Earth Hour

[+Guest hahei]

Please remember to turn out your lights for 7:30PM-8:30PM SATURDAY THE 31st OF MARCH!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This would be more effective if it were based on Coordinated Universal Time. Turning out lights, daylight or not, would be best served in all time zones simultaneously. It would be better to just pause the whole of electrical power usage for an hour on the whole planet at once. I'll try to remember to turn off the whole 39 watts of lights I use in the evening (three CFLs).

[astronelson 339]

If it were all at the same time, there would be places where it's scheduled for a time no-one has lights on anyway. It's only really effective if people are actually affected.

[Duke87 1,070]

Here's a crazy idea: rather than some stupid gimmick once a year, teach people to turn their damn lights off whenever they don't need them in general. I have this argument with my office mates all the time: it's broad daylight outside, we've got plenty of windows, it's plenty bright in the office with the lights off. But they think it's too dark. Me, I think it's too bright with the lights on!

Then again, I'm known for being a troglodyte. I love dimly lit conditions. If I go outside in the afternoon on a sunny day I often find myself squinting. As I type this the sun is setting and the light coming in my window is very dim. But the only other source of light in my apartment at the moment other than indicator lights on some electronics is my computer screen. I will turn the lights on when I get up to eat dinner but until then I don't need them.

Being more efficient with your lights doesn't hurt, either. I find it surprising how many incandescent lamps I see still in use out there. This is simply stupid in all cases where aesthetic appearance of the lamp is not a concern. Wasted money, folks!

As for this saturday evening, I may or may not be home at that time. If I am, I will be sure to utterly ignore the gimmick and follow my normal decision process for which (if any) lights should be on.

[Rymac91 15]

I haven't participated in an Earth Hour since 2008. This is because I realized that due to the poor nature of the power in my neighborhood, I lose an average of 3 days worth of electricity a year.

Sure I'm aware that Earth Hour is more about the social image you project when your windows go dark, but since I tend to go dark most days when nobody's home, I feel it's a bit pointless for me.

That and I figure better electricity habits would be a more effective thing that turning off all my lights for an hour.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Earth Hour is one of those things that give people a nice warm feeling in their hearts because they think they're actually doing something, but they're not making a difference. I mean, most power plants can't even adjust the amount of power they put out anyway so all that extra electricity kind of goes to waste.

[simcity14 23]

i want to know how to turn off the city's lights in SimCity 4 immediately...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

i want to know how to turn off the city's lights in SimCity 4 immediately...

Press F5.

and Welcome to Simtropolis' conversations

[nemusd 22]

You all should save power all the time, not just this saturday.

Take it easy guys, slow down a bit...

Go get a beer...

Greetings to all

Nemusd

[Ishamael 3]

Devin Townsend's Earth Day should cheer anyone up!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDcpF4C5cas

[Duke87 1,070]

most power plants can't even adjust the amount of power they put out anyway so all that extra electricity kind of goes to waste.

Not quite. Nukes are either on or off, and wind and solar depend on wind and sunshine, but fossil fuel burning plants do have some capacity to ramp up and down. And even beyond that, there's pumped hydro. Pump water up the mountain when you've got excess power, run it back down through a generator when you need more. "Grid storage" is an important topic in the renewable power discussion, and people are currently experimenting with other methods, but this particular concept has been in practice for decades.

[s.i.X 13]

Sunset on Saturday in my city is 8:22pm, so it won't really have an impact. "Turn off your lights 52 minutes before sunset"? No, people won't bother.

Personally, I think the movement has grown stagnant since they haven't done anything new in recent years. If you want to keep the event popular and relevant, it has to be changed up a bit every year.

The coal plant in my city is always on standby and only runs periodically in the winter when demand is high and hydro dams have low capacity. They boast about cutting their carbon emissions by 90% in 10 years without mentioning the fact that the plant doesn't even run. The plant spent more time doing bio-fuel testing in 2011 than it did actually generating electricity. It will be converted to natural gas next year but even then, it probably won't be running very often. The hydro-electric and renewables in this region is more than enough to meet demand most of the year. Even many of our hydro plants go into a mode where the water bypasses the turbine to prevent electricity from overloading the system since too few people are using enough of it. Yet another issue is that since so few people are using much energy, we have to pay very large surcharges to cover the costs of actually having power plants, so everyone's electrical bills are always quite high and reducing the amount of energy we use has a very small financial impact, leaving almost no incentive to actually conserve energy.

And, in addition to this, the province refuses to build the infrastructure needed to export our surplus energy. We're not properly connected to the North American grid, and can actually isolate ourselves from it by cutting off two transfer points, which is what prevented the 2003 blackout from spreading west. Energy from this region was, however, used to kick start power plants in the south, taking advantage of what little transmission capacity we do have.

  Edited March 30, 2012 by s.i.X  

[hym 358]

It would be better to just pause the whole of electrical power usage for an hour on the whole planet at once.

This would be an economic, environmental, and human disaster. If electricity demand dips too low, the base load plants begin coming off line, and when they start coming off line, you're committing to an extended and widespread blackout. If the decision is made to bring down the coal plants, it will likely be 2-3 days before they are back online again. Nuke plants are shut down only as a last resort; once a nuke plant starts shutdown procedures, it will be at least a week before it is back up to full capacity again.

The food waste alone from such a stunt would be catastrophic.

Earth Hour is one of those things that give people a nice warm feeling in their hearts because they think they're actually doing something, but they're not making a difference. I mean, most power plants can't even adjust the amount of power they put out anyway so all that extra electricity kind of goes to waste.

The ability of a power plant to adjust power output is highly dependent on its operating characteristics and what the plant was designed to accomplish. Base load plants are not designed to react to changes in power consumption, since base load demands are generally stable. Hence, if they have the ability to change output, it usually takes hours (or days, in the case of nuclear facilities) to produce marginal changes in power output. Load following power plants have the ability to change their output by wide margins in a short period of time. However, these facilities are usually fossil fuel facilities like natural gas plants or oil plants. Finally, you have peaking power plants, which are basically like load following plants, but only used to provide peak load capacity to prevent rolling blackouts during periods of extremely high power consumption.

[Terring 6,473]

Earth Hour is one of those things that give people a nice warm feeling in their hearts because they think they're actually doing something, but they're not making a difference. I mean, most power plants can't even adjust the amount of power they put out anyway so all that extra electricity kind of goes to waste.

And this is only the half truth. The other half is about education and a more logic way of thinking. Think about it. By turning off the lights only for 1 hour per year, and letting it on for the rest 8783 hours is not solution, even as an symbolic act. We need to teach the people to use their mind and not overuse the electricity. Earth Hour is just a silly event and nothing more

[Duke87 1,070]

By turning off the lights only for 1 hour per year, and letting it on for the rest 8783 hours is not solution

You normally leave the lights in your house on 24/7?

(realistically, lights in a home operate in the range of 500-2000 hours a year, depending on how often people are home and how much the room is used)

[pielover94 83]

I did nothing

[Terring 6,473]

You normally leave the lights in your house on 24/7?

Not me

But still some people have their lights always on