The Green New Deal's '30 by 30' plan to upgrade the insulation of all 30 million UK properties by 2030 has been driven by Colin Hines, a member of the Green New Deal Group. It is making good progress. Labour has now issued these proposals, almost reusing the name:
30 Recommendations by 2030
Expert Briefing: Putting the UK on a path to zero carbon energy
Summary of Recommendations
To put the UK on as fast a path to zero carbon as possible, this report makes thirty recommendations, which are summarised below within four goals that need to be delivered in parallel.
GOAL 1 — REDUCE ENERGY WASTE IN BUILDINGS AND INDUSTRY
Energy savings must be maximized if the decarbonisation of energy is to be achievable. It will require the majority of buildings and processes in the UK to become as energy efficient as possible. It will also require approaching energy demand in buildings as an infrastructure challenge, with a well-organized and well-funded national programme to ensure all buildings make good use of electricity. This will be a significant national undertaking, but the benefits to business, families and communities around the UK will be enormous.
Recommendation 1: Reduce energy waste, and thus demand, to the maximum possible extent over the years to 2030, and so set a target to reduce the need for energy across the UK by a minimum of 20% for heat and a minimum of 11% for electricity, relative to current levels.
Recommendation 2: Retrofit almost all of the UK's 27 million homes by 2030 to the highest energy efficiency standards feasible for each building to reduce domestic heat demand by 23% relative to current levels. - Retrofit the as many homes as possible to EPC level A or B by 2030, making EPC C level the targeted minimum. This is expected to result in 41% of UK buildings reaching EPC A or B, and 44% at EPC C. - Proactively implement area-based retrofit programmes — including SME buildings at the same time as domestic houses.
Recommendation 3: Ensure this retrofit work targets those homes in most need first. - Top priority: high fuel poverty and low-quality housing. - Second priority: homes and buildings with lowest energy performance (those that “leak” the most energy due to poor building design) - Home retrofits should peak at around 3m per year in 2027.
Recommendation 4: Conduct a root-and-branch review of the range of standards, measures, materials specification and practices of the UK construction industry to maximize the quality, impact and benefit of the retrofit and renovation programme, to add to the work carried out under the Each Home Counts review.
Recommendation 5: Ensure all existing public buildings reach EPC A or B by the mid 2020s, except in extenuating circumstances, with EPC C required as a minimum energy-efficiency standard.
Recommendation 6: Ensure all existing commercial and industrial buildings reach EPC A or B by the mid 2020s, except in extenuating circumstances, with EPC C required as a minimum standard. Work with commercial and industrial sectors to achieve this.
Recommendation 7: Reduce energy use in industry by 11% by ensuring that process efficiency is maximised, waste heat is used on-site to the maximum viable extent and the remaining waste heat is made available to external users.
Recommendation 8: Reintroduce a zero-carbon buildings standard for all new buildings from 2020 and seek to ensure all new buildings are constructed full net zero-carbon as early as possible.
The LibDems have also been paying attention. This is their version:
Passed by the Lib Dems Conference
As an urgent priority, government must put in place an extensive and comprehensive scheme to cut energy consumption by retrofitting existing buildings; four out of every five homes British people will be living in in 2050 have already been built. This is our top priority for action because it is the most cost-effective option available to reduce emissions and because it contributes to climate justice, reducing household bills and improving quality of life especially for those in fuel poverty. We would introduce a new Green Buildings Act setting the following targets: All homes of low-income households (social, rented or owner-occupied)· to reach at least Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band B by 2025. All other homes and non-domestic buildings to reach EPC Band B by· 2030. 7.1.3We endorse the campaign for '30 by 30' — 30 million homes and nondomestic properties insulated by 2030.
I am well aware of the challenge that tackling 2.8 million homes a year represents. It is enormous. But we can always die instead.
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Good proposals. I’m in the process of completing a project focused on the residential sector. We have thermally modelled households (semidetached, detached and bungalows) for various levels of insulation. We have also modelled various heat engines – condensing boilers, heat pumps and fuel cells with respect to a given house heat model coupled to a 365/24 out-side temperature data set. Electricity demand is modelled for a given house and coupled to electric vehicle charging, demand from heat pumps (if used), electrical output from fuel cells (if used) and PV output (with batteries).
The actions proposed by Labour should reduce household gas demand by around 50% (our model and one from Germany confirms this). However, this still leaves a large amount of CO2 emissions from natural gas use. Thus the next step has to be to re-purpose the UK’s gas system for hydrogen (& by extension move heating systems to either heat pumps or fuel cells). The good news is that the UK’s low pressure gas system will, by 2030, be hydrogen-ready.
The not so great news is that whilst heat pumps have an important role to play, power networks (keep in mind – that is my profession – I used to be an engineer that did O&M on power networks) will only support a penetration of heat pumps in the range 30 to 50%. The bandwidth is that big because many LV networks are quite heterogeneous in terms of loadings.
The labour proposals are a very good first step. There needs to be plans for further steps. & yes I know all about the Leeds H2 project etc etc. These need to be expanded and a coherent plan developed to use off-shore wind power to produce hydrogen.
Thanks Mike
Hydrogen beats batteries, I presume?
correct for large-scale bulk storage. Households with PV could still have a battery – that said, if heating is done by a fuel cell using hydrogen – excess power could be pushed back into the low pressure gas network (Uk’s will be H2 ready by 2020) – obviating the need for a battery – in practise there would still be one since round trip losses with a battery are lower.
Where do I read more Mike?
@Mike Parr
You clearly know a great deal more about this than I do. It seems obvious to me that the crucial ‘missing link’ between renewable electricity generation and consumption is storage. I don’t think that’s contentious.
What concerns me slightly is almost constant references to ‘batteries’. I take ‘batteries’ in this context to generally refer to chemical batteries. Do we really have enough ‘stuff’ to make all these batteries or are we going to hit real resource constraints and have major price hikes that undermine the promise of sustainable and affordable energy?
2.8 million homes can be done with a long term cross-party commitment at Westminster.
I cast my mind back to 2010 when the Tories came in and scrapped all current and planned investment in the name of austerity. They wasted hundreds of millions of pounds as lots of good projects were stopped dead in the water.
The only risk to any plan like this is that in depends on not having any the fuck wits in Parliament.
Discuss.
We converted to natural gas in a decade
But its not enough to simply convert to natural gas – it’s about joining stuff up across policy areas Richard in a consistent manner.
Tell me why if my org’ gets Social Housing Grant grant from Homes England for new affordable housing, we were not allowed to put in solar PV installation costs when claiming and agreeing the grant? So, we complete a new house using SHG and rather than putting the PV on upon practical completion, we have to come back and put it on later as part of our self funded programme – a self funded programme that has been undermined by austerity cuts!!
And yet, this is supposed be ‘affordable’ housing – able to be sustained by the family’s income including reasonable and reduced outgoings for utilities, food, etc.
And what about brown field sites – ex-industrial land? The grant system to remediate these has also gone under austerity – so this is why the green built gets built on with so-called lucrative ‘executive homes’. There is still not enough joined up thinking in my view.
Utterly bizarre…
FWIW I am totally behind the GND, which is why II was hoping my constructive criticism about relying on just wind and solar would be listened too, but they haven’t been. So here are better presentations of the point I was trying to make:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/06/californias-solar-energy-problem.html
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/10/24/how-renewable-energy-models-can-produce-misleading-indications/
if a country has a gas network then it has a solution to renewable variability – convert a large lump of RES elec into H2. problem solved (& yes there are H2-ready gas turbines – big ones).
It doesn’t have to have gas. Hydrogen is great in theory, but you lose SO much energy in conversion. The thing about the grid is that it does not tolerate oversupply or undersupply very well. So relying on intermittent generation means you have to have huge surpluses of generation capability and huge amounts of storage. You need to not only account for day to day variability but seasonal variability. AND on top of that we need to switch to electric heating. Anyone telling you we can heat and power Minnesota all winter with wind PV and batteries has not gone through and thought about how much of an overbuild of all of that it would require and just where they plan on getting all the raw materials. It is literally impossible without nuclear power.
I hope Mike can address that
A couple of caveats. Training. I don’t think the UK workforce is up to the job. We had an eco house built, aiming for Passivhaus standard. We didn’t get there, (but very close and with PV panels and FIT’s we have net zero energy bills) and the main reason was lack of attention to detail by the workers. They are not used to working to exacting standards.
My second caveat concerns old traditional-built houses of merit. To insulate you either have to do it from the inside, decreasing the size of rooms and ruining any architectural features such as fine old plaster cornices etc, or you have to do it from the outside and cover up fine examples of stonework, such as a house we had in Aberdeenshire, faced with superb granite blocks laid in Aberdeen bond. I know that seems to be implicit in the targets.
There’s a company in Yorkshire which has considerable expertise and experience in this field, both new build and retrofit. Worth a look: https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk
There are some such houses
But not enough to disrupt the aim
Sorry, but anyone can find an ecuse for inaction
What would you rather, your cornices or my children having a chance of a life?
Tell me?
Labours report, mostly good. But let’s leave the nuclear issue to be debated on another day. Suffice to say that there is evidence that if energy accounting is done over the hundreds of years necessary to include decommissioning and looking after the waste, nuclear is actually a heat sink.
But the big part missing is the massive investment that will be necessary in electrically propelled public transport. This is what is happening all over mainland Europe.
The fixation on electric cars will lead us up a blind alley, as world wide there are not enough raw materials for all the batteries needed. See this study from the Natural History Museum.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/june/we-need-more-metals-and-elements-reach-uks-greenhouse-goals.html
Extract from this –
Electric cars and the numbers
In the UK, petrol and diesel cars make up the biggest share of the UK’s climate pollution.
There are currently 31.5 million cars on the UK roads, covering 252.5 billion miles per year.
If we wanted to replace all these with electric vehicles today (assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries), it would take the following:
207,900 tonnes of cobalt – just under twice the annual global production
264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE) – three quarters the world’s production
at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium – nearly the entire world production of neodymium
2,362,500 tonnes of copper – more than half the world’s production in 2018
So we need a wholly different solution
One is that we cut the 252.5 billion miles
“One is that we cut the 252.5 billion miles“
Says the one swanning around in Brussels.. did you swim there?.. total hypocrite
I went by train
We were talking car miles
Funny how you always to the extreme. Personally I’d rather there were fewer children, a lot fewer. That would really help solve the problem.
Which of mine should I cull?
…and if you’d read my comment you’d have noticed I live in a net zero energy house. Do you? I also have an electric car, and I grow most of my own vegetables, eat organic, don’t fly etc Do you?
I am sorry that I fail to be as saintly as you
And what has that to do with your comment? I am still suggesting that you’re suggesting inaction
Why?
Attila says:
“One is that we cut the 252.5 billion miles“
Says the one swanning around in Brussels.. did you swim there?.. total hypocrite”
Ignoring the ad hominem jibe which is itself rather petty, if we are to deal with the problem we need to think outside some boxes.
One way to reduce these car miles is to improve mass transport systems. Another is to figure out some ways that fewer people waste quite so much of their life commuting. For example by having work and home closer together. If we don’t consider these options we aren’t really trying.
Some people can make a living in the time others spend travelling to and from their job. That’s daft isn’t it ?
on the subject of population which has long been a concern of mine as obviously an increasing population inevitably increases demand for resources of all forms,
the stark reality is that birth rates in the UK are, and have been for many decades, below the level necessary to maintain the current UK population,
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2018
this is also broadly the case across the developed western world and also the global population growth trend has been steadily dropping year on year,
we in the UK don’t need to be beating up each other for having too many children because we obviously aren’t.
if you find yourself freaked out by population numbers it may well be that you are part of an ongoing trend for exodus from the countryside and the formation and expansion of mega cities,
currently 20% of the UK population lives within the confines of the M25,
mega cities may well prove unviable in a post fossil fuel world.
It is all good stuff and 2030 is less crazy than 2050 – but it is still crazy. “The thirty [Labour Party] recommendations can be briefly summarised as: … a vast expansion of … wind and solar power; upgrading existing buildings … ; investment in development; … updates to infrastructure.”
ALL INVOLVE INCREASING EMISSIONS for 10 MORE YEARS. The facts are: the ice is melting NOW; What used to be permafrost in Siberia is NOW a vast source of climate-changing-methane; CO2 dissolving in the oceans has ALREADY made it too acidic for some sea-life; sea-level rise will certainly affect children now born with.
These Green New Deals would have been great 20 or 30 years ago. Now they give the WRONG message: that WE CAN GO ON LIVING OUR RUINOUS LIFESTYLES. We can’t.
On 25 September, a Goldman Sachs (bankers) analysis revealed that rising temperatures would lead to “changing disease patterns,” “more intense and longer-lasting heatwaves,” and “pressure on the availability and quality of water for drinking and agriculture.” “Major cities such as New York, Tokyo, and Lagos were also highlighted as being at risk of flooding.” [It could have mentioned London.]
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/goldman-sachs-climate-change-threatens-new-york-tokyo-lagos-cities-2019-9-1028552494?fbclid=iwar31i18edb9xcmwpi6saptzsbturjzjrojtvjyhkkwkkfyjolgmce33yfe0
Forbes (US rich-list magazine – Sep 22, 2019): No One Seemed To Notice Greta Thunberg’s Critique Of The Green New Deal. “The climate and ecological crisis is beyond party politics. And our main enemy right now is not our political opponents. Our main enemy now is physics. And we cannot make ‘deals’ with physics.” ‘… at 16 she understands political reality better than some who have spent their lives in politics: “Wherever I go I seem to be surrounded by fairytales. … bedtime stories that soothe us, how we are going to fix everything … It’s time to face the reality, the facts, the science. And the science doesn’t mainly speak of ‘great opportunities to create the society we always wanted’. It tells of unspoken human sufferings, which will get worse and worse the longer we delay action — unless we start to act now … This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.” Forbes again: To me, Greta’s most important superpower is her integrity …..
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/09/22/no-one-seemed-to-notice-greta-thunbergs-critique-of-the-green-new-deal/?fbclid=IwAR3sfoYPEktlYg6wcsI0sEmmMnB2P5gshU6GdFrhmp6De7pzk4hx7pqRAz8#597d52bb38da
Two billion humans survive on less than 2 dollars a day, while two billion are obese; it would not be all that difficult to ensure that all basic needs were met: food, clean water, clothing, shelter, security
Meanwhile we have an advertising-driven, perpetual-growth-dependent economy that multiplies ‘wants’. We now know of some ‘ruinous wants’: holiday flying, buying the latest fashions, meat every day, tourism, travel to international sports and entertainment, flood lights, hot air balloons, space travel, motor racing … (add your own or, if you are not much bothered about children’s lives, or you don’t accept the science, express opinions … but preferably not to me).
But it is not hopeless. The path that I recommend is the adoption of TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) http://www.tradableenergyquotas.net/summary.html
This measure would drive down emissions and would send a message that (a) Politicians are perhaps beginning to take the climate emergency and ecological catastrophe seriously (b) Energy profligacy is coming to an end. (c) Energy considerations will move centre stage for citizens as well as business. (d) Britain may be better able to avoid ‘gilets jaunes’-type riots which were caused, at least in part, by the French reliance on price signals alone.
Nothing about the Green New Deal says we can carry on as now
Where does it say that?
But how too are you going to deliver your plan? Please tell
“Nothing about the Green New Deal says we can carry on as now”
But that is the impression that it gives.
It seems to me that the GND is an attempt to perpetuate a perpetual growth economy.
I haven’t studied it in enough detail but the impresssion I have is that it does not adequately take into account our grandchildren’s grandchildren – and their need for lithium, copper etc.
‘The potential of lithium is too valuable to ignore. “The farmers who worry about our phone batteries. “We’ll be left here with no water, no animals, no agriculture – with nothing.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49355817
Jason Hickel @jasonhickel: “Lithium mining for electric cars is already generating an ecological crisis in the Andes, burning through water tables, draining lakes, destroying ecosystems and driving indigenous farmers off their land.”
I don’t have any magical methods of implementation – simply an appeal to logic as has been your advocacy of a GND.
The wealthiest emit the most CO2 – by far. They are also the most resistant to restraint and the most powerful. I am old enough to remember same-rations-for-everyone war-time rationing. It was broadly accepted and it worked though it was marred by the black market and hated spivs who ran it for the benefit of the rich who used them. So, tactics – the implementation of teqs or rations will face colossal opposition. I think teqs are a better bet. Also, teqs would focus attention on energy thrift. A ration large enough to enable all those at the bottom end to stay alive, would encourage others to say ‘I have the ration, I might as well use it.’ Regulations and price incentives alone: (a) Gilets jaunes type resistance (b) a blizzard of measures will be needed for all sorts of usage – not just cars – and the energy accountants will for ever be devising new dodges.
We need engineers to be designing ultra-low energy devices now – and to be given the certain knowledge that Quotas will be lower next year and lower still the year after.
And I reiterate, the GND ideas look to be excellent. I just think (a) they fail to a engage the population in a drive for energy economy (b) they fail to convey the need for drastic changes and, in themselves, (c) they fail to restrain the profligate wealthy, (d) not only is the proposed implementation 20+ years late, they do not convey either urgency or the need for the wealthier 50% (say) of us to live much simpler lives – though those lives may well be happier is many regards
Nothing about the Green New Deal is what you say it is
And I’d suggest that right now they’re the best chance we have of changing minds
Might it need to be more radical in due course? Maybe, yes. But it’s pretty darned radical now
Try this too….and tell me how that leaves things as they are http://www.corporateaccountabilitynet.work/projects/sustainable-cost-accounting-the-essential-guides/
Joe Burlington says:
“Nothing about the Green New Deal says we can carry on as now”
“But that is the impression that it gives.”
Hmmmm…. We’re not getting the message across to everybody, then. Because in reality the GND changes everything.
I share your concern about the continued and massively increased mining of battery minerals, and that would be a problem if the only means we have of storing electricity is by chemical battery. If you’ve followed the whole thread you’ll have read about the progress already made in the Hydrogen energy field – and that’s still in its infancy. In addition we have liquid air storage which is again in early stages of development, various technologies engaged in heat extraction from ground sources and water. If the bright boys and girls who have developed hi tech fracking had been working on sustainable solutions we might have been even further ahead. And further ahead again if some of our best graduate brains weren’t spending all day in the money market casinos playing zero-sum money games.
“It seems to me that the GND is an attempt to perpetuate a perpetual growth economy.”
Then that’s another message we’re not getting across. It’s wrong. The aim is for sustainable growth and there is nothing inherently ‘perpetual’ in that because it would accept different constraints from those presently driving our economies – real resource constraints taking into account environmental factors – natural resources, population size, greenhouse gas emissions etc. The current driver is cash profit ….there’s no limit to THAT because we can just keep ‘printing’ money until the entire societal system disintegrates, and that’s where we’re currently headed. GND on the other hand respects real constraints and attempts to identify them and account accordingly, and develop accordingly. We’ll need an entirely new discipline of ‘Economics’ to do this. One that is not obsessed solely with money.
“And I reiterate, the GND ideas look to be excellent. …” …..with the caveats you add. Your caveats are close to spot -on. They all come down to the one simple fact that we have not (yet) sold GND to a critical mass of population and the political class and they are not (yet) on board with what is the best way forward that offers a long term future for humanity on this planet.
It will of course need a lot of tweaking as we go along …..if we’re still going along long enough to be tweaking rather than engaged in international resource wars because we haven’t done enough quickly enough.