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Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought

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.

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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.

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- 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.
  
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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.

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- tal@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
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  - tenebrisnox@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Without access to the actua or estimated costs at scale of providing free water, I can’t tell you whether the distribution and processing costs cause scarcity. As I replied to someone else, there’s no issue of scarcity when it comes to buying and upgrading weapons of mass destruction which cost £billions. I’d rather taxpayers’ money spent on free water and energy rather than a bomb that sits in a silo never being used.
    
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- MouldyCat@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  Why “reasonable”?
  
  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.
  
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  - tenebrisnox@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Oh, one of those “real world” arguments where it’s ok for example to spend crazy billions on weapons (especially those of mass destruction) that will fingers crossed never be used but in the “real world” decent water, food, energy is far too much to provide. It’s a question of priorities. Next you’ll be telling me that in the “real world” an NHS is not possible.
    
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    MouldyCat@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    mmm yeah the messy real world in which we live, the one that has no built-in justice or fairness, in fact the only unchanging law is that the strong have dominion over the weak. That real world, yes. It seems you are acquainted with it.
    
    We are not masters of it. We are very much at its mercy just like all the other creatures on the planet. Care and thoughtfulness is needed when attempting to design and implement public systems that deliver justice and fairness and are sustainable over the long-term.
    
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