Gas Boiler Ban by 2025: Realistic or Unrealistic?

This week there was a lot of noise regarding a recommendation  banning the sale of Gas fired boilers worldwide by 2025.

To quote my mate Charlie Mullins: “I’m all for saving the planet but energy experts must remove their heads from their arses and be realistic on boiler bans”

It’s halfway through 2021, so they only have three-and-a-half years to get this done. If it’s going to happen, someone needs to get their skates on a bit rapid.

I know something must be done, as the planet will one day run out of fossil fuels, which I’ve mentioned before in a previous article, but it won’t be any time soon. We have many years to carry out the transition.

The recommendation came from an organisation called the International Energy Authority, which, as the name suggests, is a group of countries who put forward their top scientists and the like to make suggestions about how to save the planet.

It’s what I like to call “Doing what Greta would want”.

They are the kind of people who know the viscosity of the jam in the jar, but haven’t a clue how to get the lid off. They don’t go out and deal with the end user like we do. Put simply, they have no idea how to implement this.

I would imagine 98% of them don’t even know what a gas boiler even looks like.

Now I have no doubt that they are very clever people, but this call for a complete ban is a miss, and here’s why:

To begin with, how are we all going to keep warm in our homes? It’s all good going green and using renewable energy, but if your combi packs up in December, you want that sorted absolutely as soon as possible so you can be warm again.

Second, if the sale of gas boilers was banned as of 1 January 2025, could you imagine the rush to buy up boilers? The manufacturers had better start working 24 hours a day to make enough boilers. I’d be buying up every boiler I could!

Third, unless forced to have it, end-users largely just do not care. One thing rules their decision when it comes to heating their home and that is money. They simply will not pay for anything that involves major hassle to them.

There will however be a huge market in keeping existing boilers operational at all costs, which would be rather nice for us working on boilers every day.

And finally,  there isn’t currently a truly viable alternative.

The country doesn’t yet have, and certainly will not have, the required infrastructure nor the required army of qualified installers ready to make this happen; whether it be hydrogen or renewables.

I’ll leave you with this thought: All these ideas are great in principle, but that is all they are for now.