Department of Energy Insecurity and Net Zero Intelligence Has Repealed The Laws of Physics
That was this morning. I gently explained to DESNZ yesterday that perhaps they were mistaken:
People are saying, it was obvious what they meant (which may or may not be so), but that misses the point. These people are supposedly in charge of the nation’s energy and energy security. If they cannot use precise and scientifically accurate language in order to promote their pet ‘zero carbon’ electric heat pumps to the nation, then they cannot be trusted to rationally implement energy policy and apply sound engineering and scientific principles to the national provision of so called 100% ‘clean energy’ - which is claimed will contribute to saving the planet from imminent fossil fuel created Thermageddon. They are either deliberately or inadvertently misleading members of the public about the benefits of heat pumps vs. gas boilers. This is especially serious considering that Mr. Milibean is expected to reintroduce the ridiculous ‘boiler tax’ by penalising manufacturers for not building enough heat pumps vs, gas boilers.
Because there is more to DESNZ’s online misinformation than meets the eye. Gas boilers convert chemical energy stored in natural gas (methane) into heat energy via combustion. As such, they can never be more than 100% efficient - again because of the Law of Conservation of Energy. Heat pumps work in a totally different fashion. They consume a moderate amount of (electrical) energy in order to move heat energy from the air (or ground) outside into the air (or domestic water) inside your house, using a compressor and a fan, in exactly the same way your refrigerator or air conditioning works. They don’t convert energy from one form into another. Directly comparing heat pumps to gas boilers in terms of their ‘energy generation efficiency’ is technically incorrect and disingenuous, because essentially it is comparing apples to oranges. But this is how propaganda works of course. And it is extraordinarily dangerous propaganda. Mad Ed is in charge of the Department of Energy Insecurity and Year Zero under the control of the Keir-Mher Rouge (h/t Alan) and fully intends to implement the ruinous and murderous policy of converting our green and pleasant land and seascapes into Killing Fields of wind turbines, tidal turbines and solar panels - in order to change the weather and ‘lead the world’ whilst doing so.
Update
Just noticed, they actually corrected themselves, probably in response to my comment:
They don’t answer to the laws of thermodynamics but rather to the laws of nudge. The first law of nudge is that it’s OK to tell lies if it’s for the greater good.
A local pal of mine lived in an expensive new built with some sort of communal ground source heat pump and he said it was fine.
That said, the reality is that heat pumps are just not suitable for many of the older houses that most people live in. When the SNP tried to bully and threaten homeowners into installing a heat pump, they were blasted by one of their own advisers and even a heat pump supplier said that some parts of Scotland were too cold for them to work, except in summer: https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/heat-pumps-will-work-just-fine-in.
The Home Energy Scotland Scheme achieved just 2,000 installations during the whole of 2023. Hardly a roaring success: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/21/first-heat-pump-humiliation-then-wood-burner-backpedalingth/.
Why do DESNZ want us to adopt heat pumps (and EVs)? They never say we need to stop using fossil fuels because their supply is finite, they only ever say we must do it do it to reduce CO2 emissions. They have no justification for taking this stance because there is clear scientific and empirical evidence that rising atmospheric CO2 will cause negligible global warming (but will be very beneficial for agriculture and forestry). Net Zero is doubly pointless when undertaken unilaterally as we are doing and is triply pointless because it is technically infeasible.
Good luck with trying to tweet them into changing their minds!