News just in...... MP's are morons!

I agree with the basic principle but they have gone about it all in the wrong manner. What they need to do is completely alter the pricing system. Rather than energy getting cheaper the more you use it should be the other way around. So for low users it is actually cheaper than now. For Average users it is slightly more expensive less than 1% for heavier users it starts to get more expensive. basically the price increases the more you use not get cheaper. So for low usage the price is regulated and for larger usage the price per unit actually increases so no economies of wastage. Each year the usage allowance drops 0.5%. Over time this will cut domestic usage but at a rate that consumers can adjust to.

Isn't that what's being suggested?

I read about somewhere with a similar scheme already, but I'm damned if I can remember where

Yes but having a ration slip like during the war and post war period is bureaucratic. Simply mandate the minimum prices for each level, and let the energy companies do the work.

You will need some form of "Rationing slip" as a family will need more energy than a single person so each person would get a ration. Otherwise you would excessivly penalise families

Not necessarily. Use a family of four as the basic unit. So if a average family used 1000 KWhrs then the rates for usage above that would be 10% higher. For usage twice that the rates would be still higher. If a single person was in a huge house they would have been penalised under a voucher system, but if they used more than a family they pay more. So for the first 1000 KWhrs energy is charged at 5p a unit at 20 higher usage it is charged at 10p per unit. And so on. Businesses would pay more but they can claim any investments to reduce usage against tax.

For it to work, it has to be applied to the entire world. If it was just Europe for example, then it would push industries even more into Asia.

The stats are quite interesting, and not what you might expect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita

I find the values frighteningly high. Here's a selection:

Qatar: 28495.1 Watts
USA: 10381.2 Watts
UK: 5218.2 Watts

Turkey: 1472.6 Watts
Bangladesh: 214.4 Watts

The median is about 2000 Watts, which would seem a fair cut-off point to only penalise countries with excessive consumption.

I like the idea of everyone having to cope with 2000 W per year. It would mean that those wasteful would get huge bills. Those who keep within the limits would find their electricity costs regulated with any increases being passed on those that use a lot.

Without looking I would guess that would be because of desalinisation. I think even air-con or heating running concurrently would be hard pressed to reach that figure.

Also because large parts of the admittedly small country have super-expensive, sup-luxurious hotels on them that must burn power like it's going out of fashion.

Plus they have (or plan to have) half a dozen fully air conditioned football stadiums by 2022. That may up the figure a smidgeon or two.

Jon

I would imagine that it will go up considerably after the stadiums are built.

According to Wiki, most of the power used in Qatar is down to air-con and desalination. It's made worse because water and electric are unmetered!!! so penalising heavy users would definitely cause civil war.

NB - that 2000W is an average figure. Watts is a unit of power, not energy. It's the equivalent of 1500Kg of oil per year, or very roughly 40 litres of petrol per week.

Er.... that's what I put in my car anyway, regardless of all the energy I use in lighting, heating, powering gadgets etc.

Jon

The average UK citizen uses 2.5x the world average amount of fuel. I imagine a lot of people on here would fall into that category.

Needless to say, the Yanks use 5x the average. That one country uses 25% of the planet's fossil fuels, despite only having 5% of the planet's population.

It's really not fair though, is it? It's like crashing a party, eating and drinking everything in sight and leaving half the people there to die. We're like a plague of locusts, and in just a couple of generations we will probably destroy everything we associate with "civilisation".

In effect, filling your car up is genocide.