It's good to keep an eye on Germany when it comes to climate and (de)industrialisation policy, particularly as the Greens are in power. Well, they seem to be both in power and in opposition these days – see this from Eugyppius.
Germany and the UK are alike in many ways – more than most of us care to acknowledge. As Andrea Wulf argued, the English at least really are German. So it's good to watch what they are up to in energy policy for its parallels and differences.
In another Eugyppius post – about Gebäudeenergiegesetz – the blog argues:
"The international press has maintained near-total silence on the escalating insanity of what is happening in Germany. Media outlets that routinely celebrate German progress towards energy transition don’t want you to know that Europe’s dominant industrial power has entered a deeply destructive political and administrative spiral from which it may never recover. The fault lies with the self-defeating and unworkable energy policies that have a death grip not merely on the Scholz government, but on the entire administrative state. Since completing the nuclear phase-out in the midst of an ongoing energy crisis and avoiding winter catastrophe thanks only to the accident of mild weather, our rulers are now forcing devastating changes to the so-called Gebäudeenergiegesetz, or the Building Energy Act, which regulates energy consumption in residential and commercial structures.
That sounds bland and boring, but it’s not. This latest turning of the screws aims to phase out traditional gas and oil heating, by mandating that all new heating systems installed after 2024 use no less than 65% renewable energy. In most cases, this can only be achieved by installing electric-powered heat pumps. Particularly in the case of many older buildings, the associated renovation costs will prove catastrophic, and unless they’re drastically revised, the rules will simply upset the housing market and destroy a great deal of personal wealth. Nor does the grid have any hope of powering these new heat sources, now or in the future."
Sound familiar? Maybe we stole the idea to immiserate ourselves from them. In the UK, it is oil-fired central heating boilers that are first in the queue to go (2026) with gas-fired ones in 2035. It's slowing dawning on the government and many of its agencies (apart from the zealots who don't care) that most of these are in rural areas. Why? Because there is no gas mains supply. The oil boiler ban is set to be included in the Energy Security Bill, which is due to be announced later this year.
But will it? My money says not a chance – at least not by 2026 with an election in the offing.
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