[Politics] Dear Rishi Sunak...

[clapham_gull]

We already do far more than other countries to help the plant.

That plant this evening.

 

[dsr-burnley]

If all new cars are to electric soon (when ever that is to be), will the charging infrastructure be in place in time

If gas boilers are to be replaced by something else, will the replacement technology be in place for everyone affected in time.

Otherwise, all these target dates are mere gesture politics, and mean nothing.

Electric car technology might be in soon, although as so much of the infrastructure depends on the government getting its finger out and acting efficiently, it seems unlikely that the grid will be ready. At present a house with gas gets about 4 times as many kwh of power from gas than it does from electricity, so they are going to have to find a way to get a heck of a lot more power through the grid than they do now. (I don't think cars are a big factor.)

As for heat pumps, the technology might be there but the fitters won't be. Pretty much all estimates (per google) reckon we need about 50,000 qualified heat pump fitters by 2028, and we currently have about 3,000 - 5,000. (There are those who say that fitting a heat pump is easy, but they won't be working in my house!)

 

[dsr-burnley]

Targeting net zero is more affordable than not doing it. You've got this the wrong way around. Renewable energy generation is cheaper than from fossils, the sooner we can eliminate fossils the better.

This is something that I've often heard quoted. And yet the recent "who wants to build a wind farm" auction of licences, nobody bid because the subsidies the government was offering, were too low. Why would we need to subsidise a form of electricity generation that is cheaper than what they're doing now?

 

[The Fits]

This is something that I've often heard quoted. And yet the recent "who wants to build a wind farm" auction of licences, nobody bid because the subsidies the government was offering, were too low. Why would we need to subsidise a form of electricity generation that is cheaper than what they're doing now?

What went wrong at UK government’s offshore wind auction?

Industry sources say auction was ‘catastrophic’, after failure to secure any new offshore windfarms

www.theguardian.com

 

[dsr-burnley]

What went wrong at UK government’s offshore wind auction?

Industry sources say auction was ‘catastrophic’, after failure to secure any new offshore windfarms

www.theguardian.com

I think I get it - at present offshore wind generation is cheaper than gas generation because of high gas prices. Until the war in Ukraine, gas generation was cheaper, and if we hadn't gone a bit gooey about the politics of North Sea gas generation it still would be. I hadn't actually realised (probably I should have) that electricity-generated-by-gas had such a hugely volatile range.

Does the price of changing to offshore wind, include all the extra pylons across the country to bring it in? Or is that the government's own responsibility, and a "hidden" cost of offshore?

 

[Bakero]

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I watched that last night. It’s not rhetoric, it’s damned lies designed to mislead the gullible.
it actually made me/us feel very angry.

 

[mikeyjh]

They will have an agreed connection with UKPN, it just wont be in place yet as network reinforcement will be undertaken. There has been a significant role out in EV charging, including at existing garages and this should have (and needs to be) improved to compare with elsewhere.
..im sure there were plenty saying I wont buy a car in the 1950s...i might run out of fuel...and people did, they ran out of fuel and cars broke down all the time, then more people bought cars and the range improved as did the infrastructure, very quickly.
The advantage now is the locations for the infrastructure is in place, the range and performance of EVs is changing all the time and by 2030 there wont be EVs with less than 300 miles of range that can charge quickly, with infrastructure in place to meet needs.
I have an EV - i largely charge at work, or occasionally at home. I can get to the Amex and back, from Hythe on a single charge with plenty to spare. The only time i need to charge away from home is if im going more than 250 miles in a day. Which isnt really very often....ive done 11,000 miles this year and have paid to charge a handful of times, including going to norwich and back in a day. It really isnt that stressful.

I'd never have guessed from the rest of your post.

 

[banjo]

I think the pie of the day was rabbit.

 

[Machiavelli]

Congratulations, you can afford an EV. Not everyone can charge at work. I'm retired and can neither afford an EV nor have a charger at home. Nor would I ever buy a 2nd hand EV. So I guess I'm petrol till I die.

You now have the opportunity to keep being a petrol-head until you die. But, amongst several other things, you've been misinformed on the affordability question. The lifetime of an EV is currently cheaper than your favoured petrol alternative. By 2030, it's projected that the upfront costs of EVs will be cheaper than petrol cars.

 

[Machiavelli]

what do you actually believe in?

i've got a reasonable idea what you're against, but what are you for?

@Is it PotG? has demonstrated consistently on NSC that he's for three things. There may be others, but those three are:
-- music, much of which is interesting and demonstrates passion and care in this
-- the BBC and its programmes, again of interest
-- and, lastly, trolling

 

[Machiavelli]

Electric car technology might be in soon, although as so much of the infrastructure depends on the government getting its finger out and acting efficiently, it seems unlikely that the grid will be ready. At present a house with gas gets about 4 times as many kwh of power from gas than it does from electricity, so they are going to have to find a way to get a heck of a lot more power through the grid than they do now. (I don't think cars are a big factor.)

As for heat pumps, the technology might be there but the fitters won't be. Pretty much all estimates (per google) reckon we need about 50,000 qualified heat pump fitters by 2028, and we currently have about 3,000 - 5,000. (There are those who say that fitting a heat pump is easy, but they won't be working in my house!)

We've known about this for decades. We've had a government of a certain stripe for 13 years now. Having those 50,000 qualified heat pump fitters trained and fitting heat pumps would bring lots of money into the economy, and they'll be well paid skilled jobs. Yet they don't exist, and a plan for them doesn't exist, as you've helpfully pointed out. Who do you think is responsible for this situation?

 

[Is it PotG?]

@Is it PotG? has demonstrated consistently on NSC that he's for three things. There may be others, but those three are:
-- music, much of which is interesting and demonstrates passion and care in this
-- the BBC and its programmes, again of interest
-- and, lastly, trolling

What about the old photos?

 

[dsr-burnley]

We've known about this for decades. We've had a government of a certain stripe for 13 years now. Having those 50,000 qualified heat pump fitters trained and fitting heat pumps would bring lots of money into the economy, and they'll be well paid skilled jobs. Yet they don't exist, and a plan for them doesn't exist, as you've helpfully pointed out. Who do you think is responsible for this situation?

Primarily market forces. People (and I am one of them, having recently had a new gas boiler fitted to replace the old one) do not care enough about the environment, or aren't convinced enough of their own contribution to the damage, to pay an extra £10k or so (after allowing for grants) to fit an air pump with the underfloor heating and extra insulation that it entails. If the customers aren't there, then neither will people take the trouble to qualify to service them.

There are grants available for the training, but for whatever reason not enough people are taking them up.

 

[dsr-burnley]

There was a suggested government policy that recycling would have to be sorted by councils into seven different categories. I think many people just assumed that the councils would want seven bins for the seven categories; maybe not, maybe the councils were planning to let you bung all recycling in one bin and they would employs teams of people to sort them?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I've got four bins.

Any advance on that?

 

[Super Steve Earle]

You now have the opportunity to keep being a petrol-head until you die. But, amongst several other things, you've been misinformed on the affordability question. The lifetime of an EV is currently cheaper than your favoured petrol alternative. By 2030, it's projected that the upfront costs of EVs will be cheaper than petrol cars.

 

[Audax]

I love the way that Sunak has plucked some figues out of the air and they are now being touted by the media as savings for the poorest.

You won't have to spend £25,000 on an electric car and £15,000 on a boiler. You're £40,000 up.

You never were going to have to spend 40k anyhow!

Most people have purchased fairly new cars on personal contract plans and an electric car via Cinch will cost you £42 per month. A Nissan Leaf costs £12k.

The average cost of a car in the UK ranges from £12,000 to £28,000, depending primarily on the size, spec and car make and model. The average household spends roughly £1,100 a year on car purchases and financing, representing 4.3% of their annual family budget.

He is LYING and SPINNING to everyone. At least you could see Johnson lying. Sunak is smarmier!

To add to this: the economics of the ICE-only ban for 2030 is largely based on how it will impact the second hand market. The ban would force those who can afford to buy new to buy EV (or at least a lower-emission hybrid). Those would then filter into the second hand market, stimulating supply of second hand EVs and thus making them affordable for those who cannot afford to buy new. It's already happening - there was a spike in demand for new EVs 3ish years ago (alongside the launch of the Tesla Model 3, ZE 50 Zoe, and VW's iD range) and those cars are now starting to appear in the second hand market. The Zoe's in particular are available around the £12k range, and they are a damn fine car at that price.

BUS grant for boiler->ASHP is now 50% more (So 7.5k towards ASHP, and assume 9k for GSHP) - Also talked about more support for insulation schemes..

One of the few good things to come out of yesterday's clusterf*** of a speech. The insulation support needs to be quantified - but all he's really talking about there is re-instating an old policy that got scrapped and meant that those who were least able to afford the cost of living crisis were heavily adversely affected. And realistically, they still will be after yesterday due to the watering down of the requirements for buy-to-let owners to insulate.

Congratulations, you can afford an EV. Not everyone can charge at work. I'm retired and can neither afford an EV nor have a charger at home. Nor would I ever buy a 2nd hand EV. So I guess I'm petrol till I die.

Why not? There's nothing wrong with second hand EVs in today's world. There's a good possibility I'll be replacing my leased Zoe with a second hand Tesla Model 3 next year. And before you say "because the battery is a big risk" ... stop listening to all the propaganda bullcrap the fossil industry likes to spread. I'm getting the same performance out of my 3 year old Zoe today as I did the day I took delivery, and projected lifespan for batteries that went into new EVs 3-4 years ago is longer than the average ICE engine would be expected to survive. Running costs and maintenance costs are a lot lower than an equivalent ICE vehicle. VED is £0. EVs are already (in the UK) cheaper to own than an ICE across multiple years of ownership, and by 2030 it's expected than a new EV will be either the same or cheaper than an equivalent ICE vehicle.

This is something that I've often heard quoted. And yet the recent "who wants to build a wind farm" auction of licences, nobody bid because the subsidies the government was offering, were too low. Why would we need to subsidise a form of electricity generation that is cheaper than what they're doing now?

There's more to it - the government bungled that auction. It's also not just about off-shore wind - don't forget on-shore wind, solar etc. Also worth noting that the costs to install and then maintain renewables are constantly going down (even with the recent inflationary costs increases, the long term trend remains in favour of renewables), while the costs of fossil generation are generally going up. And renewables mean we're no longer shackled to the whims of the OPEC cartel or the actions of rogue nations like Russia.

The long term view is that the faster we can get away from imported fossil-generated electricity and replace it with local renewables-generation, the better for the economy and the cheaper it will be to supply our homes with power. The problem we face now is that successive Tory policy failures (eg the ban on on-shore wind, removing incentives to improve home insulation, the reduction in subsidies for at-home solar installations etc) have put us a long way behind where we could have been, and meant that we were far more exposed to the gas-price-crisis than we could have been. That, in turn, generates the inflationary pressures that resulted in the failed off-shore generation auction.

Heaping yet another Tory policy failure on top of the existing ones simply isn't a good idea. We need a new government, preferably one brave enough to set in motion the move to a new future-facing economy instead of trying to prop up the old economy.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

You now have the opportunity to keep being a petrol-head until you die. But, amongst several other things, you've been misinformed on the affordability question. The lifetime of an EV is currently cheaper than your favoured petrol alternative. By 2030, it's projected that the upfront costs of EVs will be cheaper than petrol cars.

Yes but, thing is, I'd love to switch to electric. I'm not a petrol-head. I have ridden in Tesla's and VW EV's and it's a great driving experience. But I'm not misinformed on cost. You can make anything sound cheaper by spreading the cost, but EV's just aren't. I did the sums when I changed cars last year. What's the point in projecting the the upfront costs of EV's in 7 years time if I were looking to change now?

 

[WATFORD zero]

I see we're back in full Johnson mode, Lie, lie, lie. Need to get the gullible and naïve on board before the election

There was a suggested government policy that recycling would have to be sorted by councils into seven different categories. I think many people just assumed that the councils would want seven bins for the seven categories; maybe not, maybe the councils were planning to let you bung all recycling in one bin and they would employs teams of people to sort them?

Desperate. Sorry we have a game to prepare for