Red Ed Strikes Again: In Britain, Your Tumble Dryer Is Now a Climate Criminal

The United Kingdom's Labour Party Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, is a real piece of... work. Ever since (and before, for that matter) he was installed in this current role, he has been a climate catastrophe true believer, and has proposed (stupid and expensive) policies to that effect. Now, in his latest peccadillo, the guy who I am reliably informed is known as "Red Ed" in Britain is now coming after British householders' traditional clothes dryers, in the name of Net Zero.

The sale of traditional tumble dryers is to be stamped out in a net-zero drive that will push consumers toward more expensive machines that take longer to dry clothes.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is introducing new laws that will phase out the sale of condenser tumble dryers and promote heat-pump alternatives to help cut carbon emissions.
The move, condemned as a “mad” form of “Soviet control” by the Tories and Reform, will align Britain more closely with the European Union which has already implemented similar rules.

I have a funny feeling that there are a great number of British folks out there who will object to Ed Miliband messing with their laundry day. And these things, aside from being expensive, don't seem to work very well. But the Energy Secretary wants them replaced with the new "heat-pump" devices, no matter what anyone thinks.

Here's how that would work:

Traditional dryers use a heating element to warm air, which passes through your clothes and removes moisture. That moisture is then condensed into water and collected in a reservoir, before being drained away.
A heat-pump dryer uses a closed-loop system that recycles warm air and runs at a lower temperature – around 50°C instead of the standard 70-75°C.
Heat-pump dryers cost £40 more to buy on average than traditional dryers, with premium heat-pump machines costing as much as £1,650.
They can take as much as half an hour longer to dry clothes, with users on consumer forums complaining that they are spending far longer drying multiple loads for their families.

Look, these are choices people should make for themselves, according to their residential and financial situations. Oh, there can be little doubt that this gap will result in calls for subsidies, which Britain can't afford. But then, British homeowners, or many of them, can't afford an expensive new heat-pump clothes dryer, or a heat-pump home heating system, or a new electric vehicle, either.

The proponents of Net Zero don't seem to care too much about what people can and can't afford, though.

Hypocritical UK Energy Guru Ed Miliband Jets to COP30 - Twice

The proper answer to this lies in the people of once-Great Britain telling Ed Miliband to "p**s off," or whatever the British equivalent of "get lost" is. But as long as the Labour Party is running the show, you can confidently expect more of this kind of lunacy.

Here's the fun thing about clothes dryers: Here in our Susitna Valley homestead, we have a lovely and efficient solar and wind-powered clothes dryer. It works perfectly well, the clothes come out dry with a lovely smell and feel to them, and it uses no electricity at all. The problem is, it only works in the summertime. Why? This cutting-edge technology is called a "clothesline," and these things are inexplicably banned in many suburban communities, such as the Denver suburb where we lived for 30 years. Can anyone explain that, in the face of these cries for Net Zero?

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