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Sunday 24 March 2024

Silver bullet



Government’s ‘silver bullet’ heat pump plan not enough to hit net-zero target

The Government’s ambitious plan to fit heat pumps in homes across the UK in order to hit its net-zero goals is doomed to fail unless ministers quickly adapt their strategy, an industry insider has said.

Ministers say they want 600,000 heat pumps installed per year by 2028 – while just 18,900 were installed between May 2022 to December 2023. By 2035, ministers want to see up to 1.6 million heat pumps being fitted a year.

However, a recent report has found that up to five million homes across the UK may be unsuitable for heat pumps in another blow to the Government’s plan.



I thought silver bullets were a way of dealing with werewolves. If so it may be creepily appropriate as werewolves operate in the dark. 

Yet it's also weird how an article such as this comes to be written. So many obviously silly assumptions that it isn't worth analysing, yet this kind of guff continues to be churned out. It seems to occupy a niche between advertising, PR, official propaganda and possibly horoscopes. 

To a good approximation, nobody believes Net Zero will be achieved, including the government. It is clearly going to make us significantly worse off and the only interesting aspect will come when enough people realise that outcome indicates intent.

3 comments:

Sam Vega said...

You're right, this is one of the few areas where we can afford to stop worrying about what the government is doing, and just get a cup of tea and enjoy the show. How are they going to extricate themselves from this one?

"Do you remember when the government said they were going to fly us all to Mars and rebuild the UK there? Well, they are seriously behind schedule..."

DiscoveredJoys said...

Net Zero looks great on a spreadsheet - mostly because the idiot assumptions behind the calculations in each cell are not explicit. When you actually drill down into the assumptions (like 5 million houses being unsuitable for heat pumps) you realise they have only a tenuous link to reality.

I may have mentioned - the map is not the terrain.

A K Haart said...

Sam - ah yes, the rebuild everything on Mars scheme. Can't remember who was fronting it, probably Ed Davey or one of many soundalikes. Electric rockets to be used I believe.

DJ - and they must know about the idiot assumptions. It has taken the government and the entire political class far too close to activities which could legitimately be described as scams. They must surely know this too.