Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 2 days ago
You can see why they’re making a lot about water scarcity in the media now.
It’s about time we should start pushing back and saying that some things are a basic human right like air, water, food and energy (certainly at a subsistence level) which should be provided without cost.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
I do like the idea of first x number of units are free to all. So essentially that means drinking water at home is free
Eh_I@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No no no, the free water is for the data centers. We get the expensive water with stuff floating in it, along with a high-usage fee for using the water while we’re at home in the evenings when the data centers need it most.
Was any of the water hot, or heated at any point? Tsk tsk tsk, that’s a hot water fee.
MouldyCat@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Making all domestic usage free sounds great but we do have to encourage reasonable water use. (And energy use.)
Getting rid of the standing charge is an important first step IMO. At the moment it effectively means people with low water usage are subsidising those who use lots of water.
I’d like to see pricing that gets more expensive the more you use. So if you only use what you need for your particular household, you pay a very low price per unit, if not entirely free, and the price per unit keeps increasing the more a household uses per person.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
I didn’t say all usage free, I said first x units. So that could be first 20 litres a day or what ever.
MouldyCat@feddit.uk 2 days ago
yes sorry, I didn’t mean to say you did. I was just saying that a practical solution could be to make water and energy cost more the more of it you use. Right now, there is a tendency for the opposite to happen, mainly for companies, where they are offered better prices per unit the more they use.
I also know people who are somewhat cavalier with their own water and energy use, while others who are less well off are scrimping and saving in order to keep bills low. It seems fine to me that the former are charged double per unit (say). It subsidises the usage of less well-off people and at the same time encourages people to be more economical.
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Why “reasonable”? We live on an island surrounded by water on a planet that is two-thirds water. If you want to make water a commodity to make profit then you have to intstil the idea that there’s scarcity of water.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should turn taps on and let them flow but we shouldn’t be charging people for a basic element of human life. At this point in human civilisation we should be working towards ensuring everyone on the planet has a subsistence level of clean air, clean water, energy and food (and, I’d argue, a roof over their head). Not price it “reasonably” so that if by luck of birth you can afford it you can fill the three olympic-sized swimming pools in your back garden while the poor old pensioner on state benefits has to worry about having a shower once a week or not using a heater in winter to make ends meet. I don’t understand why people fret over the idea things should be universally available with no costs at point of use. Always strikes me as being entitled and selfish.
tal@lemmy.today 2 days ago
So, I agree that there is plenty of water available to the UK. But…you can’t just wave away distribution and processing costs, either. Those are real. And it’s in those services that there is scarcity, thst there is cost to bui’ding out capacity.
Most people are after freshwater rather than saltwater, so you’ve either got to desalinate saltwater or draw from freshwater.
And most people care about the location of their water. Like, they want to turn the knob on their tap and have it come out there, not have a bunch of water at the beach.
If you want to go to the beach, you can collect all the saltwater you want, without restriction. And if you transport it home and want to desalinate it, you can run a small electric still yourself (not the most cost-effective way to desalinate at scale, but just to demonstrate that it’s possible at an individual level). More or less, just an electric kettle plus a condenser. They’re on Amazon in the US, and I expect also the UK.
MouldyCat@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Because we live in the real world unfortunately, so compromises are necessary if you want sustainable long-term solutions. Regarding water, desalination has come a long way in the last few years, but extracting drinkable water from the sea is still very energy intensive and it still makes far more sense to collect rain and spring water.
You also mentioned food and energy, and right now these things take human labour to produce and deliver, which ultimately means you’re going to have to pay those workers. The government’s supply of money is limited, and it would not be cheap to nationalise water companies, farms, supermarkets and energy companies in order to allow domestic users free access to those resources.