Jophn wrote in USMA 9636:
>A change in the home meters, such as gas, water and electric will eventually
>be done in an upgrade to a digital system. There will come a time, when the
>meters will be tied to your phone line or some other means, so that the
>energy companies can in an instant get a reading. This might be cheaper and
>safer then sending someone house to house every couple of months and
>estimating those months not being read. In fact they will even be able to
>get a better grasp of peaks and valleys for consumption.
>
>Such a system might be designed in SI or FFU or use some type of unitless
>method. A host computer could then display or calculate for billing in any
>units desired. when these units are installed in everyone's home, and FFU
>is still and use and these companies decide to use FFU at first, it won't be
>a big deal for them to go to SI, as all they would have to do is change
>something in the program. A one-time instant switch that is costless.
>
>Just like gas pumps and digital scales made today are. Most, if not all
>could be converted to litres of grams/kilograms with either the flip of a
>switch or if on a central network, a simple software change. Instant and
>costless. The only cost to gas pumps would be the purchase of adhesive
>stickers with the word LITRES on them to cover up the word gallons.
>
>Conversion to SI in many areas is not expensive at all, despite what the
>opposition wants one to believe.
True, but unnecessary. Consumers' Gas (now Enbridge), our Toronto gas
company, changed to billing by the cubic metre some years ago. However
they did not change any meters. When they installed new meters they were
metric. Their billing program kept track of each meter, whether it worked
in cubic feet or cubic meters. The bills it produced showed cubic feet if
the readings were in cubic feet, and gave to the conversion to cubic metres
on which the pricing was based.
