Star letter - stating the obvious

Last month Mike George illustrated there would be diminishing returns from increasing insulation levels (BSj, 02/05). I wish he had also had time to consider the embodied energy factor (manufacturing and transport emissions): he may have concluded that proposed 2005 legislation will cause an increase in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions.

I would like to see the members of our institution who influence the legislation concentrate on compliance and building audit. My experience is that local authorities do not enforce existing Part L1 and Part L2 of the Building Regulations, let alone the proposed revisions. We need approved inspectors to enforce the legislation by approving plans, and then by inspecting and measuring building U values before handover as part of the CDM certification. But the proposed boiler efficiency changes to SEDBUK Category A (95%), will be far more significant than all these insulation measures.

Perhaps the most significant finding in the article is the folly of penalising electric heating. Not only will the 11% penalty have little effect, but how else will we transport energy to our buildings after the fossil fuel is gone?

Finally an interesting thought: we will certainly have found and burned all economically recoverable fossil fuel during the next century, so the carbon will be eventually converted to CO₂ or CO no matter what insulation level or boiler efficiency we stipulate. Energy conservation will therefore only delay the process, so lets get on with it and go nuclear, solar, wind or tidal as soon as possible.

Ben James FCIBSE, Southampton