Earth Hour in California – Success or Bust?
Guest post by Russ Steele, NCWatch
At our house we set the timer to remind us to turn on all the visible out side lights. We have multiple security lights on the garage and the barn that come on when the sun goes down. My friend George Rebane has evidence that he turned on his lights for Earth Hour at Ruminations. I should have done the same, but was working on a sea level issue in R and forgot. I am glad I set the timer to remind me to turn off the outside house lights at 9:30.
The real question is did it Earth Hour make a difference one way or the other?
Roger Sowell had a good idea, he download the the graph below from www.caiso.com, the California Independent System Operator. CAISO is in charge of receiving power from power generating plants, and distributing the power throughout the state grid to the various end users.
Now compare the graph from Saturday 3/28/09 to the one on Sunday 3/29/09 shown below, note the similar slopes during the same time period. Note that annotations were added by Anthony Watts on both graphs.
Roger notes:
There was no apparent decrease in the power load throughout the state, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. No step changes, nothing, nada, zip, zilch.
There you have it, scientific data showing that the Earth Hour was a total bust in California. If you look close, you can see a little bump up above the forecast demand, which tracked very closely with actual power consumed prior to the witching hour 8:30 to 9:30. But, it is clear that power consumption did not drop, it stayed up. Maybe all those protesters forgot to turn off the lights.
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Bit of a reality check in Sydney Australia although the twitter reports mentioned suggest that the more pragmatic are taking it in their stride. 🙂
“Some joked that the residents of Sydney were being punished for not switching off enough lights during Earth Hour on Saturday.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/5075408/Sydney-hit-by-massive-blackout.html
Thousands of homes and offices in the centre of Sydney have been left without power after four high voltage cables providing electricity to the city failed.
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
Last Updated: 9:52AM BST 30 Mar 2009
Sydney hit by massive blackout
The blackout struck at about 4.30pm, leaving dozens of office workers trapped in lifts and shutting down traffic lights at about 100 city-centre intersections.
Tens of thousands of homes in the east of Sydney were also hit by the blackout.
The power outage plunged the city into chaos as office workers attempted to make their way home.
Two major arterial roads, including the Sydney Harbour tunnel, were closed to traffic, and the city streets quickly became gridlocked.
Police flooded into the CBD to direct traffic and the emergency services responded to at least 40 calls from people stuck in lifts or relating to automatic fire alarms.
The train system, which runs on a separate power supply, kept running, but the Opera House was forced to cancel its performances for the evening.
Energy Australia said the blackout was caused by a fault that affected four high voltage cables. Power started returning to the city after about three hours.
The unfolding drama played out on micro-blogging site Twitter, with hundreds of people affected by the outage “tweeting” about their experiences http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Sydney+blackout.
Some joked that the residents of Sydney were being punished for not switching off enough lights during Earth Hour on Saturday.
Travel man http://twitter.com/ttravelman said: “Will have to work tonight fixing computer stuff related to the Sydney CBD Blackout”, while Simon Willis http://twitter.com/Simon_Willis remarked: “ sydney she loves a drama. choppers, alarms, fire brigage, ambulance. Just love it. Wish the blackout lasted all night and storms rolled in.”
At my workplace, we received an edict from corporate headquarters on compliance with Earth Hour, presumably to shore up the company’s “green credentials”. Almost every single item on the list was stuff that we actually do every evening (and not just before the weekend), out of common sense rather than pseudo-religious credo.
Almost everything; normally, we do not bother to turn off the shredder because it’s “power on” LED and whatever else it does in stand by consumes only ~15 mW.
But this weekend, by corporate edict, we turned off the shredder too. So we saved 15 mW. Hooray.
“Lubos Motl (23:00:45) :
It’s clearly impossible. People don’t turn the lights off even if they don’t need them. Forcing them to reduce energy consumption when they do is a utopia and a green military junta would really be the only setup to achieve such a result.”
Maybe most people, but me, I do! I turn stuff off not in use because I don’t want some private, ex state-owned utility, ie, taxpayer funded utility sold off in the name of “efficiency”, to “cream” profits from me (Bills) for their share holders. Bugger that!
When I lived in New Zealand I lived in one of the poorest economic regions in the land, yet, *yet* it had *THE* most expensive unit price for electricity, in the land.
Earth Hour is tokenism, “indulgences” of old.
In Oslo my webcam did actually show less light pollution during the Earth Hour. Here’s a comparison:
http://voksenlia.net/nytt/2009/earthhour-20090328.gif
The pictures are 20 minutes apart. The clouds may have changed slightly and some lights would perhaps be switched off anyway, but the action is still likely to have reduced the lights somewhat. I wish Earth Hour would be about light pollution rather than about climate, though.
I turned my lights off. It was kind of nice, actually, going off the grid for an hour.
I fired up the charcoal grill, lit a couple of kerosene lanterns, and instead of heat from the electric heater (which would have wasted electricity generated cleanly by our local nuclear power plant), I made a nice little campfire out back.
I think I dumped more carbon into the atmosphere in that one hour than I typically do in a whole week. I’ll have to do this more often.
“Jason A. (00:07:42) :
Anyways, I seem to think that people who thought earth hour was about making any kind of significant impact in energy usage are missing the point by a mile. Anyone who thinks leaving the lights off for one hour a year is an energy solution needs to sit down and shut up while the grown ups talk. And I don’t think much more highly about those who thought that was the point of earth hour, even though they knew it wouldn’t ‘work’.
It was an educational/attention-getting exercise, and ‘8,000 articles’ seems to indicate success.”
When people realise what they are “doing”, they will soon realise they are foolish.
Oh hang on, this is about saving the planet, climate change, climate chaos, global warming, climate pollution…all braught about by the 280ppm – 380ppm increase in CO2 emissions as a result of the industrial revolution (Thanks Britain), and burning fossil fuels. The mind boggles!
Richard Heg (22:42:57) :
Since you are on the subject of California and climate is this for real?
“News that California may ban the sale of black cars for climate protection reasons raised the hackles of many a petrolhead yesterday.”
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/03/california-to-ban-sale-of-blac.html
REPLY: Sad but true
Excellent – the more this sort of rubbish happens, the more this will get up peoples noses – and the sooner the backlash begins.
This is important information.
No politician can refer to Earth Hour and say “The people asked for our “Green Policies”.
They don’t.
It looks like WWF once again is making a hype out of nothing.
Other hypes based on thin air:
Cause: Global Warming and melting ice causes Polar Bears to:
– drown
– travel large distances to find prey which is disturbing their energy balance
– lack of prey causes
– disappear as a species
WWF went through a development from environmental protection to a political movement.
Their “hog wash” stories about our climate and melting poles are copied and spread by our main stream media.
It looks if the people reject the political and environmental activist role of this organization.
People would like to see WWF return to the protection of the forests and the monkeys again.
Putting the money on the table for a WWF donation is one thing, switching off the lights on Earth Hour another.
Heres a thought. If ya wanted to really dent energy consumption in cities, rather than turn the building lights off one hour a year, how about turning them off every night when empty… and how about killing every other street light? I wonder if there is a place to see how much energy your city uses for lighting power, ect. I bet its staggering:)
I meant to turn on the porch light, but I forgot:) You probably wouldnt have seen it passed the street light from space anyhow:)
I live in London, and looking out of my windows on Saturday evening I was happy to see that most houses in my neighbourhood were well-lit as usual. It was not noticeably different to any other Saturday night. However, this is a working class area where people care about the important things – e.g. being able to work and feed their families – but don’t give a toss, generally, about GW.
In the office this morning I asked several people if they had done anything for Earth Hour. Responses ranged from “No”, to “Earth what?” to “Oh yeah, I forgot it was on, but I was watching TV with the lights off, so does that count?”
In my circle of colleagues and neighbours, I seem to be easily the most “aware” of these things. Too bad I’m also an AGW sceptic. :o)
No, I don’t think «all those protesters forgot to turn off the light». They’re simply too small of a community! The problem is that they are damn too loud!
I notice how Earth hour was scheduled right at the time when usage usually goes down. Most likely to be able to say it had an effect, of course when you look at the graphs and the projected usage it really isn’t so, no suprise . For those who claim it was about symbolism, I say again that I am wearing my CO2 colored ribbon (which you cannot see or smell) but symbolically it shows I care. That and $0.10155 will get you 1 kwh at my house.
It looks like the effect was to cause the sharp drop in electricity which usually occurs when people go to bed — at 11 PM in the second graph — to be advanced to 10 PM in the second graph. So there was a difference, but only of one hour, and it occurred at a convenient time to turn the lights down. Symbolic but nothing else.
I posted a reply to that article:
/Mr Lynn
we bought extra lights for climate Ramadan, and we were’t alone. I did a spot count of the neighborhood from the porch. There were more places lit up on Earth day, 85, then the night before, 79.
I think I’ll compare Friday night to Saturday next week and see if it is a general occurance.
Were the planet groaners sitting this one out, and the extra illumination due to a few more folks staying home on Saturday night , or did we get 6 extra counter protest lamps?
Those are the two possibilities. Either which way North Highlands boycotted Smerf day.
I agree with jason. Humans don’t need to see in the dark. Why would we? It’s not like seeing in the dark is beneficial to our health. What, are we walking down stairs now? Are we living in places filled with poisonous night-active animals? No!
Lubos Motl (23:00:45) :
“It’s clearly impossible. People don’t turn the lights off even if they don’t need them. Forcing them to reduce energy consumption when they do is a utopia and a green military junta would really be the only setup to achieve such a result.”
No Lubos, no junta necessary. That is what the smart grid will accomplish, whereby power could be selectively denied on a customer by customer basis should the demand exceed the supply. http://www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm
Electrical power demand is expected to double in the next twenty years, requiring an additional 550 new large coal-fired power plants to meet the demand. If those new plants aren’t built, rolling blackouts (on a selective smart-grid basis) are inevitable.
Eco-socialists arrested in terror plot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/g20-protest-explosives-plot-arrests
Jason A. It was a pretty transparent point if you ask me. The areas that are lit at night, showing up vividly on the world view, are also the areas with the highest longevity rate. I think this very easy point is that electrical usage is an indicator of advancement and longer and safer lives. And yes, you can equate the lack of change of electrical usage as a success because people talked of it anyway, but it is a calloused way to look at life and will not serve them forever.
How do you know the publicity stunt worked? That the WWF and assorted environmental groups were able to generate “8000” pot banging articles proves that WWF and assorted environmental groups can generate “8000” pot banging articles, nothing more. If there had been a measurable decrease in energy usage during that hour, then we certainly would have heard about it. Using Lubos flamboyant descriptior, the green military junto is talking to itself and trying to legitimate its current and future actions.
Richard Heg:
Nice point.
Jason A’s point suggests to me many people don’t realize how important the energy called electricity is to extending life. It also tells me many people have become too used to its convenience. Something, 3rd world countries have yet to realize on a mass basis.
Regards
The cynic within me says that the Earth Hour people looked at the graphs ahead of time and chose the hour to match the normal decline after 8 PM, hoping that gullible media types wouldn’t look too closely and report that the protest caused the power use to decline.
Going, going,…
gone?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
I’m just glad the “day ahead demand forecast” didn’t show a steep drop for the hour. It’s kinda like they knew it wasn’t going to work anyway. I wish certain other people could be that conservative in their forecasting. 🙂
It might be more realistic to compare March 28 demand with March 21 and possibly the demand on April 4. The Staurday energy using routines are normally different from Fridays and Sundays. What was the energy demand trend the other states of the US , the provinces of Canada and the EU countries ? Could there be an inverse pattern with like California the most environmentally conscious state ignoring Earth day while maybe surprises from other states? Did somebody check Hansen’s delectricity demand?