08-29-2010, 01:45 PM
MasonJar Wrote:Don, Rob,
Re: increases. What Don describes is exactly what happened to the water rate here in Ottawa. For years they kept telling us to cut back on water and save. Now the revenue has dropped to the point that they have to increase the rate to support all the costs. So we conserved to the point that we got higher prices.
Andrew
Nobody does any "systems" thinking or analysis any more. This is what you get when you don't consider the problems with fiddling with interdependent effects in systems...you get the 'quick fix that backfires' and other unintended consequences. We are in the throes of having water meters imposed on us in the Comox/Courtenay area on Vancouver Island so that we can control use. What anyone with any brains understands will happen is that use will indeed drop, but so will the revenue to keep up the salaries and recapitalization for the water distribution infrastructure in the valley. So, rates will have to rise because revenue falls when people get the feedback from their monthly utility bills and usage figures. Is basic psychology and economics so hard to understand?
About my own power usage related to trains; the ten 50 watt mini-halogens I have mounted in twin tracks above the layout use 20 times more power at any one point in time than do the one or two engines I have pulling up the grades. The math is simple: one engine requires about 25 watts, give or take, and the lights illuminating it need 500!
-Crandell