You can see why there is an authoritarian streak in so much of Eco-Worship. Imagine if we had been given a choice about whether to replace incandescent lightbulbs with those complex and toxic devices devices that produce, after a delay, such feeble illumination. Would we have agreed to have had our electricity bills increased in order to pay subsidies to landowners and others associated with the degrading of our precious landscapes with windturbines? Who would have chosen to raise basic food prices across the world in order to produce fuel that can damage engines, clear tropical rainforests, and of course substantially increase the level of completely avoidable starvation?
Let us hope that the outcome of the House of Commons Select Committee inquiry into public understanding of climate science is to set up a new government-backed initiative to convince people of the seriousness of man-made climate change.
Politicians have a childlike faith in the capacity of governments to manipulate human behaviour, don't they? They seem to think that launching a scheme of some sort (any sort) is all that it takes.
First they make people poorer by jacking up energy prices, and then they offer them a loan to try to offset the extra cost. Brilliant. I'm guessing that some genius is even as we speak dreaming up a further scheme to increase prices even more to try to make the loans look more attractive.
Also, perhaps UK readers can enlighten me, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that a lot of the housing stock is unsuitable for insulation because of the way it is constructed. If this is true, then many punters would not be able to take up the offer even if they wanted to. But they still get to pay the higher heating bills.
Our CO2 obsessed Federal Government has tried to make people modify their homes in a variety of ways as well. If it involves spending their own money, most people have been unenthusiastic. It just doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars (which adds little or nothing to the resale value) to save a few hundred a year on your heating bill.
About a year ago a good friend asked me what I thought of PV panels. My reply did not disuade him from changing his thermal panels, which supplied 40C water in winter and warmer in the summer so good to save power, for PV ones. He told me the story about money back etc. etc. etc., I just asked to be kept in the picture. Months later, and four seasons of sunlight, he has not uttered a word about his energy saving investment. This speaks volumes about energy saving PV panels.
I am not inclined to ask since I do not wish to loose a good friend.
Apparently a third household will soon have something or other installed under the green deal. That is a 50% increase. Not bad, eh?
JM
Why on earth would anyone remove working panels of any description to replace with others? However good the PV, he's just lost the input from the previous ones which, incidentally, would have been far more efficient at what they did. No subsidy for those, of course...
BTW, I read elsewhere that it was 200 homes. I hope the DM isn't exaggerating!
@ johanna 11:13
"Also, perhaps UK readers can enlighten me, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that a lot of the housing stock is unsuitable for insulation because of the way it is constructed. "
Grants are available for such things as cavity-wall insulation.
Many older (& therefore by definition less-well insulated) buildings have solid walls, so there's no cavity.
It's impractical to add 100mm - 150mm insulation to the internal walls, but insulation can now be added to the outside. It is considerably more expensive, and, also detrimentally affects the amount of natural light entering via windows, which now become recessed.
External cladding is never "cost-effective" compared with the resultant energy-cost savings; only massive subsidies for "CO2-savings" can justify the scheme.
It's not the "official stamp" which puts me off as such it is the fact that they have handed it over to the telesales crowd. My policy is never to buy anything from junk phone calls or indeed listen to their spiel.
They have either decided that the official nature of the thing means that TPS registration does not apply or they are using cowboys who ignore it. I may ask the next one who calls.
They turn up at the door as well. The whole thing is a scammer's charter. Most of them are ex double glazing cowboys looking for the next money spinner.
@ jamesp 11:30 AM
"BTW, I read elsewhere that it was 200 homes. I hope the DM isn't exaggerating!"
Don't confuse the number "Signing up for" [i.e. paying a (subsidised) contribution towards the cost of] a survey, with those actually having the work done.
The take-up rate after the survey is woefully & embarrassingly (for DECC) low.
Its a loan... Ask the Greek government about loans..
Its a LOAN - and at a not very good rate either - oh, and the loan stays with the property, so try selling your house...!
'Oh, darling, this is perfect, isn't it..? Everything we were looking for..! Is there anything else we should know,,?'
'There is some of the Green Deal loan outstanding..'
'Hmmm... Darling - you know that other house we looked at, that was much smaller..? I think on reflection that I thought it was rather sweet.... Thank you SO much for showing us round...'
Yep - a third loan is about to be approved...
Press release from the DECC: 'Green Deal approvals up 50% on previous month's figures..'
(Did you see what I did there..?)
Joe
Thank you for the distinction. If 99% of those showing an interest (itself a pathetic enough figure) decided not to bother, it must be spectacularly unappealing, even by government standards!
JamesP
There are two ways of paying off the green deal, one by direct repayments the second via increased enegy bills (the original concept)
A few hundred have opted for the first method, a couple have opted for the latter
When the Chairman of Scottish & Sourthern Energy was interviewed recently, the video of the Hardtalk interview was posted on this site,, he said that 25% of your elecritiity bill covers subsidising energy saving schemes such as better insulation (loft, cavity wall insulation), subsidising boiler replacements and the like.
It seems to me that not a lot of people realise that only 50% of their bills covers the cost of supply. He speciifically said that the cost of supply was only half of the bill total and the other 50% covers costs associated with green energy/renewavbles, and subsidies given to home owners to upgrade insulation etc, and help to those in fuel poverty. Our electricity bills could therefore be halved at a stroke if only there was the right political will.
It's quite obvious that Green Deal is not being communicated correctly. A few adverts with drowning puppies and/or exploding children should soon sort that out.
The Chairman of Scottish & Sourthern Energy said that 25% of your elecritiity bill covers subsidising energy saving schemes such as better insulation (loft, cavity wall insulation), subsidising boiler replacements and the like.
Yet we also find that "Just two households have installed energy-saving measures under the Government’s six-month-old ‘green’ scheme"
So who has nicked all the money?
The recommended level of loft insulation is 27cm, almost a foot. Try flooring your loft over that lot, with joists only 4-6 inches and if you want a loft extension, you just lost your headroom
Authoritarian did I say? How about totalitarian. Here are the words of one fanatic from the Sierra Club clearly frustrated by people not doing what he insists they must, since the
Who is to do the pushing of this notional pill? Men in labcoats as the new blackshirts?The really 'bitter pill' for me is the corruption of the Sierra Club, founded in the 19th century by John Muir in order to "explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them," and to "enlist the support and cooperation of the people and government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada." What is it now? A self-serving, arrogant corporation intent on riding roughshod over the American Congress?
More here at No Frakking Consensus
As Donna observes, Anyone who advocates pushing “a bitter pill” down someone else’s throat is precisely the sort of person who commits heinous crimes under totalitarian governments.
Lets see... all that tax that I pay to you, which is the reason that I have to work longer than my father to pay for the same commodities, you will let me have back in order to green my home. In order to do so you want to charge me 7% interest, which means that you want to tax the tax that I have already paid! Do you really think that is an appealing proposition?
I still don't understand why we allow these idiots to remain in power.
The recommended level of loft insulation is 27cm, almost a foot. Try flooring your loft over that lot, with joists only 4-6 inches and if you want a loft extension, you just lost your headroom
Jun 24, 2013 at 5:30 PM | dennisa
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Loft insulation is not all that it is cracked up to be.
First, most people wish to have their living rooms warmer than their bedrooms. Heat rises and the living room is effectively insulated by the upstair floor of the house. Loft insulation traps heat in the bedrooms and this is not needed because people use bedding to keep warm in the bedroom, alternatively cannot sleep if it is too warm and therefore open a window. Practically speaking, it would be better to insulate the ground floor flloor ceiling/first floor cavity as that would trap heat in the living rooms and would not make bedrooms uncomfortably warm.
Second, whilst many people do not have the recomended thicknoess of insulation, in practice most people's loft space is reasonably well insulated by all the junk that is stored up in the loft. Old bedding, towels, boxes of clothes, boxes of books/magazines, the odd rug and the like act as quite effective insulators.
Overall, there is less saving to be made than people imagine and the government estimates.
Jun 24, 2013 at 7:58 PM | Lord Beaverbrook
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But what can we do?
We have no choice. All the main parties are the same and almost none of the politicians have any real experience of the real world outside the cosy Westminster village, PPE and/or PR and/or politcal advising. In fact how many of them have any commonsense or real intelligence?
Our political system requires complete overhall but since turkey don't vote for Christmas, there is no chance that politicians will address the fundamental issues that beste the system and democracy.
This scheme doesn't look as though it's going to be very effective in reducing energy bills. Has anyone thought of the idea of dispensing with subsidies for eco-junk? As the total cost of such subsidies, FITs, and sundry enviro-BS is estimated will be around £600 p.a. by 2020 there could be considerable scope for reducing completely unnecessary fuel poverty.
@ johanna 11:13
My (little) house was built without a damp-course (many years ago).
That means any insulation of the cavity wall causes horrendous damp problems.
@ richard verney 1:46
Correct. Absolutely correct. I fell for it.
Thanks for replies re housing designs that don't benefit from insulation.
Does anyone know how those multi-storey housing estates are constructed? Given that they are presumably populated by low income people, I wonder whether any of these schemes will reduce the cost of heating them.
johanna...the short answer is "no". they have no double-glazing - so that would have to be retro-fitted at
a cost of mega-pounds.. ventilation is poor, so you have to keep a window open while cooking or bathing else you get a build-up of mould. But nthe flats are warm. It is like a bacteriological factory.
diogenes
Ah, bad ventilation AND poor insulation - wonderful.
If anyone has ever watched any of those Grand Designs shows where rich hippies build eco-houses which are hermetically sealed to retain heat, they then have to spend a few thousand quid on artificial ventilation systems to avoid damp, indoor pollution and frankly the joint smelling like a pile of mouldy old washing all winter.
My old shack in a cool climate (-4 last night) has a few draughts, and as long as they don't blow on me directly I leave them be. A steady supply of fresh air is important for both health and habitability.
I found this infographic that appears the Green Deal isactually doing quite well?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/6/24/green-no-deal.html