[jambutty]

Imagine this – the year is 2030 and global warming has taken a hold with a vengeance. Sea levels have risen drowning many coastal towns. The world’s oil has all but run out and to make matters worse the coastal nuclear power stations are under water and thus useless. To conserve the natural gas to ensure that domestic and industrial supplies continue, many gas fired power stations are closed down. Electrified railways went the way of the steam engine.

Electrical energy is in short supply with not enough electricity being generated for our normal needs.

Buying and installing an electricity generating domestic windmill would be beyond the means of most people and in any case wouldn’t be cost effective. It has been calculated that it would take some twenty years to recoup the outlay.

In the UK it has been decreed that each household will be limited to using just 450 kilowatt hours of electrical power per 90 days quarter. That is 5Kw per day. Just for a change, single people and pensioner married couples would be at an advantage. I used 520Kw during my last summer quarter. It rises to about 750Kw in the winter quarter.

To put that into perspective it means that you can use a single bar (1Kw) electric fire for 5 hours per day or you can have your TV on for some 10 hours. A computer uses less electricity than a TV - say about 15 hours per day.
Washing machines will use up to 3Kw per wash cycle on hot wash (half that on a cool wash) and a fridge freezer will use up to 1Kw per day.
Spending an hour doing the ironing would probably account for 1Kw.
An average electric kettle will use 2Kw or 3Kw of power in an hour, which would be enough for about 12 individual mugs of brews.
A 100 watts electric light bulb will use 1Kw in 10 hours, although a low energy bulb of similar luminosity would use just one tenth of that amount. Although it is a moot point whether the manufacture of these low energy bulbs uses much more power than the manufacture of the standard types.
All electric central heating would probably use 3Kw per hour although a gas central heating system is controlled by electricity and that too would use about 1Kw per hour.
A ten minutes shower would use 0.5Kw.
You could vacuum for 2 hours and use 1Kw.

In short we would be limited in what electrical appliances we could use and for how long.

The question is which electrical appliance can you do without? Or put another way how would you use your electrical allowance?

First of all the electric kettle would go and be replaced by a whistling kettle for the gas stove.
I couldn’t reduce the use of the washing machine without doing without it altogether. But that would be no real hardship, as I have spent 13 years doing my washing by hand, even sheets and blankets whilst in the navy. A washboard would come in handy though. Skiffle group anyone?
I would have to be even more selective than I am now in watching TV but it could be done, as there is a lot of good stuff to listen to on the wireless, records etc. instead. Listening to the radio or records in candlelight appeals to me, although I would probably fall asleep.
My computer activity would have to be severely limited though.
My gas central heating would be turned off but I would still have hot water on demand and I would have to use the gas fire for heating one room.
An extra blanket on my bed would counter a cold bedroom. As would extra clothing to wear during the day. Even nowadays on extra cold winter nights I wrap a blanket around my legs whilst watching TV or sat at the computer. It’s cheaper than upping the thermostat a few degrees.

I would cope with such a regime.

Would you???