Based on a fixed resistance:
Double the voltage is double the current.
Double the current is four times the power.
Therefore double the voltage is also four times the power.
this was the clarification i was seeking... not into the subtleties
of of the system design, or anything like that, but just into the
basic ohms law.... the question came up, and one opinion that
came up was that if you doubled the voltage, the current would
be halved, and i knew that wasn't gonna happen, and i had a
cheeseburger bet hanging in the balance here, so i posted it up
here... i knew before the horse was beaten to death, i'd get a full
primer on heat trace cable, which will be helpful come tuesday morning.
thank ya all for the input, and it'll be a fun day tuesday finding out why
a couple hundred feet of 5 watt cable, which should pull maybe 1 kw, is
pulling almost 3x that amount.
i'll let ya know how it turns out...