No energy savings?
Published on Apr 3, 2007 at 10:37 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized, time.
This year, here in the US, we started Daylight Saving Time three weeks early. This was supposed to be saving energy. The reasoning was that people would get up earlier, so they wouldn’t be sleeping past sunrise, and they would go to be earlier, and not burn as many lights. Well, I heard that at least here in Texas, the utilities have seen almost no effect. The news report indicated that this was because residential lighting accounts for less than 10% of electric usage.
Well, in my earlier post on the new starting time for Daylight Saving Time, I indicated that I didn’t think that there would be much effect. The rationale for Daylight Saving Time is based on decades old research. This research was done in the days before home computers, before security crazed city dwellers insisted on bright outdoor dusk-to-dawn security lights, before almost every electronic device actually continued to draw power in standby mode instead of turning off so that they could be turned on by remote control, and before a lot of other sources of electric usage. In fact, the average home uses far more electricity today than it did decades ago, and most of that extra power usage continues day and night without a break. So, most of the talk about Daylight Saving Time saving energy is just so much talk. We don’t really save much energy in many parts of the nation.
Now, I have always thought that more northern states would get more benefit from Dayligh Saving Time than those of us in the southern states. That is because the farther from the equator that you are, the bigger the seasonal effect on the length of daylight. That is why Hawaii doesn’t do Daylight Saving Time — it is close enough to the equator that it doesn’t do any good. So, why do the rest of us have to all go on and off of Daylgiht Saving Time at the same time? Yes, it might be a bit more complicated if northern states and southern states adopted the time change on different dates, but would it really be that more complicated? You would only just have to keep track of the fact that the times will be a bit different for a few weeks of the year. But, I don’t think that it would really matter all that much. We’d adjust.
But, no matter whether it really saves energy or not, the supporters of the new time will stubbornly refuse to accept that there is little effect. So, we are stuck with the new start and stop dates for Daylight Saving Time.
-Astroprof
Seeking Solace on April 4, 2007 at 9:23 am: 1
As one who lives up north, I have noticed a difference. It is very dark here during the winter months, so the early DSY has been nice.
Astroprof on April 4, 2007 at 9:53 am: 2
Up where you live, then it can help from a convenience standpoint, but I still question just how much energy is being saved. But, down south where I live, there is very little benefit at all. I don’t really see why we all have to do DST. It would make more sense for only those states that benefit from it to adopt it. The argument that different people would be on different times isn’t really a major thing. We already have that in terms of east and west. There is more international commerce, and so businesses are having to deal with vastly different time zones. Adding a north/south difference wouldn’t be that much more to keep up with, and in fact might make the east/west time differences easier to keep up with, since everyone would be even more used to distant places being on a different time.
Of course, my thoughts may come from my not liking to deal with the hour shift in my biological clock.
terry on April 4, 2007 at 10:24 am: 3
“But, no matter whether it really saves energy or not, the supporters of the new time will stubbornly refuse to accept that there is little effect.”
That’s the sad part of the whole DST thing (and more than a few other things); no matter the evidence, the proponents will never accept that DST has little effect.