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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
Here's a PDF of the amendment, as agreed, from the house.gov page on the session yesterday. Realistically, if it'll make that big of an impact, why not make Daylight Savings Time a year-round proposal? If this amendment is passed by the House, we will have a period of a little over 3 months annually (Dec, Jan, Feb) in which DST is not in effect. That seems ridiculous. Not to mention that if DST becomes year-round, the change in software becomes a static offset to GMT as opposed to figuring out when the annual switch days are. Even Windows allows you to set a time zone that ignores DST, so a company in permanent CDT would only need set their time zone to EST and not worry about changing the clocks again.
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)
But isn't it "Daylight Saving Time" and not "Daylight Savings Time"? (ie no s)
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The problem with standard time in the summer is that the sun rises before anybody is up (like 4 AM) and some daylight in the morning is just wasted. Daylight savings time moves dawn back to 5 AM and gives you an extra hour of daylight in the evening.
You probably see where I'm going with this: who in their right mind is actually awake at 5 AM to enjoy the daylight?????
Daylight savings time should move the day another five hours or so. Imagine if the sun were just coming up as I started thinking about getting out of bed by 10. At 11 or so it would have fully roused me and I could get up and enjoy the full day. At 2 or 3 in the morning the sun would be setting just as I was starting to grow weary of my hacking and start thinking about going to bed. I -- along with most other similarly minded geeks -- would be ever so much more productive.
Of course some of you might complain about the extra screen glare, claim that you don't get any natural light in your basement anyway, or state that you just plain dislike that burning yellow eye in the sky.
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Rate Exchange Calculator and Currency Convertor
why doesn't congress stop tapdancing around the real issue, and instead pass some well-thought out legislation to reduce wasteful energy use, implement a rational gasoline use tax, and other things that would actually address the real problem? Hm?
I don't have the information necessary to make an observation regarding the net energy savings if any exists, but as a resident of Pennsylvania which runs from Lattitude 39 43' N to 42 N I would sure welcome the extra daylight.
I gotta say that driving to work in the dark and driving home from work in the dark is not a prticularly gratifying experience. In fact it's downright depressing.
Interestingly enough the times have been changed in the fairly recent past (according to the US Army:
During the "energy crisis" years, Congress enacted earlier starting dates for daylight time. In 1974, daylight time began on 6 January and in 1975 it began on 23 February. After those two years the starting date reverted back to the last Sunday in April. In 1986, a law was passed permanently shifting the starting date of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987. The ending date of daylight time has not been subject to such changes, and has remained the last Sunday in October.
Let me try and get this straight. We'd save 10,000 barrels a day. We use 20 million.
This is a savings of 1/20th of a percent. And I'm not able to make out if that savings ONLY exists for those 2 months or the year round. Not particuarly impressive either way.
Here's an idea. Let's start passing legislation and using incentives to promote recycling, efficiency, and alternate sources of energy. You know, going to the heart of the problem as opposed to screwing around with something that presents piddly savings and smells more like a publicity stunt.
As for the coding repercussions . . . I can't say for sure.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
10,000 barrels of oil a day certainly sounds like a lot if you're planning to put it in my back yard, but exactly what percentage is it. Is it just a drop in the proverbial oil bucket. I imagine so. How would it compare to having cars get one extra mile per gallon?
Here's what one of your members of Congress says:
Hey, why not just stop all the clocks at noon permanently?
Studies have shown that most hackers work better at night, and actually use dawn as a kind of alarm clock "oh shit, suns coming up, better get my head down or I'll never get to work by 9" (I KNOW i'm not the only one who has thought that)
liqbase
SUV's, trucks, and 6+ cylinder engine cars for city commuting result in a ridiculous amount more of oil being consumed than anything related to Daylight Saving Time.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
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)
The sun doesnt give us more daylight hours just because we reference time differently.
Yes, let's just tax everything.
If you "tax the hell out of fuel guzzling monster cars," then you are skipping taxation of older fuel guzzling cars that are not as efficient as the newest SUVs.
If you tax gasoline more, you increase the burden on everyone, including poor people that cannot afford to buy a new gas-efficient car. You increase the cost of all goods that are shipped anywhere, or the cost of services that rely on those goods or shipping services.
And where does the tax money go? Does it fund research on alternative fuel sources? No, it is spent on pork barrel projects by Congress.
As/if oil gets scarce, the price will go up naturally, and the market forces will dictate people drive more efficient cars or alternatively-fueled cars.
Artificial taxes on things only screw everything else up, with no actual benefits. Its just a political game.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
That would be a completely reasonable argument, if gas prices weren't so damn low. The US severely under-taxes gasoline, effectively subsidizing the use of petrol-burning vehicles.
(By "under-taxes", I mean that the current amount of tax collected in the US on gasoline, though it does vary from state to state, barely covers the cost of maintaining roadways, in the best cases. It does not cover the costs of associated damage to the commons resulting from dumping burnt hydrocarbons and various chemicals into the air, nor the damage resulting from spills associated with maintaining the infrastructure to produce and deliver the volume of petrol we use, nor the cost of maintaining sufficient access to world-wide sources of oil reserves so that we can continue burning oil for such uses. I would grudgingly, if not happily, pay more taxes on gasoline so long as (a) everyone did it and (b) the additional funds went *only* to mitigate the costs associated with gasoline usage.)
You know what? DST saves *for free* millions of tons of oil worldwide. Oil supplies are being depleted at an alarming rate, and so every little bit helps to conserve it. I repeat again, DST is *free energy savings*. The only thing it costs is a few days of discomfort for people like you, so I reckon it's a really small price to pay. Speaking for myself, and most people I know, the only side effect of going to summer time is being a wee tired the evening after. Perhaps you should go to bed an hour earlier that night?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
- Mandatory flex-time (people won't be wasting time idling in traffic jams)
- SUV exclusionary zones, car exclusionary zones
- Carbon depletion tax to gasoline
Any of these will save a LOT more than 10,000 barrels a day.Gee, how much oil could we save if they just made the fucking CAFE standands apply to SUVs???
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
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.
Mandatory Flex-time would be good,
Better yet, change the standard Business work day in the US to 4-10's instead of the current 5-8's.
Having 50 or so days of commuting removed from most of the working stiffs yearly schedules would more significantly reduce energy demands.