From this article we find out that the excessive usage of water in the Netherlands will have consequences on your pocket, which seems like a sensible thing to do.
Reading further with a little more attention, we start to notice (again) a government intervention in the name of the greater good ("saving the planet" type of) with the end result being the collection of more taxes.
Drinking water could become more expensive in the future for people who use it excessively.
Ok, so far so good. But right after:
Outgoing minister Mark Harbers (Infrastructure and Water Management) has assigned researchers to investigate the possibility of charging people to encourage them to be more frugal with their water.
So it's not about a small percentage of people filling their pools with water, it's about everyone to be more "frugal" with their water.
On average, a Dutch citizen uses 134 liters a day. The goal is to reduce this to 100 liters by 2035.
A reduction for the average Joe here. A reduction sought by the government of 25%!
According to Harbers, shorter showers would be the quickest route to lower water usage. Another 30 percent is used to flush the toilet. Rainwater or collected shower water could serve as an alternative.
Hmm, not the first time the government is complaining about people taking showers that seem too long in any case. Let's not even open the discussion about people daring to have sex in the showers. That prolongs the whole process unnecessarily. Having less defecation will also help the cause. As a suggestion, having more bushes around your house helps with number one.
It was already a goal for the Cabinet to have the drinking water usage reduced significantly to prevent shortages in dry periods.
That's quite an odd goal since there are more social and economic problems in the making than saving water in dry periods. And the extra taxation will be year-long, not only in the dry periods, which are hard to find here, in a country with more than 800mm of rainfall per year.
And do you think it stops here? NOPE. Next item: electricity.
The energy transition is a costly but necessary effort that is taking far too long to implement, according to Eneco CEO As Tempelman. He predicts that energy will become a luxury product and that those who want power 24/7 will have to pay extra for it.
Source: nltimes.nl
The next piece looks like it's extracted from a post-apocalyptic movie about a dystopian world:
We have all become spoiled. Energy is always there. But it is now starting to become a luxury product. We have to get used to that. If you want power all the time, it will come at a premium price. And consuming when possible will become the standard, with a basic rate,” Tempelman said. “As a consumer, you will pay for the use of the network. That is complex. It will take some getting used to. But it is necessary.
Out of the sudden, we're spoiled to have electricity. But then Tempelman states that the consumption in the Netherlands stayed the same, however...
...people’s behavior has changed, coming home at the same time, everyone with their car on the charger, everyone on the smatphones, and cooking electrically at the same time. Grid operators must then reserve power for those moments. Outside those peaks, consumption is much lower.
Which seems to be a little off. Wasn't the same behavior of people five or ten years ago? Of course it was. So, what's different this time?
What's different is that the government is pushing everyone to replace natural gas with electricity, is pushing towards electrical cars, is pushing everyone to install solar panels (because they are visible in contrast with the network expansion to support these) and is pushing towards green energy (aka tons of windmills).
All these creates huge problems in the network, since so called green energy in uncontrollable by humans. The wind blows as it's wishing, the sun might be there or not (Netherlands is quite a cloudy country, although with plenty of wind). All these jumps in the electricity production creates more demand for regular stable sources of energy.
Of course, now the next idea is to used batteries to prevent these gaps, but that's a story for another day.
Economists agree that the costs of climate damage are many times higher than the current costs of preventing climate damage.”
At least we didn't hear "scientists".
