No really. Big fucking deal? Now I have to turn the lights on in the house for an extra hour in the A.M. to get the kids on the bus. Otherwise I’d be turning them on for an extended hour in th evening.
Great policy. Thanks neighbours.
If you get all the people in all the cities in the country to go to bed an hour earlier in the winter, they keep fewer lights on, and let the temperature drop slightly for a little longer each day. Since many of them just get up and go to work in the morning at about the same pace as normally, with less energy use than in the evening, you net a small reduction in electrical demand.
Since evening is the peak load time, that small reduction is even more effective, since it is a reduction in peak demand. Peak demand costs more, and earns the same return for the utilities. Since utilities are ubiquitous, and generally at least indirectly subsidized, they have a lot of influence over the folks who make laws.
Tris
Akk… Sorry, I meant the extra, what two week period that we’ve now (in North America) been subjected to. Is it really worth the additional effort?
PCs and servers and flight plans and air traffic controllers and weather institutions and mom and pop and TV schedules and 911 operators and … well. Was it worth it?
Is the purpose of daylight saving to save energy? I thought it was to get an extra hour of light each day!
I still dont get it… I mean I use my lights when I need to not by looking at the time.
But we don’t get an extra hour of light each day! We just shift your schedule relative to the same amount of light you always get at the time of year.
:: pauses to think about this really carefully ::
Here in North America, most of us set our clocks forward in the spring, and this is still in effect. So a sunset at 8 PM by the Daylight Time clock is really 7 PM by the Standard Tme clock. We’ve shifted our schedule to be an hour earlier relative to the sun, so we use less energy in the evening and more in the morning, relative to Standard Time.
Hmm.
I’m not sure how it saves energy either. Is it because people tend to wake after dawn on either clock, but are awake after sunset and into the evening, and this see an additional hour of light under Daylight Time? That sounds about right.
Pretty much. The idea is that most people wake up after dawn and at the same time throughout the year according to the clock. Shifting the clock is a way to make people get up an hour earlier in summer, and go to sleep an hour earlier. You spend one fewer waking hour after sunset.
Although I think the saving is minimal. Most modern buildings seem to need lighting all day, and lighting is a small fraction of electricity usage to begin with. And in summer, an extra hour of lighting may mean an extra hour of air conditioner usage. I suspect the social benefits are greater (more daylight hours for leisure).
According to one respected authority, it is.
Apparently Congress heard testimony to the effect of DST saving energy (whether the testimony was true or not I do not know.)
Both quotes below are from Brad Sherman, U.S. Representative of the 24th District in California, speaking before the Subcommittee on Energy in 2001:
Source: Energy Conservation Potential of Extended Daylight Saving Time and Double Daylight Saving Time
An opposing viewpoint can be found in this column by Ken Fisher from ars technica:
It’s unclear whether the 1-2% savings mentioned by Sherman is the “correct” measurement referred to in the Ken Fisher column. I’ll let someone else suss that one out.
>most people wake up after dawn
They do? Who? People who work the commonest day shift or have children in school get up before dawn, don’t they?
Fine, I’ll revise that statement to: “Most people wake up after dawn in summer, at least if it weren’t for daylight saving time.” The rest of my post is still valid.
Well, Leaffan clarified that he is referring to this year’s change in the starting and ending dates of DST, not to DST in general. All the “energy savings” reasons for DST given above are correct (well, at least plausible) when considering the entire effect of DST. I seriously doubt there is any energy savings in shifting the start and ending dates for the reasons people have given; you just use more energy in the morning.
The only other “benefit” I’ve heard is that it will be lighter when kids are trick-or-treating. Of course, those same kids have to go to school in the dark for a few extra weeks.
so what about the down side? what about the part where (I have heard anyway) there is a dramatic increase in accidents of all kinds the monday following dst due to the evident loss of sleep? any truth to that?
But we now change time after Halloween.
Right, but your backwards thinking your have.
In the “fall back” we “lose” that extra hour in the PM, so since we’ve waited a week, it is light when the kids are trick or treating.
I think we wait too long. I hate going to work this time of year when it is pitch dark at 6:40am.
DST makes sense in the middle of summer because dawn at 5am makes no sense, and that hour is totally wasted. This time of year, the time seems forced and I can wait for next week to get back on schedule…
A quick question about day light savings in the USA.
Do you get extra light? Cause here in Melbourne during daylight savings the sunsets between 8pm - 9pm. And when its not daylight savings it sets by 6pm-6:30pm
Back when I was a kid, we walked to school in the dark, up hill both ways! And we liked it!
You had it easy we had no shoes and its was blistering 40degrees on the way to school and snowy 0 on the way home!
I think the idea is that if you can shift daylight to a time bracket when more people are doing things, then you save energy, because they’re not turning on lights as much in the evening, and they don’t need to in the early morning.
The argument is that, at 5:30am, not that many people need sunlight. So, because in the Northern Hemisphere in Spring you have much longer daylight hours, why “waste” those early daylight hours on times when comparatively fewer people need light? Better to take advantage of the situation and “shift” those hours to evening, when more people are doing things (typically after work), especially in urban settings.
My understanding is that the original campaign for DST came from merchants before WWI in New York City. It makes sense, because November and December are times when shopping hits its highpoint. But–at that time, at least–when it gets dark, people feel they should go home, and quit window shopping. (And who goes shopping before work?)
But the idea came up again in WWI and WWII because it also meant energy use, which was very important in war efforts. Department stores and city electrical systems could save an hour of lighting. People still, at that time, were more active after work than before work.
I wouldn’t be surprised if baseball games didn’t play a part in it. The earlier a night game started with regard to the sunset, the less money to go into lighting. (And when do they have ball games at 5:30 in the morning?)
So the name, “Day Light Saving,” is somewhat deceptive. You obviously don’t save daylight; you just save light bulb energy. Or, at least, then you did. Today, with so many businesses at all hours, I have to wonder how much they really think they’re saving. Does a 7-11 (usually 7/24) save any money on lighting when DST goes into effect? No. They leave their lights on 24 hours a day. Now, multiply that by all the 7-11s in the world, and you’ll see how much you’re NOT saving. Ditto all-night gas stations.
The farmers are not “idiots” for being opposed to DST. It just doesn’t help them, and can interfere with their communications with other time zones. (Not all states participate, and some, such as Indiana, have confusing time zone differences.)
I doubt baseball teams really care one way or the other when a game starts. The starting time for a game is dictated by TV networks.
A baseball stadium will turn the lights on if it’s overcast enough and the umpires force them too. Fans will come to a game based on their interest and their ability to get the game and not having any other impediments, like having to work or having kids in school.