Anyone hear the item about boiler scrappage on the 'Today' Programme at about 8.40 this morning?
Adam Shaw was reporting, and interviewing a bloke called Frazer Winterbottom from the Energy Saving Trust. The interviewee was extolling the virtues of the scheme but couldn't answer *any* of the pertinent questions, like:
- How long will it take to recover the 'embedded' carbon from the manufacturing process? "That is a valid question. I'm sure that someone has looked at that, but I don't have the figures"
More likely that he *did* know the answer, but didn't want to give it because it wouldn't have helped the case!
- How long will it take a householder to recover the installation cost from fuel savings? "It may take quite a while, but boilers can last for a long time - there are boilers out there which are 15 or 25 years old"
There *are* a lot of old boilers out there, still going strong (mine's old enough to vote!) but I doubt very much whether many of the modern 'high tech' boilers will last that long.
When asked how long the scheme would run for, all he could say is that they have enough money for 125,000 vouchers. It shouldn't have been rocket science for him to have said how long that would last at the current take-up rate. I guess that it will last for an embarrassingly long time because he did admit that after an initial surge, applications were coming in at a 'steady' rate with 'some' vouchers being issued every day.
I have to admit that I've been somewhat sceptical about the scheme from the outset, and this interview did nothing to alter my view!