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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I spent Earth hour with the lights off…but that’s because I was watching a movie with a pretty girl.
Not sure about Communism, but exactly how much CO2 does a bong release?
My first instinct having read the article was that “you couldn’t make this stuff up” but clearly somebody has and it isn’t April 1st – I double checked.
The article appears in a section headed “Road to Recovery – How to Fix the Global Economy”.
OT:
The Caitlin arctic survey don’t appear to have made a post since 10.40 am Saturday 28 March. It is now day 30.
I suspect if they are in trouble the first news will be no news.
See what can happen if this madness goes ahead?
http://news.uk.msn.com/world/article.aspx?cp-documentid=15538016
As a conservative democrat, living in Northern Calif., I turned my lights on to demonstrate my concern about saving and preserving the Constitution of the United States of America and the freedoms, blessings and God given opportunities it provides. Turning the lights off to show concern about the climate has the same value as turning the lights off to prevent earthquakes, sunspots, volcanic activity, or gamma ray bursts. On every Earth Day I will demonstrate by holding my own personal Save The Constitution Day… at least until they completely destroy it and take it away!
Stephen
slowtofollow:: “Interesting stat from the CAISO archive – any idea why it is so far off the actual demand line on the graph in the post? Looks closer to the forecast figure to me?”
The archive now says 25.6 for 9:00 on Earth Hour day. Either it has been updated or I read/transcribed it wrong the first time. It’s not far off the graph in the original article which can clearly be seen as being under 26.0 (GW translating to 26,000 MW) – I’d eyeball at 25.8 vs. the 25.6. If the figures are updated to fine tune the result over time then that might explain it.
leebert (06:54:29) :
“If we had to we could use fusion-based power to suck CO2 out of the air, to crack CO2 & make new hydrocarbons (FT synthesis). This is what we need to be researching & planning for, not expensive wind farms.”
They do this and all life on earth will go instinct. The biosphere needs CO2 to thrive. The more CO2, the better the life cycle works, not the other way around.
so what, are you trying to say that leaving the lights on at night makes you live longer?
Yes. What Richard Heg said.
I do not, however, consider AGW to be a “swindle”, but an error that has snowballed (as it were).
Nuclear fusion is coming sooner than most people realize.
If that is true, this entire flap is moot.
Oh my gosh!
The great Rushbo just mentioned Anthony’s blog!
Wohoo!
REPLY: Thanks Cathy, you share in this success. Thank you for your help and support. – Anthony
Are there any similar historical graphs showing usage of power in California? I’m sure the Greenies will still claim success unless there is additional proof no change in California power usage can be historically documented.
Next to liberalism and the Democrat Party, man made Global Warming is the biggest hoax ever forced upon the people of this planet. It is a farce, a myth and a hypothetical theory. The Earth is 14 billion years old- we have around 120 years of modern man industrial production. 120 years is a sliver of a fraction of a fraction of 14 billion years of Earth time…to think that man made factors are warming the globe is assinine. It’s a huge ponzi scheme designed to create power, control and money via cap/trade legislation and placing the Chicago Climate Exchange organization in place as a carbon credit processor when it is passed. Funny how Obama was a Board Director in that organization back in 2000-2001 that funnelled $1mil in grant money to it’s research and who stands to make billions from it soon.
Following the NewScientist article on California cars, the director of the Air Resource Board, Stanley Young, posted a comment, clarifying that they were not specifically targeting black paint, but considering regulations for “a measure known as Cool Cars (not Cool Paints) designed to reduce the temperature of cars standing in the sun using both reflective paint and glass.”
Well, OK, but why—you may ask—should the Air Resource Board care how hot your car gets on a summer day? Well, because you have to run your air conditioner more, and that uses more gasoline, and that emits CO2, and that—well, you know what that does, right?
He concludes, “Fighting climate change will require all of us to be creative and innovative. Accurate stories about California’s efforts in creditable outlets like the New Scientist will help us achieve that goal.”
This is a state some $40 billion in the red and about to go bankrupt, but they can afford to pay people to create regulations to fight ‘climate change’.
It’s a measure of the madness that has overtaken the Western world. It’s so extensive that I fear the prediction of Lubos Motl (02:15:32), above, will fail to come to pass:
Unfortunately, the “main exponents of this megafraud” are the entire political leadership of the USA and Western Europe, plus the professional bureaucrats of the UN. Much as I would love to see them all behind bars, it doesn’t seem likely.
The ‘global warming’ myth is now so pervasive that the assumption of its truth underlies practically every story and advertisement in the media. Example: Little schoolgirl on stage declaims, “I’m the Earth burning up from global warming!” (ad for medicated wipes, which squirming dad in audience wishes he had used). Example: a news item on the radio announces that the Boys and Girls Clubs are engaging in programs to raise ‘awareness’ of global warming. Shouldn’t they be playing basketball, or something?
Turn on the radio or the TV, and that’s all you hear. So it must be true, right?
It’s going to take a concerted effort by scientists and other Realists to make the public realize that there is no global warming, and that carbon dioxide is not a problem. It’s got to be a revelation so dramatic, so shocking that the media cannot ignore it. Otherwise, the political class can ride the momentum they’ve got toward their goal of stringent controls and taxes on energy, dictatorial control over every aspect of our lives, and massive transfers of wealth to ‘the poor’ of the world, to stifle their development as well.
What could that revelation be? How about a “Save the plants!” movement? All you have to do is convince people that reducing CO2, as the dastardly warm-mongers want, will kill off all the plant life and turn the Earth into a desert! Is it fair to fight hyperbole with hyperbole, alarmism with alarmism?
/Mr Lynn
Too bad that the GW politics has robbed ‘Earth Hour’ of real utilitarian meaning. We should conserve power by eliminating unnecessary (note the word) use of electricity. Were Earth Hour about light pollution* as Steinar and others suggest, it would have value, but the rabid AGW and anti-technology eco political propagandists dominate.
* If we gradually eliminated the unnecessary lighting of the skies, we’d save municipal, business and even residential dollars. Makes sense to those few of us on the fiscal conservative endangered species list. And we’d enjoy night skies.
This reminds me of the flap raised by the [feminists] about the supposed increase in wife beating during the Super Bowl. IIRC after a couple of decades someone actually analyzed the police blotter data and found no statistical difference, possibly a decrease. But if you ask liberals I bet most believe it is true. Unfortunately, Goebbels was right. If you yell something loud enough and often enough most people believe it is true.
OTOH, IIRC the increase in births ~9 months after a major power blackout may be statistically significant.
So, there are probably papers with statistical methods for testing these things. The numbers are suggestive but we are supporters of science so they need to be ‘audited.’ e.g. Maybe Sundays usually show an increase in power consumption. As someone mentioned, are there seasonal effects such as steadily changing power consumption as the day gets longer or correlation with the temperature?
Stephen–conservative Democrat is a non-sequitur. Did you vote for Obama?
Interesting how even the simplest of “Green” arguments/claims falsify in the face of concrete data (truth).
But, AGW is politics now, so “truth” is of little consequence to our “decision makers”.
^”F” Global Warming:
The earth is 4 billion years old, not 14 billion.
Mark
Earthhour in CA was lost before it even began.
The per capita consumption by residential is too low, compared to the other sectors.
Now, if you had malls, auto malls, street lights, commercial and industrial lighting that were turned off when nobody is around (2am etc), then you could make a dent.
Because of rampant and excessive hardwiring, whole sections of cities will get cut when power is lacking. We know this as rolling blackouts.
The people who wire this stuff up are only thinking of the $$$ they make selling the power, not the slightest bit concerned about problems down the road.
Taxing CO2 will do nothing to alleviate the grid problem of hardwiring.
And it is heavily hardwired. The only meaningful switches are at the substations. Feast or Famine.
Ok after that Gruaniad (British joke) article, full of utopian dreams & wishes, (well it was certainly full of something) how do they use electricity to efficiently filter water? I alway understood the finest way was to use chlorine tablet into the rainwater, then pass it through a “CARBON” filter, & then dose it with a dash of chlorine for shelf life, just like Perrier does!
leebert
As soon as Fusion is available you may be certain that the environmental groups will be rabidly opposed to it. if they cared a with about the environment they would all be pro nuclear right now.
In over 30 years as a professional scientist and concerned person I have never heard or seen any honest or even remotely informed person who would not agree that ordinary nuclear fission power wins any contest on environmental friendliness hands down over anything else. It also wins easily in terms of waste and safety. All other sources of power are worse by orders of magnitude yet the so called “environmentalists” like Greenpeace are rabidly anti nuclear.
Can someone please help me out here:
If an electric power company normally uses 10 tons of coal during a particular time period on a particular day, and they anticipate no changes in demand; then the power company will still use 10 tons of coal even if everyone turns off every single electrical device. Where is the reduction in CO2. (?) How long does it take a power company to adjust fuel usage to demand (downwards)?
Or am I just missing something (probably). Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask the power generating companies to reduce power by some % for some length of time so we all get a good dose of the effect of reduced consumption and feel good about reduced CO2? Oh wait, that will happen enough this coming summer I guess, with rolling blackouts.
🙂
Mark T (09:14:08) :
^”F” Global Warming:
The earth is 4 billion years old, not 14 billion.
Mark
—
This reminds me of the joke about the solar astronomer who was giving a public lecture about the nature our sun. At the end of his talk, he stated that the sun would probably die out in about 5 billion years. When he had finished, a man sheepishly came up to him and asked “…umm…how long did you say it would take for our sun to die out?” “Five billion years,” the astronomer replied. “Phew,” said the man, wiping the sweat from his brow, “I thought you said 5 million years…”
“It’s going to take a concerted effort by scientists and other Realists to make the public realize that there is no global warming, and that carbon dioxide is not a problem. ”
I dunno – I think Gaia herself may be assisting. I’m sure the people in the north west are starting to doubt after two years of freezing their tails off. As this continues they are going to get mighty angry at someone – politicians most likely particularly ones imposing costly but useless climate change policies. First big test will be British Columbia in May. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gordon Campbell turfed out on his butt – the only problem being that given the nature of BC politics, his replacement is likely to be even worse! After a few of these greenie politicians get turfed, the others will be like rats leaving a sinking ship! That will spell the end of the Climate Change movement!
Today on The Anthropogenic’s Court (queue suspenseful music) – Andrew says AGW has something to do with the house he bought being hotter by a degree or two than it should have been, which caused it to burn down faster than he was able to try to put out the fire that tragically struck his home. Yes, he admits he was drunk smoking and fell asleep, but he says that doesn’t disprove his claim of faster/more extreme burning. He’s suing the human race for damages and the cost of the cigarettes and booze… We’ll be back…
Andrew
Wondering Aloud (05:29:16) : As for Earth hour it was once again a triumph of symbolism over substance and self righteous sloganeering over rational thought.
Symbolism over substance.
It’s always symbolism over substance.
“Richard Heg: “so what, are you trying to say that leaving the lights on at night makes you live longer? That’s a pretty silly conclusion to draw”
Yeah, I guess that we professional highway engineers were downright stupid to call the lighting at signalized intersections and freeway interchanges “safety lighting” . . . NOT. The same with outdoor lighting which keeps the burglars and other criminals at bay. Stupid is shivering in the dark for no valid reason.