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Water water everywhere

Sorry - this was a serious thread wasn't it?

Water companies grip my innards with fury. They tried to take a mate of mine to court for non - payment- he has a small holding, water source is a stream and sewerage is a tank. Twats are using powers granted to a national resource utility when they are a private firm. Wankers.
 
foggypane said:
Sorry - this was a serious thread wasn't it?
.
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It was, unfortunately when unable to face a harsh reality, in a situation one cannot control, one often resorts to levity as a defence mechanism.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
What was their rationale for charging him with non-payment if he used a stream and a septic tank?
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Some crap about 'all the water belongs to us' on the one hand and 'the run-off ends up in our sewers' on the other.

He is loaded and will fight it all the way.

toby - eh?

I was trying to be amusifying.
 
That's interesting. The most efficient way I know of to use water is to stop having any unnecessary dealings with inefficient and primitive capitalist water company and build local infrastructure on rational ecological principles. Wet parks, source separating toilets and the like. I was aware of this sort of issue in South America, but I didn't realise water companies here were trying to insist on being paid for services people provide for themselves. Assuming he really isn't using any of their services.
 
tobyjug said:
Dont argue with me argue with the man who gave the 2005 Royal Institution Christmas lectures. (They should be referenced on the Royal Institution website by now) Water supply is already under stress and at capacity over many areas of Britain now, let alone by 2050.
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So what's the problem with desalination plants being put to good use apart from the financial cost to those who would dare claim to own our global water supplies?

This is beyond me :confused:
 
Bernie Gunther said:
That's interesting. The most efficient way I know of to use water is to stop having any unnecessary dealings with inefficient and primitive capitalist water company and build local infrastructure on rational ecological principles. Wet parks, source separating toilets and the like. I was aware of this sort of issue in South America, but I didn't realise water companies here were trying to insist on being paid for services people provide for themselves. Assuming he really isn't using any of their services.
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No, I've been to his gaff and had the grand tour. The water company really are just arseholes. My (unsold and empty) house in the Midlands is causing me similar grief - they INSIST that I pay sewerage as the rain off the roof is going down their drains. I had a godalmighty row with them before they grudgingly waived the supply portion of the bill for the unoccupied time. Twats.

I mean, if you drive past Tesco the manager doesn't come running after you with a bill for all the cheese you didn't buy, does he?
 
tobyjug said:
It was, unfortunately when unable to face a harsh reality, in a situation one cannot control, one often resorts to levity as a defence mechanism.
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Fuck that! Of course you can control it. There's plenty you can do toby. You of all people know that.
All that's lacking is a will. There's fucking loads of the stuff... It's just a matter of harvesting it.

Life will find a way...


If it doesn't, fuck ye all, I'm up here in aqua heaven. :D
 
How many litres of water per person do we really need and how much do we currently use?

Could we use composting toilets and the rest of the alternative technology in cities or would we all have to "return to the land" before introducing stuff like that?
 
Dilzybhoy said:
Fuck that! Of course you can control it. There's plenty you can do toby. You of all people know that.
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The main factor is getting the population down to sustainable levels.
 
foggypane said:
No, I've been to his gaff and had the grand tour. The water company really are just arseholes. My (unsold and empty) house in the Midlands is causing me similar grief - they INSIST that I pay sewerage as the rain off the roof is going down their drains. I had a godalmighty row with them before they grudgingly waived the supply portion of the bill for the unoccupied time. Twats.

I mean, if you drive past Tesco the manager doesn't come running after you with a bill for all the cheese you didn't buy, does he?
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You're certainly right there, Foggy. I can't imagine what the fuck they were thinking of privatizing something so essential to life as water.
The private water companies make something like 30 percent profit, as opposed to the roughly 6 percent made by continental municipal waterworks. It's a fucking racket!
They charge for effluent (WW) and rain runoff (SW) processing, even though a lot of older houses actually discharge rainwater from their roofs into so-called soakaways, which allow the water to permeate into the ground instead of into surface-water sewers. They also have an average transport loss (i.e. lost on the way to the consumer) of something in the region of 35 percent because they're so intent on making profits that they don't attend to the upkeep of the pipelines. That's why they make it so difficult for people to install water-meters.
There's also something inherently unfair in the fact that a little old widow of 75, living on her jack has to pay the same water bill as the family of six next door.
And to top it all, people at Severn Trent Water complain bitterly on their intranet that they're not allowed to cut the supply of consumers who don't pay their bills.
The mind fucking boggles!!!

MsG
 
tobyjug said:
Nice to know at least one other person here keeps up to speed on the issue.
As for a cure to the problem, get the population down to the long term sustainably supportable level. In the case of Britain 22 million. There is a figure for every other country Google on:- Optimum Population Trust.
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Why not just build desalination plants? Energy won't be a problem. Soon we'll be in a hydrogen economy and there'll be new nuclear plants popping up everywhere. I don't think you need to worry.

And the only way population will go down to 22 million is a nuclear holocaust.. sounds like your 'optimum population' is a load of crap. Any 'optimum' is determined by what technology you have. The optimum is always changing.

There was not the same 'optimum' in Middle Ages England as in 21st century America.. which doesn't have the same optimum as current day Africa. Who knows, by 2050 the optimum could be 15 billion people.
 
MatthewEdwards said:
What is the average cost of a desalination plant?
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Depends how big they are and how many you build. The more you invest the cheaper it gets. Which proves why these predictions and 'optimum this' stuff is a load of crap.
 
bugsy7 said:
You're certainly right there, Foggy. I can't imagine what the fuck they were thinking of privatizing something so essential to life as water.
The private water companies make something like 30 percent profit, as opposed to the roughly 6 percent made by continental municipal waterworks. It's a fucking racket!
They charge for effluent (WW) and rain runoff (SW) processing, even though a lot of older houses actually discharge rainwater from their roofs into so-called soakaways, which allow the water to permeate into the ground instead of into surface-water sewers. They also have an average transport loss (i.e. lost on the way to the consumer) of something in the region of 35 percent because they're so intent on making profits that they don't attend to the upkeep of the pipelines. That's why they make it so difficult for people to install water-meters.
There's also something inherently unfair in the fact that a little old widow of 75, living on her jack has to pay the same water bill as the family of six next door.
And to top it all, people at Severn Trent Water complain bitterly on their intranet that they're not allowed to cut the supply of consumers who don't pay their bills.
The mind fucking boggles!!!

MsG
Click to expand...

I always thought water was the prize turd amongst the gala of turds that was privatisation.

Not too sure about metering though - fine if you can change to and from metering, but a water meter is something that works against health and hygiene for poor people.

I remember as a kid using the same bath-water (admittedly for economy on heating it) as the rest of the family, all taking turns and topping up with a kettle-full of boiling. I'd like to think that sort of crap was in the past for everyone, along with beans on toast ten times a week and ice on the inside of the windows in the winter.

Wouldn't it be better if,with water being so essential, it was available on demand and at a negligible cost to domestic users, and clean, reliable and good to drink too?

PS my mind boggles nearly every day. :)
 
kasheem said:
And the only way population will go down to 22 million is a nuclear holocaust.. sounds like your 'optimum population' is a load of crap.
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I am afraid crap it is not. When the time comes that no imports of energy or chemicals is possible, Britain can only support 22 million people.
Sustainable agriculture can only provide enough food for 22 million people.
The yield per hectare of some crops, potatoes being the main one, will drop dramatically when they can only be produced by sustainable methods.
Biofuel for vehicles/transport ect will be a further pressure on agricultural land available for food growing.
 
tobyjug said:
I am afraid crap it is not. When the time comes that no imports of energy or chemicals is possible, Britain can only support 22 million people.
Sustainable agriculture can only provide enough food for 22 million people.
The yield per hectare of some crops, potatoes being the main one, will drop dramatically when they can only be produced by sustainable methods.
Biofuel for vehicles/transport ect will be a further pressure on agricultural land available for food growing.
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Solution: more advanced nuclear power/fusion energy/more efficient industries/GM crops/weather control, etc.

In other words, technology.
 
kasheem said:
Solution: more advanced nuclear power/fusion energy/more efficient industries/GM crops/weather control, etc.

In other words, technology.
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This subject has been done to death several times over the last couple of years on here. One cannot have technological solutions when all the non renewable resources are exhausted.
 
tobyjug said:
This subject has been done to death several times over the last couple of years on here. One cannot have technological solutions when all the non renewable resources are exhausted.
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What's the logic behind that? Technology doesn't require 'resources' to develop.

Plus new resources may exist we don't know about. Wood used to be our major resource until 150 years ago. For 50 years it's been oil. Now we're discovering water may be the biggest resource ever (hydrogen economy).
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Yep, that's what I was thinking of earlier when I mentioned having heard of capitalist water companies, in South America, trying to charge for e.g. rain-water that people had collected themselves.

Caused a bit of a fuss I believe.
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If private companies can provide more water more efficiently and more of it, what's wrong with that? Look at the USA. Until recently all the utilities were private. Privatisation didn't occur, deregulation did. And that's what we need to look at (better regulation), not a massive, soviet-style Socialist Water Company of Britain.
 
kasheem said:
If private companies can provide more water more efficiently and more of it, what's wrong with that? Look at the USA. Until recently all the utilities were private. Privatisation didn't occur, deregulation did. And that's what we need to look at (better regulation), not a massive, soviet-style Socialist Water Company of Britain.
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A private water company is optimised to provide profits more efficiently, not water.
 
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