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Are your lights off? (pg. 6)
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| phlog |
| quote: | Originally posted by RobbyG.
I went to THE DOCKS and took some pics ;)...
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nice |
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| me@t k@tie |
| quote: | Earth Hour was a huge success, with early reports indicating that at least 50 million people participated in this global call to action on climate change! This makes it the largest voluntary power-down event in history. And it was Canada that led the way, with over 150 cities and towns turning off their lights. Thank you Canada!
In Toronto, Canada’s flagship Earth Hour city, energy consumption dropped by 8.7 per cent and almost 10,000 people gathered at City Hall to watch Nelly Furtado, The Philosopher Kings and Fefe Dobson play a free concert in the dark. In all of Ontario, 900 MW of energy was saved, the equivalent of taking 3,200 cars off the road for one hour.
There were celebrations all across the country and results are still pouring in. In British Columbia, energy consumption was reduced by 125 MW. The energy saved in Ontario and British Columbia alone is equivalent to turning off 20.5 million lights.
Thanks to everyone here in Canada and around the world that participated in the first ever, worldwide Earth Hour! Your efforts and determination have made this an event to remember and you have sent a very strong message to our government, and governments around the world, that we need to take action on climate change now. |
w00t! :) |
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| Orko |
^^ wow gotta love those faulty statistics. There is absolutely no way they can prove that entire amount of 'energy saved' was directly attributed to earth hour.
| quote: | | energy consumption dropped by 8.7 per cent and almost 10,000 people gathered at City Hall to watch Nelly Furtado, The Philosopher Kings and Fefe Dobson play a free concert in the dark. In all of Ontario, 900 MW of energy was saved, the equivalent of taking 3,200 cars off the road for one hour. |
That could be attributed to the amount of people at the concert, if true. Getting 10,000 people out of their house would certainly lower a city's consumption, so maybe we should have free concerts all the time.
I would love to know what energy usage looks like on a regular Saturday night at 8-9pm when people are leaving their houses for a night out. I left my house at around 8pm and turned off all my lights and electronics, and so would be included in their estimates. Problem is that I would do that anyways, and it is completely independent of their 'movement'. |
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| smuncky |
| one that keeps on running 24/7 in my house is my comp. that thing is never turned off. |
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| kotsy |
| quote: | Originally posted by RobbyG.
I went to THE DOCKS and took some pics ;)... |
VERY Nice pics, sir! |
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| ChemEnhanced |
so how much electricity was used to play the free concert?
What a great marketing tool. |
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| DigiNut |
One of our marketing folks sent me a request at the end of the day to crunch the interval data for this thing and see how much energy was saved. Not all AMRs manage to report every day so the consumption might be understated (in other words, the actual savings might be lower), but a quick glance at 30 or so apartment buildings seems to indicate about a 10% savings (1500 kWh from 8-9 PM vs. a more typical 1700 kWh or so, for non-electrically-heated buildings).
Haven't had a chance to look at the commercial data, but I'm guessing that the savings will be even less, since most retail stores and office buildings would have been closed anyway, and other businesses like restaurants and bars are using a lot more energy for refrigeration, ovens, HVAC, computers, etc. And I'm sure they didn't/couldn't all turn their lights off.
Really nothing to write home about, but it does match the figures in the article. Then again, that's excluding HVAC, so the extrapolation to 900 MW sounds way too high. I guess it must have come from Ontario Hydro or OPG, but the article doesn't seem to cite any source, or explain how they arrived at that number. By my own estimation we'd be lucky to have saved 10 MW in the residential and commercial sectors; my guess is that Hydro is lumping electric heating in with the rest and not factoring in degree-days, which are important because this was a comparatively warm week.
Or not. Who the hell knows what they do to come up with these PR figures. All I can say for certain is that looking at a typical load profile, you wouldn't even see the difference unless you knew exactly what to look for. So in summary I say, f*ck the planet. Earth Hour may have saved a few bucks for non-submetered landlords and condo boards, but it's sure as hell not going to prevent global warming. Of course, that's like saying it won't prevent Jesus from appearing in your breakfast burrito; it's not going to happen anyway. |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
^^ wow gotta love those faulty statistics. There is absolutely no way they can prove that entire amount of 'energy saved' was directly attributed to earth hour.
That could be attributed to the amount of people at the concert, if true. Getting 10,000 people out of their house would certainly lower a city's consumption, so maybe we should have free concerts all the time.
I would love to know what energy usage looks like on a regular Saturday night at 8-9pm when people are leaving their houses for a night out. I left my house at around 8pm and turned off all my lights and electronics, and so would be included in their estimates. Problem is that I would do that anyways, and it is completely independent of their 'movement'. |
Also how is that the equvilant of getting 3200 cars off the road when most of ontarios energy comes from nuclear?
Enviro-nuts amuse me |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
Simply because I do not believe in man made global warming. |
Nice to see there a few others of us on here. Thank the universe. |
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| Ania_xox |
| quote: | Originally posted by phlog
Are your lights off? |
people only turn their lights off to do pervy things
why would you make a thread about this you exhibitionist
edit:
RE: above posts
I know someone who thinks that the earth is simply following an evolutionary climate pattern... we happen to be living in a warming up period. Interesting... I don't know if i buy it though. |
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| phlog |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ania_xox
people only turn their lights off to do pervy things
why would you make a thread about this you exhibitionist |
i acually prefer to have the lights on when im doin 'pervy things' ;) |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ania_xox
I know someone who thinks that the earth is simply following an evolutionary climate pattern... we happen to be living in a warming up period. Interesting... I don't know if i buy it though. |
Virtually all data collected from the natural sciences over the past 20 years converges on an approximate 1500-year warming and cooling cycle. There's very little disagreement in the scientific community about this; however, enviro-nuts tend to claim that the cycle doesn't account for how much warming is happening right now.
To date, I haven't seen any convincing evidence either substantiating or disproving that counter-claim; it looks like we're maybe kinda sorta a little warmer than one might expect from the cycle, but it isn't the sort of significant statistical anomaly that ought to be causing worldwide panic, nor will turning off your lights for an hour have any profound effect on it (not even if the whole world does it). Burden of proof and all that; I care about the precautionary principle for the environment about as much as I care about it for religion.
But, like I said, electricity isn't free. It's good to try to conserve where possible, since it's getting harder and harder for the province to keep up with increasing demand. Thornhill had a long-ass blackout in the morning just a couple of weeks ago. If you really want to save electricity (and probably make a noticeable dent in your utility bill), stop thinking about the stupid lights and get yourself a programmable thermostat. |
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