Earth Hour comes to every time zone at 8:30 PM today. Will it make a difference?
Their website says:
On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations. Learn more about how Earth Hour began, what we’ve accomplished, and what is in store for 2010.
As many WUWT readers know, I’m all for energy efficiency and conservation when applied in a meaningful way. For example, a few months back, I retrofitted my home with some very cool LED recessed lighting. You can read my About page to see some of my other energy saving projects.
WUWT readers also know that I’m against Catlinesque stunts. Earth Hour, while born of good intentions, is one of those stunts that really doesn’t amount to any long term meaningful energy savings. In fact it doesn’t really even amount to any short term savings.
For example, last year, according to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), Earth Hour made zero difference to the California power consumption. Zero, zip, nada. Have a look at the graph:
Big Hat tip to Roger Sowell for the graphs:
Some greens were quick to point out “but look the power dropped then”.
Yah, it does that every day about that time:
If there was a big effect from Earth Hour, you’d see a step event as everybody turned off their lights in Califonia. Plus, the greens don’t seem to realize that no power plants get switched off, so there’s really no CO2 savings. The power plants are run based on demand forecast. Short term spikes from well intentioned stunts really don’t make a blip of difference to Co2 emissions.
For WUWT readers that wish to track this year’s California Earth Hour impact in real time, you can visit the CAISO tracker:
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
Have fun. Let us know what you did for Earth Hour.
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UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter challenge, I was obliged to look for some other real-time power monitoring locations, this one in Ontario Canada for example:
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/siteShared/demand_price.asp?sid=ic
For a fun project, WUWT readers can find their own local power reporting website and post up results here, and I’ll do a new post showcasing the effects of Earth Hour worldwide.
To post images or screencaps in comments use http://www.tinypic.com/ or a similar service and just paste the full image URL in the comments, no tags needed. – Anthony
Anthony, thanks for posting this. I had a lot of fun with this last year, and expect to have some more fun with this year’s Earth Hour silliness. (Btw, I like the hat. How did you know I have one exactly like that? )
I posted the California power consumption graph from Saturday March 13th for a comparison to tonight’s great Earth Hour power blip. http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/earth-hour-2010-busted-again.html Nothing new here, really, as the same smooth power decline occurred after 8:00 p.m., same as last year.
If Earth Hour is successful, we should expect to see a dip similar to that of 6:00 a.m. on March 13, roughly sunrise, when many millions of street lights and security lights turn off automatically across the state. The dip is approximately 200 MegaWatts. (smaller but similar dips occurred on the graphs on this post above, at approximately 6:30 a.m.)
Note that the power grid handles those dips with grace and no problems, (and does so daily), so it will take a mighty effort on the part of the greenies to actually cause a problem.
This to the commenter above on turning out streetlights at night because they waste energy: they stay on as a crime deterrent. Private security lights stay on as a reasonable and prudent measure to ensure few accidents occur to guests or residents or other authorized persons. Lawsuits are legion against a property owner who failed to adequately light his premises, and an accident occurred as a result. Those lights are staying on, too.
Mikael Lönnroth (09:14:07) :
Here in Finland they say the 2009 event had a significant effect on power consumption, but that’s not really the point.
Turning off the lights is demonstrating that people care about their planet and are ready to accept some changes in order to protect it..
Well then, set an example. Turn off your electricity on alternate months, for the whole month, that is. Show you care.
My part for Earth Hour:
take a extra long shower so I can feel clean again after reading some of the comments from trolls
“Hu Duck Xing (10:48:55) :
And now I’m sorry I took down all the outdoor Christmas lighting! Next year, I’ll wait.”
Lol…ya, I’ve left mine up just for this event….for years now…even
before Earth Cower….snicker…
In addition to firing up every appliance and light, I’m lighting a very large pile of wood and brush, some of which is still green and should smoke nicely, and my kids will enjoy toasting marshmallows and tossing more wood atop the pile.
In addition to using more electricity, I’ll be adding TONS of CO2 to the atmosphere. So take THAT planet-worshippers!
Don B (08:52:00) said :
“I hope the polar bears don’t celebrate Earth Hour by eating the Catlin expedition.”
Yumm… tastes like seal!
🙂
Spike this:
These types of responses are just as silly as Earth hour. Come on people.
“Steinar Midtskogen (10:43:46) :
There is too much excessive outdoor lighting.”
True, we need Victorian levels of darkness. Then rape, muggings and killings will rise to old historic levels again but higher incidents of death due to traffic accidents.
We don’t have enough lighting is what you meant.
To: sunsettommy (09:37:14)
I agree. Enjoyed your focussed rant, cos this site is so good we must keep rants focussed, yes? A lot can be done, and ought to be, via energy efficiency. And not because of CO2 as such, but it just makes sence given finite resources, over population etc.
It’s now 8:35 pm. GMT, and all my lights are on; just to show that I care… about all the brainless garbage pumped at me by the greenies and our politicians.
At least I can see to read my library book: Robert Service’s biography of Lenin. This was the first biography to have access to the ‘raw data’ after the fall of the Soviet Union. I have discovered that the childhood head-banger, er, intellectual, er, manipulative sociopath, er, obsessive, really cared… about getting his own way at whatever cost to others. But he was careful to get others to do the assassination, and the bank robberies, and defrauding rich widows, and…
His successors, green or red, are not much better. But they care.
Mikael Lönnroth wrote: “Here in Finland they say the 2009 event had a significant effect on power consumption, but that’s not really the point.”
No it didn’t. It amounted to a whopping 1% reduction in electricity usage according to the Finngrid statistics.
Human Achievement Hour is a great way for me to celebrate the fact that I will not be sleeping in a dark teepee tonight, eating food that was cooked over burning buffalo dung, and struggling every day merely to survive to the next day, like the previous residents of this area did.
Then again, I live on a quiet cul-de-sac in a fairly upscale neighborhood, and don’t recall ever seeing lights off in my immediate vicinity, so preaching to the choir I will still have all my lights on. This year I’m thinking of idling the car for the whole hour just because I can.
I feel guilty now about my lack of knowledge (of earth hour) and somewhat childish temptation to turn on even more lights than normal. But we all have had so much BS from the warministas that i guess frustrations boil over sometimes?
I Do try to save energy when I can: the task is to use technology and common sense to move toward sustainability without killing our economies, so “earth hour” gestures could do some good, if only they didn’t rev up the lunatic fringe who want to push us back to the Dark Ages. (They would help the planet more by having no children (population growth is the real problem)….maybe we could start a voluntary scheme for them to sign up to…)
[snip] all you green losers, the future is NUCLEAR ENERGY!!!!
kwik (10:57:16) :
Mikael Lönnroth (09:14:07) :
“Turning off the lights is demonstrating that people care about their planet and are ready to accept some changes in order to protect it…..”
Protect against what…..thats the question.
Sounds like “healing” to me.
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Directed at Mikael.
In the interest of being fair and balanced: The planet doesn’t care about us, so what’s the point of getting all exercised about human impact on the planet (which is vanishingly minuscule by the way) .
Anthony is for energy efficiency and conservation.
What Earth Hour celebrates is the opposite. The UK is ahead of the US (if that is the right word) in wind turbines, and they have enough experience to know that they produce at about 25% of rated capacity. Also, when electricity is needed the most, when temperatures are very cold, the wind doesn’t blow much.
The result is a need for backup electrical generation-duplication at increased costs.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/cold-wind-doth-blow.html
I don’t get it. Earth Hour seems to be an excuse to send out lots of OB units, charter lots of helicopters and light planes burn fuel so people can kick back in front of their 50″ plasmas and feel ‘green’. Perhaps the dishwashers, tumble dryers weren’t used during that hour, so it’s ok.
It’s all very puzzling. New builds in the UK and worse in some parts of Australia seem to have covenants or regulations about hanging out washing because it looks ‘messy’. Yet that means using free energy from our atomic clothes dryer the sun, and if shirts are out on hangers, less ironing.
Perhaps in the interests of noveau greenness, we should ban dishwashers, tumble dryers, hair dryers, electric toothbrushes, shavers etc and see how our urban(e) environmentalists manage without these labour saving essentials.
I keep thinking a neat way to demonstrate the sanity and wisdom of our climate cheerleaders like Gore, Strong and now the duelling James Cameron would be to parachute them into the WWF’s new wilderness preservation. Give them 3 months worth of supplies, watch what happens. If they build a low energy utopia, perhaps we can learn something. If not, well, no great loss.
I’ve put the data for Spain at http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/03/dia-da-terra-em-espanha.html
Maximum energy consumption at 9:05PM! Energy rising from 8:30 PM till 9:20 PM
Ecotretas
Most greenies need to be told what to do. If it needs to be 2 hours next time, so be it. If the word got out that the SUV has to go, then they would do it (as soon as the lease ends, or the H2SO4 claims get irritating.
My kid walked past the screen (before I read the pro/con comments) showing N Korea and said “what is Earth Hour?” I taught them well.
I celebrate Earth Hour every year by eating Aspertame/Flouride / HFCS sandwiches for 1 hour and gazing at the sunset as it lights up the chem trails (health and weather permitting).
No need to fret, this insanity will pass.
Data for Portugal at http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/03/hora-da-terra-em-portugal.html
Energy consumption went down, as usual, after 8PM. As I show with a graph from yesterday, energy consumption was up today, which is strange. Maybe related to an important soccer game, decisive for the Portuguese championship.
Ecotretas
I think it’s best to just ignore it, and saving the anger for something more worthwhile.
Sure, have a party, but no need to turn on every light. Let them be the eco-greeny kiddies, while we’re the adults, carrying on with life as usual.
The truth about energy efficiency,
The Efficiency Paradox (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
The Virtue Of Waste (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
Energy efficiency merely makes energy cheaper and thus we use more of it in the long run. The irony is that if you really want to curtail energy use you need to make it less efficient or simply more expensive, which is what cap and trade or a carbon tax would do.
We had our own Earth Hour…. er, 50 hours, last week courtesy of Cyclone Ului. Our power, lights, phone came on more than 2 days later, most people on after 7 days, some I understand are still without power. Neighbours lent us a generator to keep our fridge and freezer going, and we had lots of BBQs, so we were luckier than most. It certainly brought home how much we depend on electricity. I see on the news this morning it made less than 3% difference in Brisbane. Fools!