Earth Hour: Use as much electricity as you possibly can!
March 29th, 2008
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Folks, tonight is the of something called “earth hour” when people across the world will be asked to turn off their lights both to conserve electricity and reduce light pollution for those who want a clear view of the sky. They’ll also be asked to do whatever they can to reduce electrical usage or ideally use no electricity at all. Some people are actually going to be shutting down their electricity at the breaker to make a statement.
The idea is to cut greenhouse gasses and I am certain that when this is all said and done a very large number will be put out there for all the thousands of tons of CO2 which were not released. Of course, this number will simply take the total energy conserved and convert it to CO2 produced for that number of kilowatt hours, and therefore it has absolutely no baring on reality. Whether or not there will actually be a big reduction or a reduction at all is more questionable, considering the need for spinning reserve and the short time that this is going on – far too short to shut down any boilers or even combined cycle power plants.
What shocked me is that last year it was stated that Sydney Australia’s electrical demand dropped by 2-10% as millions participated. And to be honest, that got me just a little bit worried.
So what am I doing now? Well I’m using as much electricity as I reasonably can. More importantly I’m running two air conditioners (and I’m not even hot), a couple fans and a vacuum cleaner. Why? Those all have induction motors in them. Given this only one phase service it’s less than ideal, but the point is that tonight I’d rather not cause a problem and infact I’d rather pick up for the morons whose symbolic act could actually cause some real problems.
It’s a quarter after 8 on the East Coast of the US right now. Getting past the 8 o’clock mark was the easy part, but at 9 o’clock we’ll see what happens.
No I don’t really expect my air conditioners to make much difference but it’s my little protest against overly-simplistic actions for the environment. We should all do our part to conserve energy and electricity, but NOT all at the exact same freakin moment!
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Worse, based on the two idiots I spoke to on the phone tonight (calling to remind me about my duty) these events create the illusion that something is being done, and they’re being proactive about it.
The whole thing is moronic to the extreme; we don’t need to save energy, we need to produce more of it without creating byproducts we cannot control. It is just that simple. Even if by some miracle we did slash our energy consumption by half, the only ones that would gain is the current producers they wouldn’t have to change a thing except to raise prices.
We people wake up and realize the only big losers if nuclear is adopted are in the carbon fuel sector – the longer they can make their resources last, the more money they can earn.
I don’t know – is this too simple?
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March 30th, 2008 at 12:01 am
No it’s too complicated. “Co2 comes from energy. Co2 and emissions bad. Less Energy good”
You tried to be as simple as you could, but someone else managed to get even more simplistic! Ha!
I do kinda disagree on one thing. I definitely think that using less energy when it’s possible is a good thing. As long as it is reasonable and it has a good ROE and everything. For example, insulation or better lighting or whatever.
but you’re right that conservation is really at best a side issue that can only really do a small bit or delay things. Efficiency gets you so far because most big users of energy are already effecient due to need to be.
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March 30th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I was going to make an infographic of myself sitting in front of a 400 watt bulb and about a dozen 32 watt CFLs that I use to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder with the caption, “For every light you turn off, I’m going to turn on three” for my friends over at Technocrat, but I got lazy. Maybe next year.
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March 30th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I turned every light in my home on, then went around to a friend’s place to make sure he’d done the same (he had, without any convincing from me). I only regret that being away from home at the time, I didn’t have the opportunity to run the clothes dryer while doing some vacuuming with the stereo loud enough to hear over the noise.
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March 30th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Two words: Jevon’s Paradox.
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March 30th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Actually the funny thing is that grid management takes into account the little changes that are caused by various events in the world. The goal is to have as much electrical capacity avaliable to always have reliable service but to not have too much extra reserve that is wasted spinning uneeded generators. They know how demand is going to go up at primetime and down later and that it is higher on certain days of the week and holidays and also that the weather changes it.
Hydro is the big thing to keep it avaliable for peak because it’s the only one they can turn right on and off. They can rev up or down a turbine a little but if they do it more than for a few minutes or a few percent then it can deplete the thermal reserve so really hydro is the only thing that can go from zero to 100% output in a few minutes.
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March 30th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Wow. What an awful group here and what horrible things to day. I think one hour is not enough at all but how can you stand here and tell everyone you would turn things on just to undo the good other people did???
I think this might have raised awareness but you are only right that it was not enough. You are not right to do nasty things and try to hurt the environment just to show you can! The person who wrote this should be so ashamed but I don’t believe everyone thinks this is good too! What is wrong with everyone here? such sick people!
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March 30th, 2008 at 2:42 am
“Wow. What an awful group here and what horrible things to day.”
Do facts give you a head ache?
“I think one hour is not enough at all but how can you stand here and tell everyone you would turn things on just to undo the good other people did???”
Reducing your power consumption faster than the grid can respond does not help the environment. It’s feel good crap that benefits no one.
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March 30th, 2008 at 6:38 am
BluEyedJess said:
While the promoters of Earth Hour claimed in 2007 they achieved the same result as taking 49,000 cars off the road for a year, in reality it is closer to taking 49 cars off the road for a year. But this is what environmentalism is all about–creating a nice-looking spectacle instead of actually working on something that benefits the environment.
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March 30th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Actually, Jess, this could theoretically have caused big problems if enough people really did turn their power off at the same moment. Sometimes the grid experiences a sudden giant loss of demand and this is usually caused by a severed line which cuts off an area. This actually is a problem because it can suddenly flood the grid with excessive energy and that can cause a momentary increase in voltage and even worse frequency. That could cause a phase error and if the voltage spike is bad enough it could even damage equipment.
This would be rare though because this happens enough that it is planned for and there are big resistors and other equipment which are designed to take this and dissipate it safely. Still, if a city suddenly went down 10% then it could possibly exceed the ability to keep stability.
Worse: If these people actually turned everything back on at nine that would cause a huge spike in demand because of the initial current required. Turning it off is unlikely to be a catastrophe but if people took it literally and it all came back on in a few minutes *THAT* could cause something as bad as a domino-effect grid failure.
Did you see the part about big inductive motors? Those actually are good for grid stability because they maintain the frequency and they store energy as their own spinning momentum. When there is a surge in demand every motor connected to the grid becomes a buffer.
Really if he tried to offset the big swing in demand he did the right thing to maintain the stability.
I’ve worked in the power industry. I understand this kind of thing. I have a feeling Jess does not.
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March 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Is there any realworld example of a cascading failure being caused by a lot of people suddenly reducing their demand or increasing it?
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March 30th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Increases in demand: Definately. There are examples of a lot of people arriving home and turning things on at the same time or of a lot of businesses opening at the same time and the power grid being disturbed to the point of brownout or failure. It does not happen often unless things are already badly strained to begin with. A if power needs did go up by something like 10% or more in a few minutes that would be an unusually big spike and it might exceed the ability to reroute power.
Decreases in demand: Yes, but usually it’s not a coincidence of people switching things off or I do not know of that. Usually it is caused by first having very excessive demand then having it get so high that it trips a circuit breaker and cuts off most of the demand in an small area. If it is sudden enough there is no place for the energy to discipate and there becomes a problem with standing waves on the line. It changes the impedience of the lines before the system can restabalize and it could in theory get bad enough to cause a phase error or a big voltage spike.
I doubt this would actually trigger that because the lights would come back on likely staggered and not at exactly 9 o’clock. However, they are doing the electrical company no favor here and making their job harder.
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March 30th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
So in this case, it sounds like the consensus is that this was a stunt and that it actually likely did as much harm as good and was harmful in the fact that it perpetuates a myth and generally makes people believe something is being done that is constructive when it is not?
Way to pee all over that parade.
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March 30th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
What pisses us off the most is that there are things that can be done, and if some of this capacity to motivate so many people to act was channeled properly, a real dent could be made in the issues this sort of grandstanding pretends to address.
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March 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I actually haven’t heard of Earth Hour before a few days ago when I read about it online. My immediate first thought: Helloooo power surge.
Idiots. Ignorant, passionate idiots.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Wow you have really got to be kidding about this! Earth hour was a wonderful thing where there was a lot of unity and energy from all around the world for a good cause! Why would anyone oppose something like that? Why are you so angry about people working for good?
Is all that matters to you that it’s not enough for one hour? Is that what you think this is? This is showing the world we can do with less and it’s not about just how much energy and polution it saves now. People need to see what we can do and it showed it very well. I think it’s the start and it will inspire and that if we can do it from one hour that just shows how we can do it for more then that! This is step one!
That anyone would somehow try hard to make it not work is just wrong and bad and it hurts me to think anyone would do something so bad. Why would you want to hurt like that? Earth is your home and you have to realize she is not your enemy!
The only thing that you should be using a lot of electricity for in earth hour is in an electric chair because that would help a lot. It’s just so amazing to me people are like this! Why are there so many bad people in the world?
P S Don’t give me any of your science talk or lies about science and how much you know. We know what side each is on and nobody wants to hear bad science from such people. Nobody is listening to you. You are from the past and the old way. Things change.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
El Dorkorino said:
Had I known I might be peeing on such a parade, I would have eaten quite a lot of asparagus.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Jason And Laurin said:
You are typing this on a computer designed and built by people like us, putting it on a network designed and built by people like us, powered by an electric grid designed and built by people like us. In fact most of your pathetic ignorant little life depends on the things people like us designed and built. The fact that you can be so out of touch with the facts and still survive one nightfall to the next is because people like us designed and built the civilization you live in.
So maybe, just maybe we know better than you what is going on.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Jason And Laurin said:
Yeah! stop confusing people with science, Doc! They already know what the go is, and who the good and bad people are. The good people are the ones who say they are, the ones who are concerned, and really trying to do something, like ‘raising awareness’.
You’re from the past, and the old (rational, scientific) way. Things are changing, y’know!
Which they are, of course, but I suspect they’re changing in a direction opposite to the one Jason and Laurin would like us to go down. The call to anti-science irrationality is no longer quite as respectable as it was the last few decades.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
DV82XL said:
Well, I’m not 100% sure about that DV82XL, when you talk about “People like us” I certainly would like to think that I am at least as much dedicated to the science and engineering path to a better understanding and better stewardship of the world.
But for those who got us here, designed the electric grid, developed the internet and so on, I would not be so bold as to compare myself to those giants!
I suppose that one might say it takes all kinds though, from the linemen and network technicians up to those who invented the first systems and pioneered out understanding. In that case, I suppose I’m on the same side (as opposed to those who just plain don’t like science, engineering, technology and so on). But I’m not going to say I’d rise to some of those out there.
There are too many known and unknown heros out there than some might think.
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March 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Yes, that’s all true. But I think the point is which side you’re on and not how far up the ladder you are in terms of accomplishments. I don’t think I’m about to compare myself to a lot of the Nobel Prize winers but I’m going to always support that kind of thing and some people oppose it. I think “people like us” just means those who are the doers and not the ones who wallow in lack of understanding.
You are a lot more intellectually honest because people like that come out and tell you that they know right from wrong and they should be listened to just because they are good people and they say so. I respect people a lot more like you and DV82XL, especially because you admit you are only providing the answers and understanding that was given to you by a long line of brilliant people.
Do not be afraid to admit that you stand very very tall above those, even if you only stand so tall on the shoulders of giants!
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March 30th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I agree that this page has a lot of bad people. Science is only good when it’s used for good and nobody here is talking about science but about the power system and how we should use it like we used to and not try to be better. Your science doesn’t sound too good to me and I don’t think that’s all science says. If we all work we can make a difference and you can’t deny that.
Help and don’t hurt. There’s no reason to be bitter. Anger is no good so please come to the good side and we’ll all be happy to see you there!
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March 30th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
MoonStarsSunEarthPeace said:
Well I may be presumptuous claiming peerage with the great of science and technology, but I’m a damned sight closer to them than I am this bozo.
When will it sink in to this class of dummy that we are applying science for good?
We understand better than any of you just how these problems can be solved, and believe us when we say turning out the lights for an hour once a year just won’t cut it. Cutting back consumption even 50% among the top 10% of consumers permanently won’t do a damned bit of good when the rest of the planet already uses less energy in a year than self-righteous nitwits like MoonStarsSunEarthPeace and Jason And Laurin use in a day. Not only that but the other 90% want to raise their standard of living, and we can’t stop them.
If we don’t start looking at solutions that can be applied to the whole planet we will fail to solve any of these problems. These solutions just don’t come from some idiots dream of a low energy culture, where everyone makes artisanal goats milk cheese and trades for hand-woven baskets in some fantasy version of the Hobbet’s Shire.
What these simpletons don’t understand that there is a fight going on that they can only lose by backing these showy, useless events, when the real work is being done by people like us that are desperately trying to get everyone to see the real truth. Truth that is backed by sound logic and scientific fact. By choosing to dismiss us based on nothing but your own prejudices, you play right into the hands of our common enemy; Big Carbon.
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March 30th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Here’s another take:
“I believe our messy oil age will be replaced by better technology, not by a planetary embrace of Luddism. Because really, what’s easier – one smart dude figuring out how to run cars on sea monkeys, or convincing all of Asia to never try air-conditioning? Those people eat spicy food.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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March 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
DV82XL said:
Yeah. Do we really need to run cars on sea monkeys though? I mean, do we really need some dude to figure anything out?
I think it was figured out actually.
Some dude figured out that matter and energy are basically the same thing.
Then some dude figured that part of the mass of an atom is not classical particles but “Binding energy” which you could change into usable energy
Then some dude saw it happen
Then some chick figured out what was going on
Then some dude figured out a way to do it that was self-sustaining and would produce energy
That pretty much got it all taken care of.
Now if some dude could figure out how to get people to accept that it’s not evil and won’t eat their children, I think we should be all set.
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March 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
For some reason, I keep wanting to think that SunMoonEarthBeansAndChips(or something) and Jason and Laurin are elaborate trolling attempts. They almost seem TOO good at ecotard gospel. Jess seems legit.
Then again, I have underestimated people like that before.
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March 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Sung Li Kim said:
Yeah I don’t know. It would not be the first time I had seen someone like that who was for real. The SunMoonEarth dude or chick is probably the only one I’d doubt. The other two look real. That one might be a troll or the same person(s) back again or someone they know recruited to back them up. Who knows?
I wouldn’t doubt any of these are totally legit except the last one has a name that is so ridiculous it could go either way.
There are people who spend a lot of their time searching for sites that talk bad about something like this and make a fit about it. It’s always hard to tell what the hell they’re thinking.
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March 30th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Well the first one, “blue eyed” or whatever has a totally different IP address than anyone else. It’s a university in the United States, but I’ll leave it at that. The second one “Jason And Laurin” is, surprisingly enough, an AOL IP address. I didn’t know anyone still really used AOL for internet access. I don’t know if it’s dialup (probably) or if it might be AOL-branded DSL or something. Then EarthBeansandChips is, slightly surprisingly, enterprise symetrical DSL, as in DSL which is not directed for home or general purpose use but is a step bellow a T1 or something for offices and whatnot.
They look distinct. I don’t know it could be a proxy or something though. I’ve thought about trying to stop sockpuppets with filters that stop people from using the same IP or browser repeatedly. The problem is that first the borwser cookies are easily cleared and for IP addresses you might have two or more with the same one, like in the same home or even in some offices, universities and other places where not every computer has the same WAN IP
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March 31st, 2008 at 12:47 am
Sung Li Kim said:
Yeah. I wonder if the power company actually planned for it. They do a good job of keeping the grid stable all things considered, but a 10% drop and presumably return in an hour from Sidney would be enough to be of concern for voltage surges and problems like that. As trumbles said they can usually handle it because they get it from service failures. It still seems like it’s probably enough to be potentially problematic.
I wonder how much energy might have been wasted on standing waves dissipating or voltage regulators clicking on or power being dumped onto resistors.
Sydney seems to have made this a huge city-wide issue and I think the local government did it too, but I don’t think too many cities would have nearly as big a reduction.
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:04 am
Wow. I think you are all majority wrong about this. Why does it matter so much to you to try to pick down how much might really have been saved? You’re really down on this whole idea and so discouraging.
Don’t you realize how much goes into this? This was bigger than last year and it got so much good attention and everyone worked so hard. Don’t you know how many people did this? How many helped spread the word? It got so much more attention and it spread so far and a real lot of good people contributed and worked hard. Other people didn’t work as hard but helped by participating and spreading the word.
Nobody thinks one hour is going to save the world but that is not the point. The point is to start here and that people will think now a bit more and realize how much can be done. This shows what we can do and the next step is to take it so much further. It helps people realize they can make a difference and it shows them how good and proud they can feel and how happy of the success and how satisfied for what they did.
Why would you sit there and take it away from everyone? People now feel energized and happy and proud for being part of it. Now I think they look and say “See! We can do it! I was part of it!” that is so important because this is all about getting people mobile and show them what can be done. We did it! Congratulations to everyone who pitched in! Please don’t take this sense of accomplishment
away! It’s a very mean and cynical thing to do!
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:27 am
A Golden Guitar said:
No one here is trying to be deliberately mean to people who think they’re doing a good thing with this, but the truth needs to be told. You’re being manipulated. The people who are making a bucketload off fossil fuel sales love this kind of crap. It makes people feel they’re contributing to a solution, when in fact they’re perpetuating the problem.
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:48 am
I can’t help but agree with Finrod, but I’ll go even further: You shouldn’t be proud of something you did that wasn’t actually helpful or valuable. You should be proud of doing something real. If we rewarded actual meaningful change then it would be encouragement to go out there and make a difference. This is not just a lie, but it’s patting people on the back for doing next to nothing.
It sends the wrong message. Just putting in the effort is not enough. We don’t need to encourage more empty effort and time spent to achieve nothing. That just gives people empty satisfaction and accomplishes nothing. We should encourage things which produce meaningful change!
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March 31st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
If the people here have other ideas for how to help out then I think that’s great and if you think there are ways to do a lot better then you should definitely go out and do what you can do about it! This is something we should all work on.
I think that Earth hour was something that people got excited about and participated in a real lot though and I don’t think it’s very nice to go out and insult them and hurt their feelings and try to take away from the project how proud and happy this is now.
I really think that we should encourage people. You should not be so mean about it. You make people feel frustrated or like they didn’t help and that makes them wonder why they should even bother then. There’s lots of room for people to come up with new ideas and other ways to. So you can do it non-mean way and help instead of making people feel bad.
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March 31st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
JCS Diver 79 said:
You’re not paying attention. We have been telling people there is another way – over and over in fact. We have to look at technologies that will enable us to generate electricity without making carbon dioxide and in quantities that will allow us to let the whole world maintain a standard of living as good as ours in the West. This can be done.
Nuclear energy is a mature, safe, and clean source of power that can supply us for thousands of years. What we need is people to push the utilities and governments to get going on it. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to do this now while we still have access to cheap carbon fuels. Wakeup and smell the coffee.
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March 31st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Fine then that’s good but stop being mean about it and you will maybe do better. You have to stop trying to make others feel bad for their efforts to gain people’s attention and create a sense of hope and unity. You should not be so bitter and be willing to take your ideas to others in a nice way that respects the efforts they put in. Remember with anything: It’s the thought that counts.
Also, I have looked into nuclear energy and believe that eventually it will eventually be something we can use for a lot of power once we have nuclear fusion which seems like the way to go. They are working on it hard but it might be decades. The nuclear energy we have now is something I don’t see as bad but lets not forget that it replaces one evil with another (the waste which is a big issue) and also, it seems to have gotten to the point of safety, but we should be cautious.
I believe we should continue to use the nuclear plants we have until we have something better. However, build new ones? I’m not so sure that’s wise for the future. We may be better off building some new nuclear power plants but lets try to do it only where it is really needed and keep it to a minimum. Realize that the safety and waste issues won’t go away, but we might be able to keep them tolerable until something better arrives.
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March 31st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I disagree with JCS Diver on a whole lot of things said, but it’s nice to have someone here who doesn’t agree with things but is actually apparently somewhat sane. That’s a new one.
JCS: You sound very much like you have bought into a lot of the ideas which seem to be out there about the potential of nuclear fusion as well as the dangers and waste problems of nuclear energy in general. I don’t blame you, but in reality the waste problem is only a problem if you use a regular open cycle once-through fuel cycle. Even then the problem is minor and something that can be dealt with. If you go with advanced fuel cycles it is no problem at all.
I hope you will be at least receptive to the possibility of reexamining it.
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
A Golden Guitar said:
Everyone EXCEPT for the power plant workers and electrical grid maintenance workers who had to bite their nails and stand at the ready in case YOUR idiotic show of passion actually did blow the grid from a massive power surge and subsequent sudden dip.
I have ZERO respect for this type of “rallying the masses” because it does no good except stroke the egos of those involved. The only purpose is activism. There is no gain, nor a real purpose. You are NOT building awareness. You are building ignorance, ignorance which can only be broken by a hard slap from reality.
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Q said:
Agreed. JCS – you may have a point, but you must understand that many of us have been working on this for many years, in my case for about 30yrs and the quiet approach just doesn’t work. We are up against groups that lie, and push fear, if we don’t rub peoples faces in it we won’t get heard.
The problem with events like these is that they send the wrong message, and the wrong message is worse than no message at all in this case. You may think this is about raising public awareness about the need for change. It is not. It’s a call to move backwards to maintain the status quo. It’s no coincidence that this began in Australia, a place where the coal industry has been a vocal opponent of nuclear energy because – and they have stated this outright – it is a threat to their industry.
All of the objections that you have read or heard about nuclear fission have been answered here and elsewhere in great detail, please go and do your own research in this. I don’t want to point you anywhere lest you think I am leading you on. Go and look for yourself, if you have questions we will answer them. But do look.
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March 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Sung Li Kim said:
Yeah I agree with that. “Mobilizing the masses” is great… IF they are mobilized to do something useful. Mobilizing the masses to do something useless and then spend the next few days patting each other on the back and talking about how great they did is worse than worthless.
In this case it’s really not the thought that counts. Even if the actions are motivated by admirable goals, it really doesn’t help the real problems.
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March 31st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Actually if you look at this page apparently the problem was brought up and addressed:
http://www.inbrockton.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2596
7. Is there danger of a power surge when the lights get turned back on?
No. WWF and the Earth Hour partners are working closely with the energy providers in each city to ensure a safe event with no adverse impact on power systems.
So in other words, the power companies have planned for this, which is not all that surprising because they plan for all sorts of things that might cause demand changes. They can absorb excess energy on the grid with no problem. The worst that happens is that it increases voltage enough to breakdown some safety gaps on equipment and it ends up being dissipated into arcs or big resistors. The sudden drop resulting in standing waves is not usually a problem in modern systems.
The danger is sudden surges of demand, as in after the event when the lights go back on. If you look at reports some cities saw power drop 5% or even 8% which is enough to get concerned about when it comes back because it will not only be in a short time, but many things need a lot more peak power on startup.
You know how the power companies prepare for surges in demand? They either open their water turbines or they make sure they have as much spinning reserve as needed. If it’s a thermal plant the idea is to get it going on high power and build up enough of a head of steam to keep the turbines spinning if resistance goes up.
Since it takes longer than an hour to get that going, they likely turned UP the power before 8 o’clock to be sure there was spinning reserve at 9.
if this is the case (and I bet it is). Not only was energy wasted, but more coal/oil/gas was burned and more hydro reserve depleted than if this had not happened.
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March 31st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
That is in general how generating management works: When in doubt, be sure you have all the reserve you might need for an anticipated surge. I would not be surprised. In that case, more coal was burned than needed to be/
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March 31st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
A Golden Guitar said:
Because the attention and planing that went into it could have been spent actually helping the environment instead of a self-congratulatory circle jerk that does close to nothing at all for the environment.
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March 31st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Am I the only one here who sees a recurring pattern? That is, that the entire damn thing seems to be justified by the fact that it has given people enough of an illusion of doing something that they are now “proud” and “happy” and that if we burst that bubble it ruins the whole point of this thing?
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March 31st, 2008 at 8:54 pm
No, I don’t think you’re the only one who noticed that EVERY single thing in support of it, when confronted by the fact that it did nothing and likely caused harm, seems to say the same thing “People feel like they did something, and you shouldn’t take that away from them.”
Yes, just leave those who shut off their lights in blissful ignorance, because apparently that’s the best policy. Damn, it’s worse than I thought!
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March 31st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Soylent said:
A circle jerk. That’s about what it amounts to. Congratulations everyone!
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April 1st, 2008 at 3:03 am
A colleague at work here (Canberra) had guests on Saturday night, and to do her bit for Earth Hour had to get in her car to go and buy candles.
She thought of it as a small harmless symbolical gesture, but hadn’t thought of the extra CO2 emitted both by candles and her car (if you think that matters), the fire danger of having unnecessary candles with small children about, the increased likelihood of someone tripping and injuring themselves in the dark, the increased opportunities for burglars with reduced street lighting, etc, etc, etc.
Of course it makes sense to reduce energy use in sensible ways that add no danger, but we don’t need sanctimonious idiots to tell us that waste is not a good thing.
This idiocy was advertised in Sydney by a methane-powered hot-air balloon (more CO2) and recorded by photographers in helicopters (yet more ditto).
This is just a stupid idea in almost every way you can think of, and the more people who take it up the worse it will be.
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April 1st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Methane is worse than just the burning. The process of producing and transporting it involves leaks and releases here and there. It’s much more potent than CO2, so the whole cycle considered, methane is not as great as some make it out to be.
Then what about the candles? Not only burning them. They’re probably made from petroleum-based wax. It has to be refined, isolated and so on. Then dyed, manufactured and there you go. Then add in transporting them to the store and all so on.
I’m not saying that candles are a horrible thing or that you should be so anti-consumer you don’t buy anything, but this goes to show how simplistic the logic is. Much of the savings are totally destroyed by something like going out to buy and burn candles and then having the hot air balloon burn methane which took energy to separate and compress and also contributed to methane leaking.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Okay, let me just state my point on nuclear power since this seems to be a big part of things. I’m not sure about what the future of power is. For a long time I’ve been behind wind and solar but really I’m starting to be very frustrated with that because getting more involved it seems that they are turning out to be a lot less than was ever promised. The amount of power we get from the two is tiny and I realize that we have been working hard to build them. Wind has been getting a lot of heat recently and I looked at a few things about it. I think it might deserve it because it sounds like it doesn’t help as much as they want us to think.
The new thing solar thermal I don’t know. I’m honestly hopeful but skeptical about it, because I have seen the figures and it keeps saying it’s “almost there” and i’m feeling deja vu with it from what has been said as long as I can remember about solar and wind. I really think they might never make it and I’m concerned that we need to do something soon. Also, I have seen ethanol turn into a mess.
I think nuclear fusion would be the best thing, but now we can’t do that. (Will we ever???) So we have regulat nuclear power now. We can do it and it works. That’s great. I have two issues with it: Safety and waste. Safety I believe is a concern but I think we can do it. I think if safety is number 1 and we make sure to do it right and have all the safety measures and maybe more safety measures than we really need then it can be done safely. The waste is the problem I really have and I think it’s the achelies heal of nuclear power. Nuclear would be great without waste, I’ll admit right now. We replace one evil with another. So what do we do with it? We bury it. That’s all well and good and you might sya “let sleeping dogs lie.” As long as we burry it there’s a big sleeping dog that could wake up and thats why I worry. We have to worry about what will happen. It’s like a time bomb. It is fine as long as nothing bad happens to it. What if something does? What if someone gets into it? Then we’re in trouble or at leas they are.
This is why my thoughts on nuclear power is that we should use it if we have to as a last resort but keep it to the minimum just because of the waste issue. Also, I believe it should be done with safety as number 1 in the concerns and when we are not sure then don’t do it. Be 200% sure with safety.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
JCS. I am glad you are getting frustrated with solar and wind (not that I want you to get frustrated) but they really are pretty empty due to the simple fact that the energy they seek to tap is very dillute and hence there is an enormous area which is needed. this added to their intermittent nature, makes them inherantly need large and expensive systems and always makes them less than ideal for reliable energy.
Solar thermal is really not any better. It’s slightly less effecient than PV. It tends to be more complicated to maintain, because at least with PV it’s mechanically simple. Solar thermal has the one and only advantage that it can store some of the energy as thermal mass. It’s really nothing better than the previous.
Nuclear: Yes it can be very safe, and as you say, safety must always be issue number one. This is not because I think nuclear needs to be more obsessed with safety than other technologies, but if you’re doing it for the good of the enviornment and locals then safety is obviously the issue you need to be sure of. It’s just good responsibility.
The waste is a bit less of a problem than you might have been lead to believe. Right now, with technology that is in use, not prototypical or theoretical but in use, we can reduce the amount of waste by 99%. Yes, 99% The British do it to a point. The French do it with nearly all their waste. The Japanese are not far behind.
The remaining 1% can be embeded in synthetic glasses which are more stable than almost all minerals. Once diluted and converter it’s not all that dangerous. Very little sheilding is required. It will be decay and in a couple of decades it will not be all that much more radioactive than the original mineral materials that you started off with. In a couple hundred years it will be less radioactive. Storing something for that length of time is no sweat from a geological standpoint. Things might change geologically in millions of years and perhaps even in hundreds of thousands, but a couple hundred is no big deal. Even if it was unearthed, the glassy material won’t turn to dust. It won’t disolve. At worst it will fracture into little bits. Even then, the hazard is minimal and not that much worse than minerals that exist. And agian, this is only a couple hundred years before it’s no worse.
There are ways to have nuclear energy with zero waste and they have been proven though not used in scale applications. These involve using accelerators to transmutate all the waste with high energy particle and super high energy photons. At this point, this is generally thought to be unnecessarily expensive and complex a process given the fact that the current methods work so well, but it can be done.
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March 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
If we didnt have a bunch of stupid hippy freaks blabbering we should ride bikes to work or to observe this EARTH HOUR popy**** or to go green WELL NOT ME i cant afford those stupid COMPACT FLORECENTS and i cant afford organic ether. Why dont these eco-pests do us a favor and for a whole 24 hour period keep their flapping pieholes shut so we dont have to listen to their stupid ideas
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