Despair - Mail-worthy
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jun/20/net-zero-rules-set-to-send-cost-of-new-homes-and-extensions-soaring

"double-glazed windows will require trickle vents to let heat escape"

They could have led with the end-bit that's nearer the truth:

“As the marketplace adapts to the new requirements, and the technologies that support them, the scaling up of these technologies will eventually bring costs down, but in the short term, we will all have to pay the price of the necessary transition”

"However, the long-term effects of the changes will be more comfortable and energy-efficient homes ... Homeowners will probably recoup that cost over time in energy bill savings.”

"In the future, there will be increased competition between companies to supply insulation technology ... which should result in lower prices."

Same here Tony with the glazing. Why even talk about double glazing.

On regulation it is enforcement of said regulation that is key not the regulation itself. The reason the UK's recently built housing stock is of such poor quality is because there is practically no enforcement. Were it properly enforced then the quality of build would be higher.

I do not think I would have had a better result on our house (where I and my wife did most of the work), if we had TG instead of DG. We did consider it but certainly at the time it was not cost effectively with reports by glazing experts that payback would be 90 years over DG. TG is 50% heavier than DG so that was also a factor for us doing DIY and whilst access is easier during build come to replacing an unit that failed, upstairs up a winding staircase it is a different matter. It is claimed a HP will save you money but if your energy consumption has been designed to be low due to good fabric first approach you do n0t need such sophisticated equipment with ongoing expensive maintenance and questionable performance depending on who installed it. Last year our gas bill was £200 previous year £300 so say ave £250 and that is with bottled LPG. It would not have made economic sense to fit TG nor HP and in case you might think it is a small house it measures 325 sqM . It performs better than expected because our solar gain is much better than we thought it would be, and the thermal mass has probably contributed more than expected, the house is built around and incorporating a 1750's farmhouse. This year is the 1st full year of our solar PV and our export payment looks to be more than enough to cover our gas bill. We are also fortunate we do not have cold winters. Horses for courses as they say.

The only thing I would disagree with is that if the manufacturing of the 3rd pane of glass causes so much CO2 it is not worth it why have the 2nd pane as this must be, proportional wise the same. Indeed you could even argue against having the first. I do understand the idea of diminishing returns but I suspect the reason this might be a reason here in the UK is our standards of building are back in the dark ages. If the substance of the building is so poor at retaining heat it is irrelevant how good your glazing performs where as if the building is super efficient then even a marginal gain is worth it.

But wouldn't that HP point also be applicable to 2G too!!!

On the rest of your post RobL I agree but it assumes that carbon emissions are the only parameter which I would suggest is not the case. 3G has the advantage of being thermally more efficient from an insulation point of view. If the glass is produced in a low/no carbon emission way then the emissions point disappears.

I like 3g as it cuts out noise, is much more comfortable to live with, better ironmongery, better quality. It helps me not to need a heating system or pay heating bills. One off cost, long term savings

Tom, unfortunately "renewable steel" and "renewable glass" and "fusion power" are all at the same stage - demonstrated at small scale, but unlikely to take over their respective markets during the lifetime of these building regs, or indeed within the next few decades.


Installing (say) a 3G window or a concrete slab in the 2020s/30s will irretrievably commit their manufacturing emissions into the atmosphere, so it is irrelevant if glass manufacturing goes on to decarbonise in the 2040s.

The 6th Carbon Budget is based on further decarbonising of UK electricity (hence electric heaters and heatpumps) between 2025 and 2030, as a large number of offshore wind farms and solar farms come through development. Any building component needs to "pay back" it's manufacturing carbon before then, or else it will never get a chance to. I agree with Rob that 3G will not payback before then, in my building at least.

So during this next period, focus needs to switch away from reducing energy usage, towards reducing high-carbon materials. Once low-carbon glass/cement/steel/etc become available in the 2040s, the pendulum might swing back again. It's a challenge for standards like PH or building regs to adapt themselves to this.


On the psychology, I was surprised that a previous home came with roller blinds as well as lined curtains. The "double curtaining" likely didn't add much to the U value of the DG, but did have a very good effect on the perception of radiant temperature

To be fair, people who invest in wind turbines in someone else's back yard, shouldn't be surprised if the electricity is delivered to them on pylons across their own back yard! Directly or indirectly, we are all doing just that.

There have been a huge number of windfarms in northern Scotland over the last 20 years and the associated pylons taking the power down to the South have been almost as controversial. The line through the Cairngorms National Park went ahead, but some subsequent proposals have been stopped and replaced by HVDC underwater lines running along the coast, as the East Anglians are requesting for theirs.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/environment/1157242/energy-giants-super-pylon-scheme-between-highlands-and-north-east-dropped/

https://www.4coffshore.com/news/ofgem-gives-provisional-approval-for-eastern-green-link-nid25293.html

Two electrically insulated water pipes one +ve and one -ve. Job done

Posted By: fostertomBut both streets ahead of fusion.

Hmm, I might bet against you, just for fun

Those articles don't seem overly optimistic to me. One prototype steel plant and the proposal of one other (which I'd heard about before) making use of Sweden's almost unique position. Nothing about the cost of the finished product. It's a far cry from that to most of the industrial steel in the world being produced in that way at equal cost to existing steel plants.

And the glass article described the problems, so I'm not sure why you're puzzled.

"more than half [of the lifetime emissions] of residential buildings are used up in construction", says the editor of Architects Journal.

Is that figure correct? Anyone know where that number comes from?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/24/not-just-any-building-why-plans-for-ms-flagship-store-hit-a-raw-nerve


Separately, an industry proposal for a new "Part Z" to be added to building regs that would require construction emissions to be assessed and limited (initially for larger developments)
https://part-z.uk/proposal

Green hydrogen isn't going to be used for steel production; it's too expensive. MOE is a better process, and even that will require an additional 20% of total generation capacity. How much steel, concrete, plastic etc will that generation capacity need?

The only way we'll ever get to zero carbon by 2050 is if we all stop breathing for a couple of weeks.

>>>>>>>"excess renewable generation (excess to present demand less reductions)"

Electricity demand is going to increase, as transportation and heating are electrified (is roughly going to double in the UK). Steel/glass/aluminium/cement will also be in the queue for that renewable electricity - will be interesting whether they can afford to buy their ways to the front of the queue in 2035, or wait till 2050.

But the UK manufacturers are fairly irrelevant, the majority of those materials are imported from S Asia. So what counts is the timing at which "excess renewable generation" becomes available down there.

Also remember that a blast furnace is a big capital investment with an economic lifetime of several decades. The world is not going to demolish its existing fleet early, just to rebuild them as electrolyzers, the best that could be expected is a rolling replacement as blast furnaces reach end of life.


The price promised to Hinckley C (£89.50/MWh) suddenly seems like a bargain, compared to present market prices for gas/coal/wind electricity (£155/MWh). But as we discussed, those prices don't include large externalities: multiday storage for renewables (£100/MWh?), CCS for gas (£70/MWh?), or decommissioning for nuclear (£unknown).

The embodied carbon in renewable generators was used as a stick by their opponents in the early days, but was debunked - the carbon payback of a wind turbine (10-20gCO2/kWh) is months rather than years if it replaces a fossil generator. By inspection, that would also apply if it replaces a coal-fired blast furnace or a petrol-powered car engine or a gas-fired glass furnace.

There are lots of bright ideas emerging for green steel production, you can electrolyse the ore directly at high or low temperatures, or electrolyse a reducing gas like hydrogen or carbon monoxide, or use natural gas or biogas instead of coal and capture the emissions. Most of the energy is for heating/melting (rather than for chemistry) so other fuels are possible and heat could be reused and pumped. Each idea will have pros/cons that need to be demonstrated at pilot scale. In that sense, these ideas are all less developed than fusion power is, maybe they are about where PV was at in the 1980s.

If we can't wait that long, then better just to use less of those materials in the meantime and build houses out of timber and stone instead. If only there were some building regs about that!

I've been following the Sono Motors product development for a while. They seem to have a more realistic product and set more realistic goals.

I don't understand this bit in the blurb you linked to: "In optimal conditions, the solar panels can add up to 44 miles a day to the 388-mile range the car gets between charges, according to the company. Tests carried out by Lightyear suggest people with a daily commute of less than 22 miles could drive for two months in the Netherlands without needing to plug in"

So 61 x 22 = 1342, which suggests they estimate the actual amount of charge per day at (1342-388)/61 < 16 miles if we're very generous and assume the battery is 100% depleted. So why say 44 when they believe reality is 15.6?

5m² of nearly-horizontal PV is going to generate about a couple of kWh per day, so save a couple of hundred quid per year, or did I miscalculate? Not enough to travel very far in an EV, or to pay off £250k, but noted their claims about super low friction.

However a genuine 388mile range would be plenty for most people's weekly (fortnightly?) usage, with a rapid recharge during the supermarket trip at the weekend.