Earth Hour side effects?

Gokul43201

I don't imagine the point of EH is to actually help by reducing consumption. I expect the point is to raise awareness for conservation issues - it's a global marketing initiative.

Edit: Oops! Didn't see the second page of posts.

G01

I just noticed that! It's freaky...

Moonbear

Wow, they actually mentioned this thing on the morning news today (not that I stopped to listen to the story)...otherwise I would have thought this was just another of those pointless internet hoax things (let's all jump at the same time and see if we knock the Earth out of it's orbit, or everyone wear red or yellow or some such on a particular day to show you support X). Maybe it still is and has just sucked in the gullible news reporters. Seems pretty pointless to me.

Besides, if people follow this, it'll screw up all the data on energy consumption effects of the earlier start of daylight savings time (I've heard this week that some preliminary studies are showing there's actually been an increase in energy consumption because people have been cranking up the heat more in the morning when waking up while it's still cold and dark out...makes sense to me...when I'm sleep-deprived, I get cold too, and have been cranking the heat higher in the mornings to compensate...and having an extra hour of light in the evenings when it's still cold has no benefit, because I'm still inside with the lights on, not outside enjoying warmth and sunshine).

vanesch

Yes, it's one of those silly green thing brainwashing actions. We've had something similar a few months ago (but there, it was 5 minutes, even crazier for the grid management!). The solution to the "energy problem" is to generate enough of it so that one can use it at leisure without having to be economical about it. We simply need to use means to generate power which doesn't put too big a burden on the environment.

Moonbear

Kind of makes me want to go driving around the town tonight to see if anyone is doing it. Oh, wait, that would be using more energy than sitting home with my lights on. Don't they know that between 8 and 9 PM it's dark out? I guess I could comply as long as the bars don't by going out to one of the bars, otherwise, no way I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs in the dark for an hour. Is anyone taking this seriously?

Evo

I'm not turning anything off, it's silly. I'm already very fruggle.

turbo

It seems that you're quite profligate when it comes to "g's" though.

Evo

Frugal, I'm thinking Fraggle.

Moonbear

I was about to ask if Fruggles are related to Fraggles.

Something about this whole thing gives me the urge to want to turn on every light in the whole house for that hour tonight.

turbo

I could turn on a lot of lights, but since almost every one of them is a 16 watt compact fluorescent, it wouldn't have much of a counter-balancing effect.

jhicks

Of course some people will go overboard with it (the facebook group comes to mind), but as an engineer and a person who pays power bills, the idea of energy efficiency is very appealing to me, so I support anything that will lead to awareness for the need to reduce the amount of wasted energy. I'm not going to change my life in the name of conservation, but I'll do all the little things like use energy efficient versions of things I use.

It's not brainwashing, though people are apt to misinterpret the message. Is there something you find objectionable about using less energy to achieve the same function?

Schrodinger's Dog

I'll be turning all the lights off, and all electronic equipment off when I go to bed. Glad to do my piece.

That doesn't seem too wise to me. I think it's probably better to make everything more efficient and to try to use less energy, than to just increasing energy to meet demand, regardless of how environmentally polluting it is. Smaller energy needs means less consumption; I can only see that as a good thing. That said this 1 hour thing does seem a little pointless, but hey if it makes people think about being less polluting and more environmentally aware, whatever. I don't think it'll do much damage to our grid, but then ours is much smaller and can cope with anomalies better.

turbo

It's an OK stunt, really, but anybody who's going to be swayed by it has probably already gotten the message and is making incremental reductions in energy usage. Except for lights that get used very infrequently (like the lights in our cellar) I have converted almost entirely to compact fluorescents, and we heat the house with wood and heat our water and cook our food with propane. Last month's electric bill was $40-something. I only allow the furnace to come on when my wife and I are to be away for extended periods, and even then we keep the thermostat set to 60 degrees. A small wood-fire gets the place toasty again pretty quickly. We have burned about 1/4 tank of fuel oil total over the past two winters, and I'm starting to wonder how well that stuff holds up in long-term storage.

mgb_phys

That's very common in the UK, you even have two meters and some 30A circuits that are only on the night rate - so there are two heating elements in the water tank for instance.
Most houses with electrical heating have night storage heaters with a tank of oil inside the electric heater that is heated up at nitgh and gives off low level heat during the day.
Always wondered if you could do better with a phase change material like the salt solution in hand warmers.

DaveC426913

For us it's an excuse to get friends together and drink. And it's an excuse for wife to burn more candles. We're a little low on tealights though - down to our last thousand.

And we're having a picnic! No hot foods.

Andre

Fruggle, fraggle, fragile? have mercy with non native tongues. Where's the dictionary, it's dark here. No clair de la lune.

Moonbear

I had to give up candles when I got a cat. Somehow the idea of a tail held up like a flaming torch while a cat runs through the house doesn't seem like such a good idea.

If they had done the lights-out thing from 8 to 9 AM, I'd have been more than happy to do my part. I think sleeping-in conserves far more energy than an hour of lights out at night (you can keep the heat down while buried under blankets in addition to keeping the lights out).