[wisconsin_cur]

U.K. gas companies to use regional pricing

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')as companies are to introduce regional pricing - charging some householders up to £100 a year more for using the same amount of energy as those in other parts of Britain, it has been disclosed.

The postcode lottery will be a severe blow for consumers following a series of energy price rises, with the average combined gas and electricity bill forecast to break through the £1,000-a-year mark soon.

Regional gas pricing creates £100 discrepancy
British Gas has indicated it wants to introduce a regional pricing model for its 10m gas customers

The gas companies blame varying regional distribution and infrastructure costs for the discrepancies, but consumer groups say they are simply imposing higher increases in areas where customers are most loyal.

A precedent was set last week by npower, which increased the gas element of energy bills for its 4.1 million customers by an average of 17 per cent.

Within that there were hidden significant regional discrepancies, hitting customers in the Midlands and London hardest. Householders in the capital face a 23 per cent rise, taking their gas bills from £532 a year to £653.

Customers in the East Midlands have suffered the same increase, compared to an increase of 14 per cent for npower's Scottish customers.

This means a customer in London or the East Midlands will pay £43 more for gas than in the cheapest areas.

Npower says the price differences reflect the varying costs involved in piping gas to different parts of the country and says its rivals will be forced to follow suit.

But campaigners believe regional pricing would effectively "penalise" those living far away from a coastal gas terminal or in an area with old Victorian pipes.

People in Scotland will emerge as the winners from any regional scheme as they live closest to the major pipeline that comes in from the North Sea at St Fergus.

[IslandCrow]

This gives some incentive for communities to work on localized solutions. For example if local customers would get a discount on electricity they would be more willing to see windmills in their area.

It is also an incentive to get more independent using such things as solar panels, small wind mills, heat exchange pumps or if you are in the right area wood stoves, as well as getting more serious about conservation.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '[')url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=D1KAHT1YO2OM5QFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/01/08/ngas108.xml]U.K. gas companies to use regional pricing[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')as companies are to introduce regional pricing - charging some householders up to £100 a year more for using the same amount of energy as those in other parts of Britain, it has been disclosed.

The postcode lottery will be a severe blow for consumers following a series of energy price rises, with the average combined gas and electricity bill forecast to break through the £1,000-a-year mark soon.

Regional gas pricing creates £100 discrepancy
British Gas has indicated it wants to introduce a regional pricing model for its 10m gas customers

The gas companies blame varying regional distribution and infrastructure costs for the discrepancies, but consumer groups say they are simply imposing higher increases in areas where customers are most loyal.

A precedent was set last week by npower, which increased the gas element of energy bills for its 4.1 million customers by an average of 17 per cent.

Within that there were hidden significant regional discrepancies, hitting customers in the Midlands and London hardest. Householders in the capital face a 23 per cent rise, taking their gas bills from £532 a year to £653.

Customers in the East Midlands have suffered the same increase, compared to an increase of 14 per cent for npower's Scottish customers.

This means a customer in London or the East Midlands will pay £43 more for gas than in the cheapest areas.

Npower says the price differences reflect the varying costs involved in piping gas to different parts of the country and says its rivals will be forced to follow suit.

But campaigners believe regional pricing would effectively "penalise" those living far away from a coastal gas terminal or in an area with old Victorian pipes.

People in Scotland will emerge as the winners from any regional scheme as they live closest to the major pipeline that comes in from the North Sea at St Fergus.

[wisconsin_cur]

I understand the point but there were savings that the companies realized when they built large plants instead of multiple small ones closer to where people live. They have born the profits of centralization, shouldn't they also bear some of the cost?

Also there is something to be said for making the people who live in out lying areas like fellow and equal citizens. People who percieved themselves oppressed find ways to undermine the system, if not rebel. If we are one people than we should share some of the benefits of prosperity.

[Twilight]

The article says we already have a regional pricing model for electricity, and petrol and diesel prices vary considerably depending on the remoteness of the area. People's water rates can also vary depending on what network improvements the regulator has approved. I don't see how this is any different.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'N')ot to seem cruel or unfair but there is a cost associated with serving more distant customer in terms of maintenance and outright capital sunk costs just to do business with them. I don't know what a fair sliding scale would be, but certainly for electricity they could be justified in charging for a portion of line losses involved in transporting the power from the next customer closer to the power plant. If you used a sliding scale like that who could object, the nominal cost to the customer would be small and the benefit to the producer substantial.

[wisconsin_cur]

I think you are probably right. yet another reason one does not need to believe in a fast crash to conclude that investing in hand operated tools (grain mill, cream seperator etc) is a good idea.

[LoneSnark]

Only if you believe that at some point electricity cannot be had at any price, which is rediculous. The rural areas are already wired up and since cities are still utterly dependent upon resources from rural areas (more-so with expensive energy) then rich rural farmers would easily outbid even the urban middle-class for power.

And that is before I bother pointing out that electricity does not come from oil.

[wisconsin_cur]

We now depend upon natural gas as a swing producer of electricty. This website may not be called "Peak Natural Gas" but the same principles apply.

It is my understanding that gas wells have a much more steep decline rate than oil wells.

It is also a problem of the end of economic growth and even economic retraction due to a decrease in the availabilty of energy in all its forms. All of the systems we depend upon are highly networked. For a primer I would refer you to The Oil Drum.

Electricity does not have to be "unavailable at any price" in order to price me and my neighbors out of the market. You forget snarky that we are backward folk and have not adapted as well as you and your BMW driving, "don't have savings because you put more money in the stock market" friends. If enough people become "freeloaders" cutting their usage to the minimum because of high price and there is a lower density we can be cut off. Just like some people (not the BMW class I understand but please try to comprehend the plight of others) have found themselves canceled by their health or home insurance company because they cost too much.

If it were to come to rationing, would it be deemed in the nation's interests to keep the factory's running (keep people employed), keep the city mice from protesting (give them affordable electric) or keep the juice flowing into less densely populated areas? You may deny that there is a choice to be made, currently a choice does not need to be made, but a future of scarcity will be about making choices and I fully expect that I and mine will not be a priority for those who are "the deciders."

If I am cut off from those wonderful copper wires, I fully expect you to support their decision based upon a free-market approach.

As I think you would agree the rural areas are seen as a source of resources and the people degraded for not flocking to the cities or building industrial parks. I don't know that we need to have electricity in order to get our resources for their use in the city. We have only had it for about 60 years now so somehow I think that the powers that be would be more than happy to send in the trucks to take our produce away to keep the population centers

In an age of scarcity few will bat an eye at paying an exploitive price or leaving us without electricity.

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e now depend upon natural gas as a swing producer of electricty.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem here is simple. You enjoy this type of discussion, but you lack the historical understanding of how our complex systems operate and the imagination to figure out how they might operate in the future. Or is it more sinister than that? You enjoy your imagined urban/rural conflict so much you pray for something to make it actually happen?

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hy is it that during famines rural individuals flock to urban areas?

[Twilight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LoneSnark', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e now depend upon natural gas as a swing producer of electricty.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') am the rational to your extremism. In my opinion cities are not evil, neither are they benevolent, they are made up of many individuals all with different goals and desires.

[Tyler_JC]

OK, now I understand where you are coming from.

Why do you believe that people in low density areas are entitled to the same services at the same prices as people in high density areas?

It is significantly more expensive to provide services like electricity, mail service, natural gas, water, etc. to people in low density settlements than people in high density cities.

As for downstaters not getting their "fair share" of state funding, are they paying as much in state taxes?

Generally speaking, the red staters who complain about big government end up getting more in federal services than they pay in federal taxes.

I'd imagine that city folks in Chicago pay more in state taxes than they recieve in state services.

[LoneSnark]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ot true in the UK. Pumped storage is used for such purposes, but natural gas makes up 40% of installed capacity

[Twilight]

It is easy to say the mines will re-open, harder to do it. It took generations to build up the workforce, and when the industry shut, the pit towns descended into poverty, substance abuse, ill-health, welfare dependence and eventual depopulation. Existing demographics don't favour it. I don't envy the job of the people who would have to sell that career to soft and idle city boys. Even the unemployed have expectations these days. Maybe they could repeat this? And as a minimum they would have to pay top dollar rehiring all the experts they brain-drained to the rest of the world. The people to whom I have spoken who were in that line of work, they aren't optimistic about a coal renaissance here. It is not just the obvious questions of skills and economics, there is a lot of social change required which right now presents an insurmountable obstacle.

[LoneSnark]

You are right, once things change it takes a lot to put them back. But the good news is that it does not take nearly as many people to mine today compared to 20 years ago. Plus, the natural gas is not going to run out all at once but over a few decades, plenty of time for schools to expand the graduation of mining engineers.

[wisconsin_cur]

Snark, my last posts was too shrill. It goes to prove that one should not post when awake for 36 hours. You want to know, at least I think you want to know, the source of my outrage, an outrage that is not mine alone mind you.

Do you know where your urban garbage is interned? The rural county that takes it knows where it comes from.

Do you know who is hurt when the cost of milk goes down? The owner of a 40 head dairy knows why has to take an off-farm job or has to tell his son they cannot afford to buy the football equipment that the school no longer pays for.

When we had a big fight within the local government about small farmers using manure on their fields, do you know what kind of cars the newcomers who brought the complaint were driving? They aren't the kind you can buy around here.

I talked to the former school superintendent a couple of weeks back. Six times a year he had to drive out and explain to very angry mothers and fathers why the school bus was not going to drive down their quarter mile drive to their McMansion (the buses can only go on county roads, something to do with their insurance).

if your daily life is regularly complicated by urban exports (people, fashions, sub-prime mortgages -> our kids got talked into them too, trash) on grows angry, even a little bitter.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')es, democracy sucks most of the time; but the state of Illinois does not own you, so it cannot sell you. Yes, Illinois will tax you and give you almost nothing back; but it is not giving back all it took from the people of Chicago, either. Chicago denizens are poorer than they would be if Illinois refrained from building tea-cup museums, targeting subsidies, and taking junkets to someplace warm. This is the nature of the beast and both you and the people of Chicago are being ripped off. Some more than others, sure, but I have never known a government that created value.

[LoneSnark]

I believe your love of place is misplaced. You seem to live surrounded by an odd confluence of misfortune. I have lived many places and no where could ever be described in anywhere near the negativism you have just described your home.

From what you have said your home seems to be a lost cause. Your state is not going to pass a new constitution anytime soon along more republican lines (more localized control), and it would not do any good even if it did thanks to carpet-baggers inhabiting your area.

But your home is not the whole world. Other states are more county orientated and far enough away to not suffer all the problems you have. So, to reiterate, by not move to Indiana or Wisconsin beyond the political reach of Chicago? Yes, you will always be paying taxes to supra-governments (state and federal) which give nothing back, but at least when it comes time to manage the schools or build a road the debate will be among like-minded individuals.