Earth hour 2009

[lAmebAdger]

Earth hour 2009

http://www.earthhour.org/

the day is today (at +8 GMT... in about an hour)

do you participate?

why?

why not?

EDIT: @below: Johnny... it depends on where you are, it's 8:30 pm local time, so for +8 GMT that'd be one hour to go from the time this post was created

 

[Johnny]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Actually it starts in 7 hours and 50 minutes.

 

[KillerAim]

Re: Earth hour 2009

I make it a practice not to get involved in any religious events.

 

[krischan]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Hmm, I missed it. I guess I will do it from 2-3 AM then.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So wait, people shut off their lights, but power plants keep producing? So really, there is no environmental impact whatsoever, but we feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'll pass.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Earth Hour: Limbaugh to turn on Christmas lights to celebrate

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh announced on his radio program that he may put up a Christmas tree and outdoor lights to celebrate Earth Hour on Saturday night.
(UPI/NEWSCOM)

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Earth hour 2009

I just realized that my lights were off anyway, because it was still kind of light out.

 

[Lazer LXXVII]

Re: Earth hour 2009

I heard somewhere that the last time they did this in like the 80's or 70's or something, there was a pretty big bump in babies born 9 months after the earth hour.

 

[WildBerry]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So wait, people shut off their lights, but power plants keep producing? So really, there is no environmental impact whatsoever, but we feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'll pass.

No-one is claiming it's actually saving anything, it's an awareness campaign.

The plants will reduce production (or rather, perhaps new ones will not be opened at such a pace as now) if a considerable portion of consumers cut on their evening energy use. The campaign has that as a long-term goal, and whether or not this year is was successful (my money is on it not being that - even though a great deal of people took part) is still up in the air.

Sure, you're free not to do it or even do what Rush did, but if you're condemning it for not doing anything, you're judging it on false conditions (comparable would be returning a coffee maker to the shop and saying it didn't do your laundry that good).

 

[PFSS]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So wait, people shut off their lights, but power plants keep producing? So really, there is no environmental impact whatsoever, but we feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'll pass.

Do they though? I thought that power plants adjusted the amount of fuel they burned depending on demand? Though as others have mentioned this is more an awareness thing rather than "lets save the world in 60 minutes".

Good old Rush, does he also go around breaking necks of chickens to make up for Vegans? Seriously - OK the jury is, to many, still out on the impact of Global Warming but surely we can all agree that burning less gas isn't going to harm the environment that we all share. And given Rush's views on the Middle East, and given a lot of power is produced from Oil originating there I'm not so sure why he is so keen to add to the money flowing into Saudi.

Anyway - I normally keep any lights I'm not using off anyway, keep the water in the kettle low, have the water heaters off when not using them, turn off appliances at the plug and so on... because I don't like sending the electricity company any $$$ that I don't have to.

 

[Johnny]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So wait, people shut off their lights, but power plants keep producing? So really, there is no environmental impact whatsoever, but we feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'll pass.

Power plants actually alternate between increase and reduced production based on a lot of things. A power plant is not a battery. You have to predict how much if needed before hand and then adjust the amount of reactors are activated based on that.

A good example is in Britain the power plants will increase output when there's a major football game and then as the game goes to commercial several hundred thousand brits all get up to go make some tea (not kidding) so they increase power further to compensate for that. Then when the commercial is done they can reduce power again.

Earth hour is no doubt something the power plants will be prepared for.

Rush Limbaugh is just an attention whore.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Right, but adjusting the output reduces efficiency more than anything else. For example, the power companies over here convinced the cities that they needed street lights so they could stay operating at full efficiency. It's actually more wasteful to lower output.

 

[Johnny]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So it couldn't be that they just wanted the city to buy more power from them?

I think we need to research this a bit more because power plants have whole staffs dedicated to adjusting power output depending on a great array of factors so as to not waste power.

 

[krischan]

Re: Earth hour 2009

I don't believe that it's more wasteful to reduce output at night, but I agree that power plants can be used more effeciently when they run at a high rate at nighttime as well, i.e. produce more income for the maintainers. Street lights are absolutely reliable and constant consumers of electricity, they only vary with the length of nighttime. The perfect customer - and a big one as well. I heard they are by far the biggest consumers of electricity here in Hamburg.

Whatever, the greatest thing which electricity gave us is light at nighttime. The lighbulb is one of the greatest inventions of all time.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: Earth hour 2009

one of the greatest electronical inventions, yea

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i think it would be really weird, if a very high percentage of people who know about this actually do an absolute lights off for a full hour

i think, likely many will just cut back on their electricity use out of conscience for the event, but go back to old habits in about a few days or so

these events do raise awareness if nothing else... once in a while groups (schools) or institutions will even take it up and participate in a more large scale way

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: Earth hour 2009

So it couldn't be that they just wanted the city to buy more power from them?

I think we need to research this a bit more because power plants have whole staffs dedicated to adjusting power output depending on a great array of factors so as to not waste power.

Most power plants in this country are base load power plants. Perhaps load-following plants are more common in Sweden. If so, your power costs must be ****ing ridiculous.

A base load power plant can only change output by taking generators offline, as opposed to changing fuel consumption. Well, unless you want to take days to get the thing running at full efficiency again, thus causing waste and increased costs.

 

[WildBerry]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Right, but adjusting the output reduces efficiency more than anything else. For example, the power companies over here convinced the cities that they needed street lights so they could stay operating at full efficiency. It's actually more wasteful to lower output.

This is generally very true (it surprises me that other people even doubt that), but the amount of hydroelectric power in Sweden is relatively high. Again, the on the dams the tinkering with output has almost zero impact on efficiency, which is rather unique in power plants. Therefore, they can in fact be base load, as the plant itself can work with the output in a matter of minutes.

For the rest of it's shortfalls, harnessing rivers has this thing going for it.

 

[stillman]

Re: Earth hour 2009

One thing I worry about is that people will say "THERE! I had the lights off for one hour. Now, I don't have to do anything else or worry about my impact on the world for another year."

Edit: Basically, the warm fuzzy issue described above only more of a harmful effect.

 

[Elusien]

Re: Earth hour 2009

Didnt really work out here in Brisbane.
There were 2 big rugby games on.
Lawl.

 

[TheOgreMan]

Re: Earth hour 2009

I'm lucky that I tend not to waste a whole lot of electricity anyhow. I don't keep lights on, my AC/heat unit hasn't been on since Dec (except heat on one rare day that it iced over a few weeks ago), and I've replaced all the bulbs I can with higher efficiency ones. The only really wasteful thing I do is leave my computer on when I'm home (off when I'm not!).

All this really confused me, though, since my power bill for a small apartment was still $110+! Lucky for me my current roommate is an electrical contractor and he thinks he fixed the problem; my water heat had a bad heating element that was constantly on. I'll see at the end of the month if that helped or not.