By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
The Government has now published its new hydrogen strategy:
The sale of new boilers that run exclusively on natural gas could be banned by 2026 in the UK’s push to hit climate goals.
The Government is consulting on plans to make sure that all new boilers are capable of running on hydrogen instead.
Hydrogen does not produce carbon dioxide when burned and ministers hope it could supply up to 35pc UK’s energy by 2050.
Tests are ongoing to determine whether it can be used safely and effectively to replace natural gas in UK homes.
In a new hydrogen strategy unveiled on Tuesday, officials said: “We aim to consult later this year on the case for enabling, or requiring, new natural gas boilers to be easily convertible to use hydrogen (‘hydrogen-ready’) by 2026.”
A ban on sales of new natural gas-only boilers would add to existing plans to stop these boilers from being installed in new-build homes by 2025.
As I reported earlier, the main plank entails the launching of a Contracts for Difference type scheme, similar to the one used for offshore wind power, to subsidise producers of hydrogen. The cost of this subsidy will likely get added to energy bills.
Hydrogen-ready boilers have long been talked about as the first step in the process, and would make little difference to the cost of the boiler. But this misses the real point, that it will cost tens of billions setting up a hydrogen distribution and storage network and more still on converting household appliances. On top of that, of course, the hydrogen produced will inevitably cost several times more than natural gas. That of course is precisely why producers will need to be massively subsidised.
But what intrigued me was this embedded image in the Telegraph article:
I have not seen any figures like this before, but a total of £93.9bn just for infrastructure for EVs is truly horrifying. Forget about the DT’s silly “in comparisons”, amounts to £3500 for every home in the country. And most of this will have to spent in the coming few years, ready for the surge in new electric cars.
These and all the other costs of Net Zero truly are the elephant in the room, that the Rachel Millards of the world don’t want to discuss. Instead, all they do is whittle on about carbon dioxide.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
August 17, 2021