Power to the People

Kudos go to North Bay Hydro for their, until now, unique initiative for getting consumers to conserve electricity during this July and August. Not only will conserving customers save on the power the do not consume, but North Bay Hydro will give them an additional ten percent off on their next bill! Reducing power consumption during the peak summer period will no doubt pay dividends to Ontario Power Generation as the people of North Bay cut back so folks in the southern part of the grid can have their air conditioning on full blast.

This novel idea might have some other people thinking about how to entice the consumer into doing the right thing. The City of North Bay might offer to cut back on our flat-rate water bill if we do not turn on all our faucets at once during the summer lawn-watering and driveway-washing months. I was never convinced that the number of outlets in my house determined how much water I use, but if I solemnly swear not to turn them all on at once will I get a rebate? Of course, if I had a meter like the ones Hydro and Gas use, I could control my water bill costs myself. The idea of having the people at North Bay Hydro run our water metering system looks even more appealing after getting the rebate offer. After all, it is not called “Hydro” without reason!

How about a similar rebate program from the City? If I do not call the fire department, police department or the noise by-law officer during the summer, will I get a small refund on my taxes? What if I do not complain about the horrible road patching jobs the city workers are doing on the water and sewer breaks – will that reduce my tax bill? Maybe Mayor Mendicino will look into a rebate program for next summer when the City budget is in better shape.

A rebate program from our cable TV company might also be in order. I surely am watching less television during the summer months so it would seem logical that I pay them less. They could certainly give a 10% rebate for having us watch re-runs of programs that were not all that great on the first offering during the cold winter months. A meter on my television set could incorporate a dumbness filter and that would cut my viewing hours even more. I suppose that Cogeco or Rogers would not want their advertisers to know that no one is watching so I guess we can forget any rebate on television.

The Nugget, our local print media, has already cut back on Mondays and Tuesdays, although they make up their paper volume of sacrificial trees when they cram in all those un-read advertising flyers on the weekend. Perhaps we could get a 10% rebate if we just told them to throw our flyers directly into the recycle bin outside their office on Worthington Street instead of delivering them all over town. The youngster who delivers the paper would certainly appreciate a lighter load. I notice that the slim paper is delivered much sooner on Mondays so maybe that is all the rebate I can expect.

North Bay petrol vendors are already into the rebate programme, offering lower prices if you buy your gasoline any day but Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Wednesday or Sunday. Or Monday. I have solved the gas pricing for the next couple of weeks by purchasing it when I go to Powassan or Sturgeon Falls to get my summer glut of strawberries. But what to do when the berry season ends? I suppose easing up on the gas pedal a little will do the same thing as North Bay Hydro is offering. Use less, save more.

The Blue Bag initiative to reduce the number of plastic bags one brings home from the grocery store might take a lesson from Hydro. If I bring all my own bags to the store, how about giving a modest refund at the cashier station? At some stores, they charge you for using their plastic bags, so the store owners must know what it costs them to bag up your food. As soon as the local stores put in the self-checkout stations, we can save them even more money by doing all the work and not using any of their staff’s time.

Yet I expect we need a little more incentive than just seeing some part-time grocery workers put out of work at the stores. As North Bay Hydro knows, we need that extra 10% to get us moving on conservation. The threat to up the charges on garbage collection might be even more effective if it offered a reward instead of a punishment. Perhaps if the City reduced its tonnage at the landfill site we might get a special line on our tax bill telling us how much we saved by conserving and recycling.

In the meantime, do not forget to turn off your computer after reading Baytoday, not just the power switch, but monitor and your internet connection, because they are using power, even in the ‘sleep’ mode. North Bay Hydro will pay you for doing it.