What the heck are these knuckleheads thinking?!? From the AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) - If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.
Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.
“Extending daylight-saving time makes sense, especially with skyrocketing energy costs,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., who along with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-sponsored the measure.
The amendment was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that is putting together major parts of energy legislation likely to come up for a vote in the full House in the coming weeks.
“The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,” said Markey, who cited Transportation Department estimates that showed the two-month extension would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.
The country uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.
Are they serious?!? They actually think we get more daylight by adjusting the
friggin’ clocks?!?
Actually, we kind of do. More people are awake and doing energy-consuming stuff in the late afternoon than in the early morning, so light later in the day saves more energy than light earlier in the day.
The purpose of extending DST is to shorten the amount of time that people have their lights on. For example, suppose a person gets out of bed at 6:00 AM and goes to bed at 10:00 PM. During the months of DST, it will be light out when the person gets up, so the person won’t turn on the lights. He will turn them on at night when it gets dark. By shifting the clocks, we can get him to turn on the lights an hour later and keep them on an hour less.
One problem with extending DST is that, as the days get shorter, less energy is saved. Eventually, if you extend it enough, people will be getting up when it’s dark out and will have to turn on their lights in the morning. At the other end of the day, people will turn on their lights if it’s already dark when they get home from work (there’s not much to be saved in most offices, where they keep the lights on regardless of whether it’s light out). In other words, when the days are short it becomes difficult to shift things around enough to take advantage of the daylight.
Oh good Lord…can’t we just leave it alone? No more daylight savings time, let’s just pick a time and stick with it. All the time we spend playing with clocks, people being late (or early), worrying about automated computer tasks…its not worth the trouble.