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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Re: AlexB (13:57:11) :
“…people would burn a cow pat to cook their dinner in a crowded hut and drink dirty water.”
I’d vote we all go round to Al Gore’s palace, camp outside and all sit around in crowded huts, burning cow pat fires, drinking dirty water and set up camp latrines in his back yard (very eco-friendly don’t you know) and see if he likes our low-energy and eco-friendly way of living. Hell, I’d even welcome him outside for a road-kill burger (hey its going to waste otherwise) and some recycled urine…
Charles the moderator wrote:
Reply: Political events such as “Earth Hour” necessarily spawn political discussions. And even though the Nazi comments above may even be accurate, this moderator would prefer avoiding the chants of Nazis! Nazis! Fascists! Fascists! etc. and where those discussions would lead. I don’t know how to set this out as an objective rule for moderation, but I’m hoping you all get my rather vague and porous point ~ charles the moderator
Charles, “I feel your pain”! Decorum in debate is essential and we don’t want to lower ourselves to a personal, ad hominem level. Many people died because of Hitler’s Germany and we don’t want to minimize those events.
A bit OT:
I am listening to President Obama on the radio right now talking about his firing of GMs CEO this weekend. The definiition of Economic Fascism is private ownership of the means of production with the government having veto authority over policy and staffing decisions of the corportation(paraphrased). Obama is utilizing his veto power over GMs board of directors by canning the CEO. What should we call this type of government/private sector relationship?
I am getting nervous!!!
I did the same but found a different graph. I compared last Sat. to the previous Sat. also. Mine shows a marked increase in usage during the Earth Hour period.
Sorry for the OT but…
HUH?
The life expectancy map is outdated. It says that the life expectancy of Spain is between 77.5 to 80 years and the actual CIA factbook says it is over 80.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sp.html
Yeah man, we Californians really had an impact. More of our hydroelectric, nuclear and wind powered juice (especially true Saturday night) ended up going unused! Great impact on GHG emissions! YAHHHHHH MAHHHHHN! Oh, WOW, man.
I was at work during “Earth Hour”, running megawatts of computer toys :).
At about 8:45, I went out for a dinner break, and drove up and down the local “strip” spotting businesses who went dark, and making mental notes not to do business with them in the future for being dumb enought to fall for this tokenist crap. There were surprisingly FEW “dark” businesses… at 8:45 Saturday night, even in Tallahassee– were they KIDDING? … so even my boycott isn’t going to be a very onorous chore. Most of the places that went dark were like tofu-burger joints, so I probably wouldn’t have gone there in any case. I grabbed a Big Mac and went back into the computer room at 9:15 and kept those computers churning out the wattage.
So, yup… I’m “doing something about the environment” 🙂
I support the choice of a consumer to do as they wish in response to some of the posts above. While I’m envirnmentally inclined, living in the dark, eating locally grown (but only in the summer as i live in the north) veggies and forgoing all meat becasue someone has told me to just doesn’t fit my rights as a citizen of this country. Such as it is…..slowly going, going, going……
Every light in or on my home was lit as well as was most of my neighbors.
“This it has obviously done :)”
I was especially heartened by tyhe news out of Tennessee.
Um, actually it’s a very intelligent point to make. Exterior lighting correlates quite strongly with reduced crime of all sorts including violent life threatening crime. The is exactly why we have street lights. It’s not so you car doesn’t need headlights or so old aunt Sadie can leave the flashlight at home… There is some effect on auto / pedestrian accidents and auto / auto accidents too, but that’s smaller.
That is exactly what the power companies want you to believe.
It’s wrong. The ‘change’ in lighting is the only thing that reduces criminal activities. Put up new lighting, and it works for a while. Then, it’s back to business as usual. And there isn’t enough fossil fuels to continue down that path of lighting up the world.
The best outdoor lighting for security issues is motion-sensor activated.
There is also a growing problem of glare. It is causing increased pedestrians being struck by cars. Newer models have 4 lights, and lights strong enough to appear sunlike. At times near sunset, people are walking out into traffic thinking the light they see is the setting sun. It’s deadly.
Glare problem #2: When too much lighting is added in one spot, it reduces visibility in the lesser lit areas that used to be well-lit. Cascading like waves, more lighting is piled on. More demand on the grid. The aging grid.
Utility companies could care less if a whole city is plunged into darkness.
The lessons from S. Africa are a stark reminder of the hardwired problem.
Constant rolling blackouts, because too much of the cities are hardwired.
Nobody is brave enough to address the problem, even though life goes on during blackouts. Yes, the cars do just fine, and so do the people walking about. Sorry about the food in the fridge.
So I take it someone won’t be visiting Vegas or Times Square. They both turned it all off. Or the UK, where the rural counties have all cut back on the lavish outdoor lighting.
You can live without the extravagnza lighting.
Try that with your refrigerator or your hot water heater.
You know, the things that really make life better?
I can see a day coming when we will see residents taking matters into their own hands, reducing the demand on the grid by force.
Wouldn’t it be better to do it sanely, over time?
Power plants boil water to make steam. If demand falls they just vent the excess steam. Some plants are running in spinning standby for sudden changes in demand. Think about it. It takes some time to get the plant up to “full steam” just like the boilers on battle ships.
That’s very true, unfortunately. I would have expected California’s electrical consumption to have decreased… I guess not!
John in NZ (07:51:37) :
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.
Their biotelemetry is at last streaming, although their heart, respiratory rates and core temperatures do appear to fluctuate rather worryingly at times. Some text has just been posted also:
“Latest Update [30 March 2009]
The current terrain is an unpredictable mix of open expanses, deep fissures and dynamic rubble fields which is making it very difficult for the team to get into a steady walking rhythm. The ice in the area they are crossing is very active and the team need to be alert to sudden changes at all times, as Ann found out when she sat down on a pressure ridge for a break in the middle of the day, only for the ice to suddenly start breaking up underneath her. Needless to say she cut her tea break short and moved on rather quickly.
Despite the challenging conditions, the team have proved they have now well and truly found their sea-legs and covered 13km.”
So considering the problems of wet sleeping bags and frostbite, I think they have done pretty well, as they still appear to be alive, and have only another 788km of polar bear dodging to go. I do have symapthy for them; if only because they are carrying on the great British tradition of totally daft and dangerous expeditions. The longer this goes on, the more I am reminded of the Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns story, ‘Across the Andes by Frog’.
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am a skeptic – not an idiot. We need to tamper this down. I admit I turned on all the lights in my house for earth hour, but then I shut them all off later on. This is because I have been using energy savings devices for years and being human tend to hate what Al Gore has done to what I believe is a reasonable attitude. That attitude is simply stated as “Be frugal”. I don’t believe in AGW but just in case I am wrong
OT
Gavid at RC spread the AGW=more C5 Hurricanes nonsense.
Left wing radio talk show host Nancy Skinner earlier today said that AGW is heating up the oceans and causing more category 5 Hurricanes.
She must get that nonsense from misrepresenters like Gavin Schimdt
Gavin Schmidt
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/a-potentially-useful-book-lies-damn-lies-science/
Posted
“We’ve been told that AGW will lead to more frequent & destructive hurricanes.”
Gavin response.
[Response: It may well do. The magnitude of such an effect is still difficult to discern. – gavin]
“may well do”?
I may well win the lottery too.
This is science?
Gavin A. Schmidt is a central figure in the IPCC as a climatologist and climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).
Gavin Schmidt is misrepresenting IPCC science.
“The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.”
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
In Canada the Globe and Mail, the AGW mouthpiece newspaper has yet to published one statistical result about Earth Hour in Canada… instead it is easier to ask the readers to show their pictures, tell their stories etc… and of course it has no statistical value.
Watch out. Sydney where the “Earth Hour ” started will have a rolling black out for a long period after one of the main transmission lines failed ysterday. As the utility company reports, it may take months to repair the failed line leaving Sydney with no back up, making the load balancing difficult. That is the technical point. Wait until the Public Relations boys come with a good cover up. They could come up with the rolling and permanent earth hour. That will alsosave the face of the New South Wales government who has busted almost all of New South Wales infrastructure from Railway, roads, water and electricity.
I got an idea, lets not do Xmas this year. No Xmas lights, and shut off all the other lights on Xmas Eve so Santa can’t navigate and dump us all those toys he made in China. Obviously he had to move his production since the North Pole melted and his factory is underwater now.
Just tell the kiddies Santas production will turn Earth into a Green Hell and is no longer welcome. Toys and Xmas lights kill, as do the Xmas trees carbon. I mean, they are already teaching kids in school the AGW alarmist religion that preaches man is a sinner against Gaia and if we don’t change our habits we are all going to live in a Green Hell. This is just the next step.
And for those promoting eco-terrorism like Hansen, may they go to a Green Hell with Santa, or GITMO. Really, enough already.
Roger,
It is funny and sad that the government does not have the science right to be able to properly “adjust the pressure on a hot tire.” But they DO know how to adjust the earth’s thermostat by controlling CO2.
The clowns have taken over the circus.
Mike
I’ve been an energy conserver my whole life. At work, I’m the one who turns the lights out and only turns them back on if I hear someone yell in the dark.
But on this Earth Hour thing, I sense, and I could be wrong, that it is tied to the Catastrophic Anthropogenic CO2 Induced Global Warming (aka Climate Change) propaganda campaign and I don’t like being a pawn in their game.
I did turn a few extra lights on, but I suppose I could have gone full out and turned on my table saw, planer, and dust collector, but I was too busy blogging. I guess I’m just lazy.
FWIW, we had some friends over to watch a DVD movie, a 1946 musical about “The Harvey Girls,” which my friend Guy and I hoped would have some good ATSF train shots in it. We were disappointed, but the movie was fun, if dated, nonetheless. I had intended to turn on all the lights for ‘Earth Hour’, but completely forgot. So much for my symbolic gesture.
When they made the film, they actually bought a period 4-4-0 locomotive and three coaches in Oregon or somewhere, and trucked them down to California. The loco made a satisfyingly large cloud of very black smoke. I expect these days the Air Quality Board would have forbidden that.
/Mr Lynn
if you go to http://oasis.caiso.com/ and then look up the system loads for 3/28/09, they omitted the data for the earth hour.
@Mike Bryant (18:26:10) :
Mike, that is about the best summation I have heard on this entire issue. Can I quote you on that?
I vote for Mike’s comment as the quote of the week.
Btw…there is some material in that Tire Pressure regulation on internal tire temperatures and pressures. The hottest data point was about 107 degrees F. As an experiment, I felt the sidewall of a rear tire on my car after my 30 minute commute today. The tire felt mildly warm to the touch, definitely hotter than 100 degrees. Perhaps 110, maybe 120? This was in very mild weather today, not even 70 degrees F. Probably 65 degrees F, sunny, no rain. I remember tires being much, much hotter when I worked in a tire lane back in the 1970’s. We had to let a car sit for a few hours before putting it on the rack to remove the tires. That was in Houston (TX) in the summer, with ambient temperatures over 90 F.
Lots of good posts here tonight. Lots of new posters. Keep spreading the word to all your friends & make them regular visitors as well.
No surprises here in the graphs – simple fact is that when push comes to shove, almost no one really believes this is a problem worth sacrificing their personal well being & comfort for. And for politicians, since it is their business to get re-elected, they will fall in line with the populous when push comes to shove. Democracy can be a beautiful thing! …. unless your are Mr Hansen … then it isn’t working correctly – his statement ties seamlessly to the graphs & he knows it, thus the desperation among his crowd.
As much teenage son would say …. Sucks to be you! LOL
Great post Anthony. I turned all my lights on to try and flatten the curve but it was cold in Chicago and my heat just ran less. Oh well.