My UK energy provider says my electricity is produced with 100% renewables, so I presume water, wind, solar. So why am I affected by such big increases in electricity charges (price per kWh)?
In: 314
Say you’re a vegetarian. Suddenly, all the cows in the world die of mad cow disease. You find the price of carrots shoots up. Why? Because the meat-eaters can no longer get their burger fix, so they have to eat other food, like carrots, so you are now competing with the meat-eaters for carrots, where in the past they really weren’t major carrot fans.
Same with electricity. Renewable electricity is vegetables. Non-renewable is meat. Since meat eaters can also eat vegetables, the increase in demand for vegetables from the meat-eaters increases the price of the vegetables. The veggie farmers make increased profits.
(Actually, this analogy has flaws, because if everyone was forced to become vegetarian overnight, the price of food would probably go down significantly in a couple of years as much the land dedicated to raising food for animals, and in some cases, housing the animals themselves, could be switched to plants human food production, which is vastly more efficient then feeding the plants to animals and then eating the animals. But no analogy is perfect).
Latest Answers