Ben Franklin may not having been saving much candlewax by springing forward
Posted on 03/15/2011 6:43:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For decades, conventional wisdom has held that daylight-saving time reduces energy use. But a unique situation in Indiana provides evidence challenging that view: Springing forward may actually waste energy.
Up until two years ago, only 15 of Indiana’s 92 counties set their clocks an hour ahead in the spring and an hour back in the fall. The rest stayed on standard time all year, in part because farmers resisted the prospect of having to work an extra hour in the morning dark. But many residents came to hate falling in and out of sync with businesses and residents in neighboring states and prevailed upon the Indiana Legislature to put the entire state on daylight-saving time beginning in the spring of 2006.
Indiana’s change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next.
Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.
“I’ve never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this,” says Mr. Kotchen, who presented the paper
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
That way truckers on the Tri-State can change their clocks three times on the way from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis.
With today's technology that should be no problem ~ the Cell Phone companies already reset things for you.
The D&&&bA&& factor just having to live with this stupidity, that was “for the children”, is too much, not counting the energy expended, turning clocks one way and then another. Brainless describes this activity.
Medvedev and Putin have officially taken Russia off of Daylight Savings Time. I don’t think any study has conclusively proven that it saves a single kilowatt anyplace it’s been tried.
There other problems with changing the time. I have to travel about 40 miles to work and in the morning the sun blindness as we approach spring is deadly, and I mean deadly. There are many accidents due to solar glare. Then about beginning of March we are out of it with sun being higher in the horizon earlier. Then we push the clocks up and we are right back to deadly. And we do this dumb ritual twice a year!
What kind of results would that study show if the whole state did not adopt DST?
JMHO. Probably pretty much the same results. Disparities are because of county to county differences.
Have you ever read the story of Stalinist USSR and Daylight Savings Time?.........
Blah blah blah whine whine whine.
Twice a year we have articles and comments of people complaining about DST.
It gives me the opportunity to have a barbecue later in the evening in the middle of summer, so shove it.
WTF ????
When it's planting or harvest, farmers are running damn near 24 hours a day. the only thing that slows them down is the morning dew when combining wheat and soybeans.
Farmers may have resisted DST, but it damnsure wasn't because they didn't want to get up and go to the fields while it's still dark!
How about we just split the difference. Move the clocks 30 minutes and call it even for the whole year.
What about all those late afternoon rounds of golf?
Isn't Arizona the only place where time stands still? No DST.
Huh? Are temps cooler in the summer and mornings warmer in the winter when off DST? This makes no sense.
Governmental control, that is what it is really about.
Love daylight savings time, If I were king it would be 2 hours ahead. I dont give a crap that kids in the north have to walk to school in the dark. Screw them, just another poor choice by their parents they will have to over come.
I view daylight savings time most beneficially provides me with the opportunity to play more holes of golf in the spring/summer hours after work.
In the weeks leading up to and after the Summer solstice, I’ve often thought what a grand waste of daylight the sunrise at 5AM (if DST were not used) would be versus having it be light till 9pm. And I’m in the western most portion of the timezone. Those on the eastern border would have sunrise at about 4:30am in June, and that would be an even greater waste.
I don’t doubt this study’s findings but I love DST! I want it year ‘round. I like having the extra light in the evenings after work to do what I need to do. I also think changing the time twice a year causes people’s circadian rhythm to get out of whack and results in mood swings.
Thass rite!
Yep,
Where I live in summer with
DST Sun rise 5:15am Set 8:45pm
without it
Rise 4:15am and set 7:45pm
I gladly accept the sun coming up at 5:15 instead of 4:15 for that extra hour at night.
I did my share of griping when we went to DST. But I have to admit, tilling the garden at 10PM does have its charm.
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