Post Carbon London (Ontario)

I was quite saddened but not surprised to hear the reason why Toronto Hydro has requested a rate increase. I heard this on CBC radio news and just had to check into it further. Sure enough I heard it correctly. When I visited Toronto Hydro's website they state it in black & white. The following is copied directly off their press release:

"The increase is to recover costs for lost revenue and utility incentives due to very successful conservation programs in 2005 and 2006" http://www.torontohydro.com

So because people have done well at conserving they will have to pay more.
While I applaud Toronto Hydro's honesty I am not surprised by this news. It is the reason why I think the grid is in serious trouble in the event of peak oil. When poor economic times descend upon us and there is less demand for electricity and more people are unable to pay their bills then the price that the remaining people have to pay must go up. This is a positive reinforcing feedback loop that can lead to a much weaker grid. When we take this to it's logical conclusion, it means that we will be unable to support the massive infrastructure and vast complex systems that this centralized grid requires.

I still believe that it is very important to try to conserve electricity but it is scary to see how the important systems our complex society requires are so interconnected and vulnerable.

These nasty financial feedback loops will start to show up more and more. The Toronto Star (Sat Mar31,2007-SecF7) has a story about a man in Guelph who invested $160K to build a windmill only to see his municipal taxes reassessed upwards thereby removing the financial benefit he hoped for. Again, when economic troubles begin, those that can afford to pay municipal property taxes will have to pay more to make up for revenue the city loses from those who cannot/will not pay.

Our systems seem to be built for only a positive growth situation. Zero growth or pray-tell negative growth introduces these nasty economic feedback loops that will bring things down. Including the lights. Those storms last summer in Ontario that left thousand without power for weeks shows how vulnerable we are. How long would they take to get power restored if we were in serious economic trouble instead of the boom times were riding on the "Peak".

I'm starting to see some serious storm clouds on the horizon.