| How many millions could the Treasury save... 13:24 - Jan 13 with 1962 views | Edmundo |
If there was a policy of urgently retrofitting all public sector buildings with proper insulation, ventilation, and solar panels? If we ever get a government that isn't corrupted by petrochemical lobbyists.... |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:05 - Jan 13 with 1876 views | GeoffSentence |
A big push for insulation countrywide would be a massive energy saver, helping towards cutting carbon emissions and saving money for everyone.
What this needs is some sort of pressure group to push for the government to Insulate Britain. |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:10 - Jan 13 with 1862 views | Edmundo |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:05 - Jan 13 by GeoffSentence |
A big push for insulation countrywide would be a massive energy saver, helping towards cutting carbon emissions and saving money for everyone.
What this needs is some sort of pressure group to push for the government to Insulate Britain. |
They've gone quiet. Mainly because they erroneously thought that going down the "locking on' and highway obstruction path would get people onside.
85% of people want climate change and energy security taken seriously, but alas seem to bottle it at the General Election. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:13 - Jan 13 with 1855 views | NthQldITFC |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:05 - Jan 13 by GeoffSentence |
A big push for insulation countrywide would be a massive energy saver, helping towards cutting carbon emissions and saving money for everyone.
What this needs is some sort of pressure group to push for the government to Insulate Britain. |
This could happen if we had a government which would take the only sane and responsible decision and Just Stop Oiling the wheels of rampant, suicidal profit chasing. |  |
| # WE ARE STEALING THE FUTURE FROM OUR CHILDREN --- WE MUST CHANGE COURSE # | | Poll: | It's driving me nuts |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:56 - Jan 13 with 1804 views | factual_blue |
Most of the buildings in the public sector now belong to private companies, and have done for 20+ years. I doubt the contracts incentivise them to improve insulation. |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 15:41 - Jan 13 with 1718 views | Edmundo |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:56 - Jan 13 by factual_blue |
Most of the buildings in the public sector now belong to private companies, and have done for 20+ years. I doubt the contracts incentivise them to improve insulation. |
So is this a blame Blair or blame local government issue? County councils are as corrupt as Westminster. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 17:46 - Jan 13 with 1623 views | Ryorry |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 15:41 - Jan 13 by Edmundo |
So is this a blame Blair or blame local government issue? County councils are as corrupt as Westminster. |
Could tell you a few tales about the workings of a certai council planning dept. from a friend who was once a local councillor sitting on committees.
Made muck heaps smell sweeter. |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 17:51 - Jan 13 with 1612 views | TractorWood |
Selling them entirely would probably make more sense and working remotely than spending billions on low utilisation buildings. [Post edited 13 Jan 17:52]
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:16 - Jan 13 with 1564 views | Swansea_Blue |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:10 - Jan 13 by Edmundo |
They've gone quiet. Mainly because they erroneously thought that going down the "locking on' and highway obstruction path would get people onside.
85% of people want climate change and energy security taken seriously, but alas seem to bottle it at the General Election. |
If 85% genuinely wanted the issue taken seriously, some of them wouldn’t be throwing a hissy fit when IB protest. You can’t genuinely believe CC is a serious issue and oppose groups trying to raise awareness about it and campaigning for change. |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:47 - Jan 14 with 1437 views | Edmundo |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:16 - Jan 13 by Swansea_Blue |
If 85% genuinely wanted the issue taken seriously, some of them wouldn’t be throwing a hissy fit when IB protest. You can’t genuinely believe CC is a serious issue and oppose groups trying to raise awareness about it and campaigning for change. |
I don't oppose groups like Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil. I don't think their methods work though. Unfortunately I don't think our government will take any CC group seriously. It offends their entrenched view that a Green Economy will damage growth. In fact, the further we go without embracing the change needed, the more this will become true. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:59 - Jan 14 with 1414 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
We could do with some massive investment in public buildings. Something like a Building Schools for the Future programme. Like the one announced and planned by the last Labour Government and promptly scrapped and never again considered by the Conservatives. |  |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 15:16 - Jan 14 with 1389 views | Clapham_Junction |
I suspect the answer is not a lot. Most buildings that could have been cheaply insulated (i.e. those with cavity walls) would have been done years ago; the vast majority of remaining buildings to be insulated have solid walls, which would require expensive internal or external insulation which would have a payback of several decades. PV would deliver a saving, but probably has a 10 year payback (systems rarely perform as well as installers claim when predicting 5-7 year paybacks).
But this all detracts from the main issue: The government shouldn't be doing this stuff to make savings, but be doing it because it is the right thing to do to reduce carbon emissions.
What we really should be investing in is large-scale heat networks, which can decarbonise thousands of buildings in one go by allowing them to get rid of their gas boilers. The government is making moves towards this (heat network zoning will come into force in dense urban areas in 2025 and will mandate connections for buildings over a certain size), but are doing it in the wrong way, which will end up backfiring. Rather than follow the very successful Danish route of requiring heat networks to operate on a not-for-profit basis and to provide heat at the lowest cost, the UK government is pushing for heat networks to be developed by the private sector as an investment (money making) opportunity. This means we will be stuck with private sector monopolies providing heat while no doubt making huge profits (and not maintaining the networks properly), which ultimately will create a huge amount of hostility to them. |  | | |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 17:26 - Jan 14 with 1285 views | GeoffSentence |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 17:46 - Jan 13 by Ryorry |
Could tell you a few tales about the workings of a certai council planning dept. from a friend who was once a local councillor sitting on committees.
Made muck heaps smell sweeter. |
Bloke round he corner from me had to bung a councillor a substantial amount of money to get his planning permission approved. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:16 - Jan 14 with 1253 views | Edmundo |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 15:16 - Jan 14 by Clapham_Junction |
I suspect the answer is not a lot. Most buildings that could have been cheaply insulated (i.e. those with cavity walls) would have been done years ago; the vast majority of remaining buildings to be insulated have solid walls, which would require expensive internal or external insulation which would have a payback of several decades. PV would deliver a saving, but probably has a 10 year payback (systems rarely perform as well as installers claim when predicting 5-7 year paybacks).
But this all detracts from the main issue: The government shouldn't be doing this stuff to make savings, but be doing it because it is the right thing to do to reduce carbon emissions.
What we really should be investing in is large-scale heat networks, which can decarbonise thousands of buildings in one go by allowing them to get rid of their gas boilers. The government is making moves towards this (heat network zoning will come into force in dense urban areas in 2025 and will mandate connections for buildings over a certain size), but are doing it in the wrong way, which will end up backfiring. Rather than follow the very successful Danish route of requiring heat networks to operate on a not-for-profit basis and to provide heat at the lowest cost, the UK government is pushing for heat networks to be developed by the private sector as an investment (money making) opportunity. This means we will be stuck with private sector monopolies providing heat while no doubt making huge profits (and not maintaining the networks properly), which ultimately will create a huge amount of hostility to them. |
Top down stuff like this means in Britain there's likely to be snouts in troughs before the tenders are even announced.
There are some really encouraging community projects like you describe around though: Swaffham Prior Community Heat Project is worth looking at. It's being used as a template for other small scale projects in the region. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:35 - Jan 14 with 1227 views | Clapham_Junction |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:16 - Jan 14 by Edmundo |
Top down stuff like this means in Britain there's likely to be snouts in troughs before the tenders are even announced.
There are some really encouraging community projects like you describe around though: Swaffham Prior Community Heat Project is worth looking at. It's being used as a template for other small scale projects in the region. |
Swaffham Prior is a great idea and similar to schemes in rural Denmark (where many networks are co-operatives, with every connection being a shareholder).
As well as the insistence on private sector involvement, the other typically British issues that threaten the future of heat networks are a limited market of largely awful contractors (both build and operation) and highly inflated costs compared to our continental counterparts. A few years ago I was on a project with a Swedish city and we compared our costs - we were paying seven times what they were for stuff like pipework. | | | |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:41 - Jan 14 with 1217 views | Swansea_Blue |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 14:47 - Jan 14 by Edmundo |
I don't oppose groups like Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil. I don't think their methods work though. Unfortunately I don't think our government will take any CC group seriously. It offends their entrenched view that a Green Economy will damage growth. In fact, the further we go without embracing the change needed, the more this will become true. |
Sorry, the ‘you’ in my post wasn’t aimed at you. I should have said ‘one can’t - it was very much aimed at the token environmentalists.
Yes, quite right on the government response, unfortunately. People should still fight for what they believe though. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 18:53 - Jan 14 with 1189 views | stonojnr |
It's cheaper to build new than retrofit, most public buildings that are missing all those features are full of asbestos, or ancient heating systems, plumbing or wiring and the costs to remove it, or fix the existing stuff far outweigh what it would cost to just build a brand new building from scratch.
But then it becomes a headline big cost which puts everyone off doing it, so they keep paying the maintenance costs instead
Suffolk Police Hq a prime example of this. |  | | |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 08:30 - Jan 15 with 1060 views | lurcher |
THe trouble is, it would take years to get any return on the investment. There is no visible upside for a government to do it. |  | | |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 09:56 - Jan 15 with 997 views | Ryorry |
| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 17:26 - Jan 14 by GeoffSentence |
Bloke round he corner from me had to bung a councillor a substantial amount of money to get his planning permission approved. |
It wasn't just stuff like that that got my friend angry (tho that's happened locally too, and not just one councillor) but the involvement of central government.
They'd get edicts from Westminster telling them to implement X Y or Z stupid or unfair policies and yes, they could disagree & not implement them - but knew that if they didn't comply, they'd be overlooked for A B and C grants worth millions. Sheer blackmail by central govt. | |
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| How many millions could the Treasury save... on 13:42 - Jan 15 with 873 views | Radlett_blue |
You might want to consider the cost of asbestos removal from buildings as part of this, given that asbestos was still used in UK building until the late 1990s. |  |
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