Guest post by Russ Rodrigues
On Saturday, March 31st at 8.30pm (local time) WWF is inviting you and everyone around the world to celebrate Earth Hour 2012 by turning off non-essential lights for sixty minutes to “protect the planet”.
Now, I’m all for saving electricity and lowering my utility bills, though I can’t help but wonder… does the collective action of millions of people turning off their lights have any real, tangible impact on our planet? Can an hour of conspicuous conservation actually help us achieve our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets? Or is Earth Hour merely another exercise in self-satisfying slacktivism, achieving nothing more than the squishy “feel-good” objective of “raising awareness”?
To answer these questions and get a sense of how effective Earth Hour really is, let’s look at the results of last year’s effort, specifically in the province of Ontario, Canada (where I happen to live).
Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) reported that that on March 26th, 2011, between 8:30pm and 9:30pm, due to conservation action during the last episode of Earth Hour, province-wide demand for electricity fell by 360 megawatts or 2.1% compared to a typical Saturday evening in late March.
Let’s simply assume that all 360 MWh of power demand was actually eliminated, rather than being merely postponed. Since it would be difficult to quantify the impact of time-shifting household activities, let’s just be generous and ignore it altogether.
How big a deal is 360 MWh? At Ontario’s blended average retail electricity price of 7.74 cents per kWh, that 360 MWh of reduced consumption amounts to a province-wide total cash savings of $24,864. One could, perhaps, compare that savings to the money spent promoting Earth Hour in Ontario by the WWF, various levels of governments, and numerous corporate partners, to say nothing of the costs incurred by the individual participants. But I don’t imagine that would be a favourable comparison.
So cost savings aside, how big an impact did Ontario’s Earth Hour have on the province’s CO2 emissions? Let’s ignore the extra emissions generated by people who traveled to and from public gatherings, or by those who lit paraffin wax candles (each of which emits about as much fossil-fuel derived CO2 per hour as a compact fluorescent light bulb). For simplicity, we’ll just focus on the CO2 emissions from the electricity that was saved.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), non-baseload electricity emits an average of 690 g of CO2 per kWh into the atmosphere. So, by simple math, by conserving 360 MW of electric power during Earth Hour, Ontarians reduced their CO2 emissions by a total of 248 metric tonnes.
248 tonnes. That sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? And it isn’t really that difficult to achieve… in fact, it’s even kind of fun. Perhaps we could just have a few more Earth Hours each year, and have some real impact on our emissions reduction targets. So, how many Earth Hours would it take? Once every quarter? One per month? Or maybe make it a fortnightly event?
In 2007, Ontario introduced its Climate Change Action Plan action to reduce total GHG emissions. This action plan established an annual GHG reduction target “6% below 1990 levels by 2014, a reduction of 61 megatonnes relative to business-as-usual” (pg 6). By eliminating 248 tonnes of CO2 emissions, Earth Hour achieved 0.000407% of this target.
Or, looked at another way, it would take nearly 246,000 Earth Hours to achieve the province’s annual emissions reduction target. Unfortunately, there are only 8760 hours in a year, so it would require a little more than 28 years of sitting in the dark to make good on a single year’s emissions reduction target. The WWF certainly isn’t kidding when it asks Earth Hour participants to sustain their actions “beyond the hour.”
But details like this aren’t what Earth Hour is about. It’s about demonstrating our commitment to the planet… about taking a stand on climate change… about promoting environmental consciousness. It’s a symbol of hope for the future. It’s an opportunity to light lots of pretty candles (preferably of the carbon-neutral, beeswax variety) and unite as a community in celebration of… well, uniting as a community. Yes, it’s all that and countless other fluffy intangibles.
So, you might as well just enjoy Earth Hour. While switching off your lights won’t achieve any material impact in terms of reducing emissions or protecting the planet, at least you can shave a bit off your electric bill while feeling good about yourselves. And of course, you’ll be doing your part to “raise awareness”.
===============================================
Spreadsheet for the calculations: Earth Hour Calculations (.xlsx)
As I grew up in house with no electricity, I see earth hour as a kick in the face from elitist eco dreamers towards a world where a great many of our fellow humans have no electicity. Shame on them.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be sure to test my UPS systems before hand to ensure they will help get me through the post spontaneous conservation surge when everyone turns everything back on. I’m surprised the TSA doesn’t consider this a DDOS attack on the grid.
Make that 12/44 carbon. Less radioactive.
DN’s message is worth a full post in its own right.
Around your area, do the local left newspapers take a helicopter up to show that people are turning off the lights. 😉
Remember? for us WUWT fans, it´s the carbon feast day, a day to prepare the biggest barbecue we can, and to burn all the “fossil” fuels we can. A day of a real pagan celebration to Gaia (We know she likes it!).
Thank you for pointing out that there is such a thing as ‘Earth hour’.
My lights will be blazing to release some long trapped CO2 molecules to enrich Earth’s atmosphere for the benefit of all plants and creatures.
Let us hope that the AGW crowd achieve some enlightenment soon.
In protest, I turn on every electrical item in the house to celebrate human kinds acheivements
WWF? When did the World Wrestling Federation get all weepy and environmental?
Here in Michigan, we just had a 5 day power outage due to a winter storm. I ain’t turning off the electricity for nothing or nobody, no thanks! Anyone who wants to go live in the 19th century is welcome to it.
When we worked in Ethiopia, we had “earth hour” at least once a day. Ever wonder why so many buildings in poor countries have big water tanks on the roof? Cause the power and water are often off daily. They live “earth day” every day. And that is why I have a 12 kw automatic gen set plus 4 kw and 1 kw portable units to power up remote equipment around the farm. Without power, I have no lights , refrigeration, heat or water. I could survive without it, but it isn’t about survival in Canada or the US for most people. I like to be able to use the Internet and cook my meals on the electric stove rather than the wood stove (and yes, I have one in the kitchen but I prefer not to have to use it – been there, done that for too long).
I don’t need earth hour to remind me what it was like living in rural Alberta in the 40’s and 50’s with out power or running water. That’s for hiking and vacations now.
Maybe we need to send our children out into the bush for a couple of months in the summer without electricity and running water and “toilet” facilities so they can appreciate what they have. They could have “earth summers” making hiking paths or planting trees. (Actually my kids did that and I am not sure it helped.)
I will go unplug my trough heater as there is water running through it from the spring and it won’t freeze up at this point in the year so that is my 200 watt times the rest of the winter hours contribution.
I will be thinking of you all at 8:30 while I watch the moon and planets go over my relatively un-light polluted evening sky … just a slight orange glow from the gas plants over the next ridge a few miles away. Then I”ll light the fireplace and be sure my geothermal heating system doesn’t have to use any electricity. 😉 (Oh dang, I forgot about the CO2 from burning the wood …)
SteveS, the wrestlers might be interested in the salary
Earthhour is actually a company owned by Australian newpaper co Fairfax and eco charities WWF etc. with directors paid AUD$165K taxfree
..make sure you put some more money in the donation buckets
Earth hour has no practical raison d’etre but it has an important social one.
It is the warmista, greenie, religion version of denial, such as Christian Lent or muslim eid. It provides a common focus in time and action for all believers. They all share the pain together.
I, like some anti-Whale, shall burn, baby, burn!
here’s the link for the $500K salary bill http://boy-on-a-bike.blogspot.com/2011/12/untangling-ownership-of-earthhour.html
To be completely realistic here for a moment – Australia, East or West draws the majority of its load from large base load coal fired power stations or large gas fired power stations. The former take a matter of days or even weeks to shut down and start up and the latter certainly take many hours. The only rapid response generation plants are the gas turbine peaker plants that are for peak periods only. Which of course is not when Earth Hour occurs. Therefore if Earth hour were to cause an overload of the grid then the only option for generators is to slow the turbines as much as possible, which is terribly inefficient or bypass the steam for an hour. Net saving Zero.
The educational benefit of earth hour is purely dependent on what one thinks one is educating the hoi poloi about.
Oh goody! … I love Earth Day. It is the only day that my wife will let me to turn on all our TV’s, lights and appliances at one time! It is quite a grand celebration!
Also hoping to take a cruise past Al Gore’s house this year to see what he does this time (leaving all of my TV’s, lights and appliances on while I am gone of course).
A Lovell [March 10, 2012 at 1:11 pm]
“Every year at this time I re-read the predictions made on Earth Day 1970, and have a bit of a giggle. They’re quite fun to bring up whenever one encounters a true believer.”
Heh… that has some gems.
I like this one:
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
According to http://www.eia.gov, in 1975 the daily production of crude oil (world wide) was 61,123,000 bbl/day. In 2009, it was 84,389,000 bbl/day. (that specific spread sheet stops at 2009)
Alan S. Blue says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:59 pm
DN’s message is worth a full post in its own right.
==================================================
Indeed
Very good!
Thanks Russ.
March 31 is the Final Four. (http://www.finalfour.net) At 8:30 p.m., I will be watching basketball. If they are going to pull a stunt like this, at least put it on a day where nothing special is going on.
Charles Brecknell says: March 10, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Yes,
All donations from your proposed event can go to providing a laptop to each child in X community. These children will be able to access reading, writing and maths. And children in other environments.
They will be able to do this in the absence of teachers, a school, absence of electricity and after they have finished goat herding, hoeing the [pitiful] paddock, and trudging kilometres in unsafe areas with a clay vessel or a piece of twine to haul water or cooking fuel loads back to their miserable smokey abodes. After they have repowered their laptop during the day and fed their aging husband and his other aging wives. And their families, they will have a meagre screen light emitted, where they can know what it is to be a child, with a future, once again.
There is no mistaking what it is and for whom it is intended.
http://one.laptop.org/about/hardware
source: http://one.laptop.org/
African Grain Handout 1973 (abstract interested in discussing fashion!)
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/african-grain-hand-out/query/costumes
Hey Disko Troop, I am not in Canada at the moment so I can do the earth months. I just want to get some of the warmists to do it with me.
I can do next January without fossil fuel in Canada also because I won’t be there. But I am not inviting Al Gore to my house in the Bahamas. I will invite him to my house in Canada.
My use of fossil fuel is much less here. Don’t have heat and don’t need it. Have ceiling fans, not air. Two lights on at present, a computer and the fridge. During the day, no lights on, sometimes the computer and ceiling fan and always the fridge.
Funny how much easier it is too use less power in a warmer climate.
PS. Electricity is cheaper in the Bahamas than Ontario and so is just about everything else.
I second the motion for DN’s comment on March 10, 2012 at 1:22 pm to be elevated to a separate post. It’s well worth the read.
View from the Solent says: March 10, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Having just caught up and read (somewhat) 2 weeks of WUWT I would say also, with apologies to DN @ur momisugly 1.22pm as I had not read his excellent post at the time I posted, this also
= an article of worth as link 1 + link 2 below.
1. Earth hour has no practical raison d’etre but it has an important social one.
(Robert of Ottowa http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/earth-hour-is-it-worth-the-effort/#comment-918873 )
+
2. The cartoon is correct – score it 9 out of 9.
Wind power – It doesn’t just blow – It sucks!
Alan MacRae http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/saturday-silliness-joshs-wind-energy-fact-sheet-global-wind-power-to-the-nearest-whole-number/#comment-918548
I remember when traveling in India 20-odd years ago, someone asked me if it was true that in England we had electicity all day every day. When I confirmed that this was true, they looked at me in astonishment. Then they claimed I was lying.
I think everybody who wants to participate in this nonsense should spend a month the way those people did, and many still do. They had electricity in the mornings and evening for a limited time, mostly. Even in larger towns and cities where you had electricity all day & night, it would go off three or four times a day for up to an hour.
I live in very rural SW Pennsylvania (USA). My power company tends to drop electric service for varying periods of time every week or so. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but by now I have probably paid my “carbon dues” for several years.