Earth Hour

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: duack Let's not forget the pollution caused by the production of all the candles and any other crappy merchandise that is made in relation to earth hour. Also the fact that almost all candles release greenhouse gases (or so Iv'e heard). quote>

Interesting point.

The question is this: which creates more greenhouse gases? Burning however many candles people will burn or generating enough electricity to power however many lightbulbs people will use?

I can't claim to know the answer to that question for certain but my gut tells me the candles probably generate fewer emissions by virtue of the fact that they're generating far less light.

Of course, as has been mentioned, the ability of power plants to fluctuate how much power they produce is limited. The usual solution that's used to this is to set up pumping stations and reservoirs or water towers. When demand is low, you use excess power to pump water out of a river or lake up into some sort of large reservoir or tank that's on top of a hill or a tower or something. When demand is high, you let that water back out and run it through a turbine which generates electricity.

As you might imagine, the efficiency of this process isn't stellar, the electricity you generate letting the water out is significantly less than what you put in to pump the water up... but you do at least recover some of the energy and it's necessary in order to deal with natural fluctuations in demand which are unavoidable.

Now, if the tank fills up and demand is still low, you can start letting water right back out but without running it through the turbine to regenerate electricity. But if the tank empties and demand is still high... then you have a problem and brownouts or, in extreme cases, rolling blackouts may occur. Which is why you have to have sufficiently large tank capacity and sufficiently large generating capacity to avoid having that happen.

As for why they don't just use giant batteries instead... well, our battery technology as it exists is not capable of practically storing anywhere near as much energy as those fluctuations would demand, or producing nearly as much voltage as power transmission requires.

[duack 14]

Yeah, the fact that power plants cant really reduce production is what kills the whole thing. Hey while we're on the topic of batteries, did you know that the production of a battery will require a whopping fifty times the energy the battery will store! That's why rechargable batteries are a better option, but most have a limited recharge life so even then its quite wasteful.

[krbe 193]

The thing is that we probably need to shift the usage of electricity from unnecessary use like lighting up the street all night long. For example could (automated) factories make more use of nighttime electricity, or you could run your washing machine then. You save money by taking advantage of electricity that would be otherwise wasted, and you could ease the strain on old grids too by smoothing the usage curve.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Earth Hourquote>

Every one turns thier lights off for one hour.quote>

At the risk of insulting the proponents of this thing, I think it is a misguided and mistargeted endeavour.

Hypothetically, if people have their lights on every day of the year for 18 hours a day, that would be 6570 hours. Turning them off would be 6569 hours. That is a savings of only .01 percent a year in consumption time. The only net effect will be making people bored and miserable, and creating bad public opinion equating taking care of our habitat with technological regression.

The time spent sitting in darkness can better be spent advocating for clean energy sources (wind, solar, fission, fusion, hydroelectric) to be used to power the lights, instead of saving .01% of fossil fuel consumption. A speech on clean energy takes less than an hour, and that can move the public to action on this, so instead of saving .01% on fossil fuels, we save 100%.

That is 1000 times more effective. Think about it while you are sitting in darkness.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Realy i just wanted to see a clear black sky again.

[hamsterTK 93]

Of course, as has been mentioned, the ability of power plants to fluctuate how much power they produce is limited. quote>

There are really two kinds of power plants, Base and Peak.

Base plants are usually coal, nuclear, or hydro dams, and run at the same continuous rate. Peak plants do the same as the water reservoir thing you described, except far more common are natural-gas fired generating facilities that can came on and offline easily.

Base plants only make a minority of power, the Peak ones are what the most.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

I am not a power plant expert but it seems like the power grid is somewhat flexible.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: krbe The thing is that we probably need to shift the usage of electricity from unnecessary use like lighting up the street all night long.quote>

Lighting up the street is pretty important.  People have to get around at night, and it's much more dangerous for them to do so without adequate lighting.

For example could (automated) factories make more use of nighttime electricityquote>

I won't speak for Europe, but many of the major US factories run 24/7.  The place where my dad worked employed thousands of people to keep the place running all day and all night.  The opportunity cost of shutting down at night was too high.

or you could run your washing machine then.quote>

A lot of people don't do that because it isn't very convenient, or they are already in bed by then.  Assuming they don't have anything exceptionally pressing to do, many Americans spend their evenings trying to relax from their day's work.  Otherwise the stress gets to be too much and you suffer a breakdown.  (I can speak to that personally, and I'm still in my 20's.  It gets even worse as you get older.)

You save money by taking advantage of electricity that would be otherwise wastedquote>

You only save money if your electric company charges a premium for electricity used during peak hours.  Some companies do, other's don't.

and you could ease the strain on old grids too by smoothing the usage curve.quote>

Few people really even understand how an electric grid works.  Why would they care?  They just want their power when they need it.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: hym

or you could run your washing machine then.quote>

A lot of people don't do that because it isn't very convenient, or they are already in bed by then.  Assuming they don't have anything exceptionally pressing to do, many Americans spend their evenings trying to relax from their day's work.  Otherwise the stress gets to be too much and you suffer a breakdown.  (I can speak to that personally, and I'm still in my 20's.  It gets even worse as you get older.)quote>

Some appliances allow you to put them on delay start. I know my mother always has the dishwasher running in the wee hours of the morning so that it's making noise at a time when no one's in that part of the house to be bothered by it.

And the problem with running the washing machine at night is that if you leave the clothes sitting wet in there for too long after it stops running they wrinkle and get icky. So turning it on before you go to bed and then waiting until morning to take the clothes out isn't as good of an idea as it sounds.

Running the dryer at night would work, though.

We also installed programmable thermostats a couple months ago. The heat automatically turns down at night everywhere and in the bedroom area it also turns down during the day during the week (when no one's in there).

Interesting thing was, the old thermostats we removed were likely original to the house, meaning they were installed in 1963. All three of them had mercury in them. When we went to look up what the proper way to dispose of it was, we found that we'd have to drive all the way out to New Jersey (from Connecticut) to get to the nearest place where we could do so. So my father decided it wasn't worth the bother and just chucked them in the trash instead.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: hym

Lighting up the street is pretty important.  People have to get around at night, and it's much more dangerous for them to do so without adequate lighting.quote>

Why would the street need to be lit every second of the night to help people get around? Why not light it when people are getting around instead?

A lot of people don't do that because it isn't very convenient, or they are already in bed by then.  Assuming they don't have anything exceptionally pressing to do, many Americans spend their evenings trying to relax from their day's work.  Otherwise the stress gets to be too much and you suffer a breakdown.  (I can speak to that personally, and I'm still in my 20's.  It gets even worse as you get older.)

[...] You only save money if your electric company charges a premium for electricity used during peak hours.  Some companies do, other's don't.quote>

If you of health reasons would prefer to run your washing machine during the afternoon, you may—the point is to utilise the laws of supply and demand.

Few people really even understand how an electric grid works.  Why would they care?  They just want their power when they need it.quote>

Most people are ignorant about most thing in society. However, when they don't get their power, they'd better hope someone understands it, much the same way as we depend on people knowing how to run banks, airports, dam systems, etc. when things happen.

Originally posted by: Duke87

And the problem with running the washing machine at night is that if you leave the clothes sitting wet in there for too long after it stops running they wrinkle and get icky. So turning it on before you go to bed and then waiting until morning to take the clothes out isn't as good of an idea as it sounds.

Running the dryer at night would work, though.quote>

Or you can get one of those nifty combined washing machines and dryers.

[hym 358]

Why would the street need to be lit every second of the night to help people get around? Why not light it when people are getting around instead?quote>

Two problems:

1) In a major city, people will be moving around constantly, so putting motion sensors on the lights won't do much as the sensor will constantly be reading movement.  Also, you have to factor in nocturnal animals, which will trip any good motion sensor.

2) Forcing an electrical system to constantly change states (such as on/off) is never good for it.  Many systems, such as lighting, degrade at significantly increased speeds if they are constantly having to change states.  This will force maintenance departments to come out and change lights and other things more frequently.  This is going to cause the city maintenance department to increase the overall emissions it produces per period of time, and who's to say that the increased emissions won't totally offset any emissions reductions that would have been had by turning the lights off when not needed.

Most people are ignorant about most thing in society. However, when they don't get their power, they'd better hope someone understands it, much the same way as we depend on people knowing how to run banks, airports, dam systems, etc. when things happen.quote>

It's important that the appropriate people understand what they're doing, but the idea of altering your electrical consumption to have less of a negative effect on the grid is dependent on the end user being willing to play ball.  Otherwise, it's all for naught.