Ban on gas cookers and boilers by 2050 to hit green targets

USING gas for heating and cooking should be banned by 2050, the Government said yesterday.

It will be phased out over the next 30 years and replaced by low-carbon alternatives, ministers pledged.

The war on gas was announced in the Clean Growth Strategy – £2.5billion of spending pledges to modernise the use of fuel in homes, businesses and transport.

The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy report is a response to a legally-binding commitment to cut greenhouse gas levels by 80 per cent by 2050.

To do this the UK must stop using carbon-rich fossil fuels – gas, oil and coal.

The measures follow a pledge in July to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.

The report said we will need to ‘fully decarbonise how we heat our homes’. But it is not certain which approaches will be the most cost-effective.

From 2025, new homes in rural areas will have to be built with low carbon alternatives to gas such as heat pumps.

These use buried pipes to extract heat from the ground and are particularly suited to underfloor heating systems.

Another possibility is converting appliances to run on hydrogen or on biogas, which is made from fermenting plant matter or manure.

These methods would initially be costly but save money in the long run while cutting harmful emissions.

The report marks the end of the ‘dash for gas’ in the 1980s, when North Sea gas was used to replace coal. It details spending on smart energy stor- age, renewable energy projects and research into new nuclear technology and improved wind turbine design.

The sums include £100million for carbon capture and storage, an unproven technique that involves sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in empty gas fields under the North Sea.

New forests will be created, with 11million trees planted to allow an increase in the use of timber in construction.

Energy Secretary Greg Clark said the moves would ‘ensure Britain continues to lead the world in efforts to tackle climate change’.

He added: ‘The world is moving from being powered by polluting fossil fuels to clean energy. It’s as big a change as the move from the age of steam to the age of oil and Britain is showing the way.’

The strategy should help the UK get back on track to meet emissions targets for the 2020s. Jim Watson, director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said moving away from natural gas was ‘realistic’ although which technology will work best is not clear.

STAMP duty could be slashed on energy- efficient homes to encourage owners and buyers to fit insulation, Energy minister Claire Perry said yesterday.

She told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘That would be one of the incentives. We also need to look at building regulations.’

Homes with extra insulation would be likely to attract a higher selling price as running costs would be lower, she said.

‘UK is showing the way’