Slashdot Mirror
Daylight Savings Change Proposed
AveryRegier writes "CNN is reporting that Congress has added an amendment to the Energy Bill to extend daylight-savings time by two months. They expect to "save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day." How long it would take for the associated energy savings to overcome the cost to make, test, and deploy the necessary code changes? How would the cost of this change compare with Y2K? Does most date routines' reliance on GMT make this just an issue of presenting the right time to the user?"
It has been speculated, and fairly so IMHO, that Y2K was what initially drove the .com
bubble. While I certainly wouldn't discount releases of many previously classified technologies
and growth of the internet, there was a consider amount of capital put into hardware and software upgrades in the mid-to-late nineties.
Imagine what kind of capital would be required to change DST behavior on govt computers alone. We could probably convert CO2 and H2O back into hydrocarbons cheaper.
CSC, Accenture, EDS, et al are probably salivating at the thought of such a passage of law.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There is (should be) a study dated 1998 (which I was not able to locate yet) sponsored by the EU Commission which states that daylight saving time does not have the desired effect on energy consumption (which is taken as a common fact anyway here (de)). I wonder why the US should differ - anyone any idea?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
actually that happened during WWII - it was called 'war time' and lasted for the duration, from 3 Feb 1942 to 30 Sep 1945
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
(excuse me for the bad typing, i hadsurgery in my hand...)
this is the way you want to save energy? a saving of 10 000 barrels / day? if you look out on the streets, do all the people that drive SUVs need to drive them? this is an argument that also apply for eupoe, but goes double for the us. tax the hell out of fuel guzzling monster cars (almost the same size as monster trucks) and lower the tax waaay down on cars like VW Polo, MB Smart and hybrids. this also deal with a lot of other problems like parking. some snowy staes might be a little m ore lean on the tax, like snowy states. But theres no need for an Suv in LA, NY, Paris or Oslo.
For example, changing Daylight Saving Time could prevent terrorist attacks:
In September 1999, the Palestinian West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank Palestinians prepared time bombs and smuggled them to Arab Israelis, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded--one hour too early--killing three terrorists instead of two busloads of people, the intended victims. (from webexhibits.org)
Somehow children in Canada and Scandinavia make it to school, too. Kids waiting for the bus in the dark wouldn't bother anyone living reasonably far north, but it'd be a hell of a talking point for overprotective mothers from New Jersey to Oregon.
Another one bites the dust
With regard to the lights. Flourescents use a large amount of energy when initially starting up. So much so that my UPS takes over power when I turn the floor lamp on (Lamp, computer, monitor on same UPS, monitor+computer=150watts peak). Floor lamp is a 60-90 watt flourescent. Depending on what percentage of the day you need light, it can actually be more efficient to leave the light son rather than turn them off. Additionally, those lights are helping to heat the building at night and keep the heating system from coming on (even the little bit of flourescent helps). Can also be used by the security guards when patroling (we have them at my place of business).
Another thing on the lights is that it is cheaper (in many places) to leave them on, than to pay someone to go around and turn them all on and off in the evening/morning. It also (slightly, but signifcantly enough) degrades their lifespan causing them to need to be replaced sooner. So for financial and environmental, they are essentailly the same. The more environmental (less energy) they use the less it costs. Businesses do use this when looking at the bottom line already.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Now, if those schools would get real and start school after 8:00 like reasonable people, we could get around this little problem and be much more flexable with the time.
I don't remember the exact times and dates, because I was in 1st grade or 2nd grade, but in about 1974 they had Daylight Savings Time in the winter because of the energy crisis. My school started after 8 a.m., but we were getting on the bus before daylight so after a couple weeks they just cut the first hour of the school day so we went in at 9. Missed half a year of science because of it. Maybe that's why I'm so stupid today.
The current proposal is a joke, really, it is expected to save 00.05% of U.S. daily oil usage for two months a year. We need to concentrate on changes that would actually, you know, make a difference.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
Unfortunately, because we use gas tax to pay for the roads, we're going the other direction. Oregon, for example, is taxing hybrid cars because they don't use enough gas to pay for their share of road use.
How's that for encouraging efficiency?
When I lived in Northern BC, we went to school in the dark, had recess in the dark, had sunshine for noon hour, and went home in the dark, and played outside in the dark.
These days it may not save any oil, in fact it may deplete more oil. From the Widipedia article, There is also a question whether the savings in lighting costs (people just home from work don't turn on the electric lights because there is enough sunlight through the windows) justifies the increase in summertime air conditioning costs (people home from work do turn up the air conditioning during the late-afternoon peak load times, because it's still warm outside). When air conditioning was not widely available, the change did save energy; however, air conditioning is much more widespread now than it was several decades ago.
I just recently discovered that Mac OS X actually switches from EST (eastern standard time) to EDT (eastern daylight-saving time) 5 seconds before it turns to 2am on the first Sunday of April.
The clock ticked to 1:59:54 am and jumped to 2:59:55 am.
I once had a signature.
I grew up and went to school in Texas. I had to wait for the bus in the dark. Still here today, 20 years later!
:/
Our school started at 0730, I was at the bus stop around 0640. The argument that kids would have to go to school when it's dark out is STUPID!
I like DST. The more lite we have in the evening the better if you ask me. As far as it saving more in energy...which is worse, running the AC until 2230 or turning on a few 100watt litebulbs at 2130? I no live in the SF Bay Area now and we don't have AC so that argument is kida moot here
As for the other calculation:
The average American drives 8000 miles per year (I think car owners drive 17,000 mi/year, so this average includes non-drivers)
Let's say the average car gets 28 mpg
The US has 296M people.
Each barrel of oil yeilds about 20 gallons of fuel.
So we have 8,000 miles/year * (1/28) gallons/mile = 285 gallons used by each American per year, or 285/20 = 14.25 barrels per year.
14.25 * 256M = 3.648 billion barrels used by cars in the US per year.
Now the same calculation getting 29 mpg, we get 3.531 billion barrels used, saving us 117 million barrels of oil per year, or 320,500 barrels per day.