EV charging and hydro generation/distribution challenges

[ijmorlan]

Obviously a capitalist sociey such as ours, (contrary to modern conservative views) would prefer an economic model to a regulatory model, I entirely agree. 

But, I think economic models are harder to make work. Ultimately, the best economic model is one with perfect information. Ultimately we don't have that...even as a society, which means we must design the model to try and make it work. That's really hard, and subject to perversions. Regulation too may end up with perversions, but more direct control means adjusting for these issues is faster.

You might as well say “free” rather than “capitalist”. Simple example: on those occasions when I have to wait in my car on a hot day, I idle so as to run the air conditioning. Do I feel bad about that? Not in the slightest; I’m still causing a tiny fractions of the emissions caused by somebody who commutes to Toronto every day (and those people are considered A-okay in our society).

A regulatory approach to cars would probably forbid the “useless” idling of vehicles (in fact, does; all those anti-idling bylaws). But an economic approach says that I can choose how to spend my resources. If one person wants to spend it on commuting every day, that is their choice; if another wants to spend it on occasionally idling and save more of it for other activities, that is their choice. That is why I support the carbon fee and dividend rather than complicated regulations about who may produce carbon dioxide and for what purpose.

Similarly with electricity. As long as I’m fully paying for my electricity use, it’s really nobody’s business how I use it. And if we’re going to enhance the power grid to feed information from the grid to devices, do the simple thing: feed the current price to devices and let their owners determine what to do with that information. People are already used to doing price comparisons at the grocery store and elsewhere; I think they are capable of judging how much it is worth it to them to air condition their house colder than Hoth.