Only three sustainable homes built in UK so far

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/only-three-sustainable-homes-built-in-uk-so-far-774647.html

Only three sustainable homes built in UK so far

By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Sunday, 27 January 2008

The Prime Minister made the plan for 100,000 sustainable homes a key element of his pitch for the Labour Party leadership last summer. But individuals have failed to match the Government's enthusiasm for cutting household emissions.

Only three households have taken advantage of a tax-break for all new zero-carbon homes, the Treasury revealed last week.

The Treasury minister, Jane Kennedy, said the Government expects the number of applications to increase "as more properties eligible to claim the relief go on the market".

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. And, slightly laughably, the government thinks it wil get every new home to be 'zero carbon' by 2016

At the moment around 160,000 new homes are being built a year - a number the government plans to increase to 240,000 a year by 2016.

Government policy now states that all new homes will be zero-carbon by 2016. But can so many new houses really be as cosy as they sound for the environment?

Before we can work out how helpful the policy is, it's important to see exactly what it means. Zero-carbon is not to be confused with "carbon neutral", which is to do with offsetting the impact of emissions by other - arguably less useful - actions, such as planting trees, rather than blitzing the source of the carbon.

Instead, over a year, the house needs to have zero "net emissions" of carbon dioxide from all energy use - including hot water, cooking, and the powering of TVs, computers and other appliances - in the home. How does it work?
...
As it's not possible to produce absolutely no carbon, the house would "give something back", perhaps excess energy produced through microgeneration such as solar panels may be stored up over the year, and then sold back to the National Grid. It's not strictly true, however, to say that every single house would be zero-carbon; generally, a development or community would be carbon-zero overall, perhaps sharing renewable energy sources such as wind turbines.


http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/environment/factcheck+zerocarbon+homes/790147

So they think they can go from 3 houses (in 2 months) to 240,000 houses a year, in just 8 years? Hah. It's spin. They'll back down from the requirement when no-one is looking.