I'm no climate change sceptic, but the revelation that the Scottish Government is about to spend £11.2 million on bringing a Victorian building in Edinburgh worth £4.75m up to modern standards of insulation beggars belief.
It follows a pattern because two years ago it was revealed that a pilot scheme to retrofit the Victorian Crown Office in Elgin would cost £3.5 million, when the building was only worth £275,000. Based on the likely energy cost savings from moving over to the eco-friendly heat pump system, it was calculated the project would take over 900 years to pay for itself.
Maybe some lessons have been learnt from the Elgin experiment as the Edinburgh building in question is the Crown Office headquarters on Chamber Street, but I suspect the final cost will be considerably more than the figure currently being quoted.
But I'd have thought the lesson from Elgin is not to bother at all; either move to a better office or accept that old buildings are not worth the cost of refurbishing to the highest environmental standards.
To proceed at that cost would show just how far out of touch with reality the SNP-Green coalition's plans for forcing every homeowner to bring their property up to new requirements really were.
The Heat in Buildings Bill promised to saddle owners with the cost of installing modern insultation and electric heating, without which the properties themselves would be unsellable, and in a place like Edinburgh with hundreds of old tenement blocks it would have crashed the property market.
I have wondered if that wasn't an outcome the Green Party were hoping for, but the SNP sensed danger and the Bill became a casualty of the collapse of the Bute House agreement and was shelved last month.
In fairness, the acting net zero Secretary Gillian Martin recognised that the Bill as drafted by the Greens would make people poorer, but the legalisation has only paused for adjustments and when it comes back will apparently still have a target for decarbonising heating systems within the next 20 years.
It is expected to set minimum energy efficiency standards for both homes and workplaces and could also include requirements for public buildings to be linked to hideously expensive district heating networks.
The Scottish Government has schemes which are supposed to help people afford a switch to heat pumps and such like, but they are hard to navigate and although grants of up to £7,500 are available, that doesn't come close to covering the cost of converting an average family home.
And even the system of processing interest-free loans is ridiculously bureaucratic as one of my constituents has just found out. Over four months ago they applied to Home Energy Scotland for a loan to replace a door, hoping to get it sorted before the coldest months.
Despite a 10-day processing target and professional advice that the house would benefit from it, they are still waiting. Something to do with the system used to produce the energy performance certificate (EPC) on which their application is based.
Now their case has been passed to the Scottish Government as an appeal. And this is for a loan for a new door. Net Zero by 2045? They are having a laugh.
