Canadiana question: is "hydro" a blanket term for "electricity"?
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@rwg well, when your provincial electricity provider is named Hydro One…. But ‘Hydro windmills’ is just wrong
@musing_sys @rwg as a customer in a more rural area (but still in a town) I refer to them as Hydro None.
5-6 outages every year, typically 3-8 hours long. -
Canadiana question: is "hydro" a blanket term for "electricity"?
I just read a Globe and Mail story that referred to windmills -- the things that are spun by the wind -- as "hydro windmills."
I can imagine how all this started but I gotta say it's really confusing seeing a term that literally means "water" being used for things that are not water. Would a Canadian say "hydro coal"?
@rwg In Ontario that's how it's used, in my experience. When everything came through Ontario Hydro it was always "the Hydro" providing "hydro." You might now ask someone with a remote cabin if they're "on the hydro" or using solar panels.
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@rwg In Ontario that's how it's used, in my experience. When everything came through Ontario Hydro it was always "the Hydro" providing "hydro." You might now ask someone with a remote cabin if they're "on the hydro" or using solar panels.
@wdenton And I presume that if they were using solar, they would not say "we have solar hydro"?
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@wdenton And I presume that if they were using solar, they would not say "we have solar hydro"?
@rwg No, that's weird!
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@rwg No, that's weird!
@rwg But if they offer some "BC hydro" then they're talking about something different, if you know what I mean.
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Canadiana question: is "hydro" a blanket term for "electricity"?
I just read a Globe and Mail story that referred to windmills -- the things that are spun by the wind -- as "hydro windmills."
I can imagine how all this started but I gotta say it's really confusing seeing a term that literally means "water" being used for things that are not water. Would a Canadian say "hydro coal"?
@rwg afaik BC and Ontario both have long standing electricity companies with Hydro in their name
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/crown-corporations/bc-hydro-and-power-authority and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_HydroI think Alberta has more conventional wording (gas, electricity, hydro) for our utilities. I remember being confused when I first moved to ON too re: hydro
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@rwg No, that's weird!
@wdenton I guess we can forgive folks -- the very word "windmill" is also not quite right. No grains are being milled.
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@rwg But if they offer some "BC hydro" then they're talking about something different, if you know what I mean.
@wdenton heh!
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@rwg I think it's very regional. I know Ontario and BC will talk about Hydro as that's the name of their primary power companies. In Alberta we just talk about the power bill rather than the Hydro bill.
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Canadiana question: is "hydro" a blanket term for "electricity"?
I just read a Globe and Mail story that referred to windmills -- the things that are spun by the wind -- as "hydro windmills."
I can imagine how all this started but I gotta say it's really confusing seeing a term that literally means "water" being used for things that are not water. Would a Canadian say "hydro coal"?
@rwg Depends on the major power source in your area and how your utility brands itself. Nobody uses "hydro" that way in my neck of the prairies, even if locally there are some hydroelectric dams that are part our power mix.
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Canadiana question: is "hydro" a blanket term for "electricity"?
I just read a Globe and Mail story that referred to windmills -- the things that are spun by the wind -- as "hydro windmills."
I can imagine how all this started but I gotta say it's really confusing seeing a term that literally means "water" being used for things that are not water. Would a Canadian say "hydro coal"?
@rwg It’s a historical thing - most electricity was generated via Hydroelectric power - it became shorthand for all things relating to the electric grid. “They’re repairing the hydro lines” would make perfect sense, even though they weren’t talking about water.
The term has persisted, even though Ontario’s power is largely nuclear now. In Quebec, “Hydro Quebec” makes more sense since around 90% of their generating capacity comes from hydroelectric generation.
It’s just a strangely Canadian thing, like measuring driving distance in hours, or describing your height or weight in feet and pounds, but using metric for nearly everything else.
Having said all that, “Hydro windmills” is weird. “Wind turbine” is probably better / more accurate.
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@rwg I think it's very regional. I know Ontario and BC will talk about Hydro as that's the name of their primary power companies. In Alberta we just talk about the power bill rather than the Hydro bill.
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