by Will Jones, Daily Sceptic:
Rishi Sunak has been urged to shut down Britain’s gas network and spend billions on rolling out heat pumps, in a major intervention by the country’s infrastructure tsar. Sir John Armitt, Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), also recommended that cities ban all private vehicles. The Telegraph has more.
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Sir John Armitt, Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), warned that the supply of natural gas to all buildings must stop by 2050 if the U.K. is to hit its climate targets.
He is urging the Prime Minister to commit to a total ban on gas boiler sales by 2035, and to set out how the national gas network will be shut down gradually over the next 27 years.
The intervention came as a cold snap sent the U.K.’s demand for gas surging to a peak of 135 million cubic metres on Monday – the most since February this year and the largest in an October since 2021.
In the national infrastructure assessment, the NIC says heat pumps are the only viable alternative to heat homes en masse and that millions of households should get subsidies worth more than £6bn to encourage their adoption.
It called for £1.3bn a year to be spent on heat pumps for poorer homes and £1.9bn on grants worth £7,000 each for other homeowners to buy the devices. A further £3.2bn a year should be spent on energy efficiency and heat pump installations for social housing, the NIC said.
The assessment dismisses calls for hydrogen to be piped into homes for heating and cooking, arguing it will saddle consumers with massive extra costs.
It says: “Gas boilers need to be phased out and replaced by heat pumps. There is no public policy case for hydrogen to be used to heat individual buildings. It should be ruled out as an option.”
The Government pushed back against the findings, insisting that the gas network would “always be part of our energy system” and that it was still exploring what role hydrogen will play.
Other recommendations in the NIC assessment include a call for cities to ban all vehicles except buses and taxis to cut rush-hour congestion.
Cloud cuckoo land, obviously. But most of our politicians are so far down the climate Armageddon rabbit hole that they can’t think straight and swallow this barmy nonsense wholesale. Sunak seems to be attempting some kind of resistance to the worst extremes – if only because there’s an election coming – but he’s only scratched the surface so far. And what eco-warrior Ed Miliband will do should he obtain office next year I shudder to imagine.
