As the COP28 is underway in Dubai, the threats of climate change and its remedies are (or should) be on our minds and in this context I read an interesting article in The Economist in late summer, telling me that about 12% of the EU’s greenhouse-gas emissions emanate from residential heating. This is well below the almost 25% for energy supply and slightly over 20% each for transport and industry. Yet it seems, that politicians primary focus is on getting homeowners to replace their conventional boilers with more expensive heat pumps: According to the publication, there are currently 86 million gas or oil boilers in operation in the EU and the bloc’s target is to replace 30% of these with the new technology by 2030.
Heat pumps definitely are more efficient: Since they circulate existing heat rather than generating it themselves, the achieve, at least in summer, an efficiency rate of some 400% (in comparison with about 90% for a modern gas boiler). However, you may be disappointed if you like taking hot showers, since they heat water to approximately 55 degrees, somewhat lower than for example the 70 degrees with a conventional boiler. And I do love my hot showers!
There’s nothing wrong with that, in principle, but looking at the housing stock for example in the UK, where the government has equally ambitious goals, I notice that many residential dwellings are old and lack insulation (my own house is some 90 years old) and may need extensive additional work in addition to the cost of the heat pump. Moreover, and I suppose this applies to many households, a couple of years ago I have taken advantage of a 0%-finance offer to replace my old boiler, which was some 50 or more years old (and only about 50% efficient by the way), with a modern gas boiler. Do I and presumably other homeowners in a similar situation want to fork out more money to upgrade again now? Probably not.
According to estate agency Rightmove, an air-based heat pump in the UK will set you back some £12’000 including installation. And while government grants to help with the cost are available, they can only be obtained if your home has no outstanding recommendations to fit loft or cavity wall insulation on your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). Obviously these improvements would come at an extra cost. And just the cost of a heat pump is prohibitive: My new gas boiler set me back some £3’500 including installation, a fair chunk less than what a change to this new technology would cost.
In the current climate of high inflation and interest rates I can’t see many homeowners being very keen on spending that kind of money. Since heat pumps run on electricity, as long as the cost of electricity does not rise to four times the cost of gas (based on the assumption that your home is heat efficient), you will be saving money in the long term. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a table which allows me to calculate how many years it takes for the cost of the initial investment to be offset by the savings on electricity. If you do have or know of such a table or tool, please feel free to post it in the comments section.
But I come back to my point at the beginning: Residential heating ranks only fourth as far as greenhouse-gases are concerned, the bigger culprits are the producers of energy, industry and transportation. All these have deep pockets and lobbyists in Westminster and Brussels, which fight their corner, hence why probably the easiest solution – or at least the one with the least resistance – to implement is to get the homeowners to change, and thus bear the cost of achieving climate change targets. And one has to wonder to what extent homeowners installing heat pumps are really reducing greenhouse gases when on the other hand generating the electricity to run these is the primary source of such nefarious emissions?
I can’t help suspecting that once again the remedial action implemented is primarily at the cost and inconvenience of the weakest link, the consumer, who has little lobbying power and is represented by MPs who have lucrative outside earnings besides their parliamentary salaries. Certainly all of us need to do our bit as far as being environmentally friendly is concerned, but shouldn’t the problem be tackled first and foremost where it is the biggest?
The grumpy older man 
I think we have to have a broad knowledge of the science, you know, just in terms of what is harmful. And we have to do what we can, But that’ll be different for everyone. For example I propaply do some things quite wastefully, although in other areas, I’m very low-carbon (I don’t drive and have flown probably 1500 mi in the last 20 years).
As for organised gatherings, do you remember the Paris Accord? At the time, the politicians hailed it as a breakthrough, yet the climate experts were incredibly disappointed. I think from that point, these summits just became a jolly for the oil companies.
This all sounds depressing, but I think we have gone far beyond the point of no return. Our race has one destiny and it ain’t pleasant. I’m fully aware that any efforts I make will just delay the inevitable.
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I agree with you, we all should do our best to mitigate climate change, and I think many of us really do. What bugs me is the politicians‘ stance to impose changes such as costly heat pumps on consumers who don’t have a powerful lobby to represent them, while industry, for example, as bigger polluters have access powerful lobbyists to mitigate their contribution.
And like you rightly say, all or most of the COP gatherings since Paris in 2015 have been mostly a show of awareness of the problem, but ultimately they haven’t really brought as much change as they should and could have.
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I think people *want* to do their best, but they don’t necessarily grasp that it might entail making personal sacrifices, e.g. they might still take that long-haul flight. As human beings, we’re not good at that. Having attained things, we don’t like giving them up. For example, everyone likes their latest iPhone. Despite the mining for some of its components being very iffy.
I have to say, it’s not always clear which choice is the best, either. There are competing views on pretty much everything. I’m very suspicious of this latest generation of plant-based food, for example, because just how much carbon was burned to manufacture it? I think a plant must jump through several hoops in order to eventually become a burger! But the truth is, I don’t know.
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Again, i agree, and then i think an important aspect is the cost. I have noticed this regularly over the past 10 years as a cost management consultant in the U.K. and Switzerland: all my clients want to be environmentally friendly, and for some this is even part of their corporate philosophy… but for many, once they realise that being ecological has its cost, cost savings are more important than ecological policies.
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