Manditory Laundromat Blog

It seems that I always have something to blog about after a trip to the laundromat.  That's JUST how exciting my life is.

I was the only one in the laundromat tonight as it was about to close, so I was making small talk with the owner.  Things were fine, just folding up the last of my laundry and talking about the weather and such.  And then I made a critical error - I had noticed a Hydro One smart meter flyer taped to the change machine, so I asked the owner if Smart Meters were going to affect his business.

*sigh* Small business owners are typically very opinionated people, and I sure did get an earful!  Not that his opinions were off-base or anything, just that I felt a little trapped and all I wanted to do was go home.

"Smart Meters" of course are those delightful little things that Hydro One is going to start turning on over the next few months to 'help us all conserve more energy'.  You know, that energy that we've got a larger surplus of now than we have ever had before because 75% of our energy-sucking factories have closed down or moved to Mexico.  Yeah, apparently we need to conserve that energy, so Hydro is helping us do this by implementing a timed system of peak and off-demand periods so that the price you pay for your power will be based on what time of day you consume energy.  For example, doing laundry at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon will cost you 8.8 cents/kilowatt hour but doing your laundry at 4am will only cost you 4.4 cents/kilowatt hour.

See what the laundromat dude did to me?? He got me all annoyed about Smart Meters.  And, oooh!  Don't even get me started about wind turbines or debt retirement charges!  And all I really wanted to know was if the cost of drying my clothes was going to increase.

I'm all for environmental stewardship and energy conservation and reducing greenhouse emissions and all that jazz, but the fact is, the power is being produced whether we're using it or not.  And way more of it is being produced than we're using.  In the world of economics, when supply outnumbers demand, the price falls, not the other way around!

Smart meters are not going to change the average joe's power consuming habits because the average joe simply is not going to go out of his way to do laundry at 4am!  Smart meters are however going to make somebody a buttload of money even though the demand does not justify the cost.  Talk about a case of wolves dressed in sheeps' clothing - there are a bunch of sly, shifty muckity-mucks out there disgusing their money making schemes as 'energy conservation' and 'going green', and it is wrong.  Way, way, way wrong.

Jeez.  I think I'll just go pitch a tent in the woods.