Earth Hour headache for power suppliers

[Sylvia Else]

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/env...adache-for-power-suppliers-20100326-r37h.html

It would be really funny if an Earth Hour triggered cascading blackouts
(preferably not on the eastern seabord of Australia, given that that's
where I live).

Sylvia.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/env...adache-for-power-suppliers-20100326-r37h.html

It would be really funny if an Earth Hour triggered cascading
blackouts (preferably not on the eastern seabord of Australia, given
that that's where I live).

**Clearly, your sense of humour is different to the rest of us. I certainly
don't find such an event the least bit amusing. Fortunately, like most media
crap, there were no problems.

 

[David L. Jones]

This whole earth hour thing is a pure media beef up anyway.
Wow lets turn our lights off to save the world..
Don't worry about all the PC's that are left running in every
office,shop and workplace, drawing up to 500 watts each,
The amount of power that McDonalds alone draw with their massive
hotplates running 7 days a week and now 24 hours every day.
Lets all turn off our lights, and save the world,
and DO NOTHING else because we now all feel we have done our bit
reducing the power consumption by 200 watts to our house for 60
minutes .

You miss the entire point of earth hour.
It's all about increasing awareness of energy conservation.

Dave.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

This whole earth hour thing is a pure media beef up anyway.
Wow lets turn our lights off to save the world..

**It's SYMBOLIC. It's not a real attempt to do anything. It draws attention
to the very real problems faced by our civilisation.

Don't worry about all the PC's that are left running in every
office,shop and workplace, drawing up to 500 watts each,

**Dunno what kind of PC you use, or are familiar with, but the figure (for
a, say, Core 2 Duo + LCD screen), the figure is far closer to 50 ~ 100 Watts
in standby. In use, you can add around 20 ~ 30 Watts.

The amount of power that McDonalds alone draw with their massive
hotplates running 7 days a week and now 24 hours every day.

**One could argue that the economy of prividing food via fast food outlets
is a far better use of energy than thousands of housholds using their own
stoves and ovens. Of course, the issue of obesity, heart disease and cancer
(all linked to fast food consumption) is a bigger issue.

Lets all turn off our lights, and save the world,
and DO NOTHING else because we now all feel we have done our bit
reducing the power consumption by 200 watts to our house for 60
minutes .

**Again: It's SYMBOLIC. Far better would be for people to stop using their
air conditioners, pool pumps and all the other stuff that consumes lots of
power. Stuff like: Concrete manufacture, aluminium smelting, steel making,
etc. IOW: Consumerism is the real problem.

 

[Sylvia Else]

**Clearly, your sense of humour is different to the rest of us. I certainly
don't find such an event the least bit amusing. Fortunately, like most media
crap, there were no problems.

Not amusing that those who wanted to reduce power consumption for an
hour end up reducing it for a day? Oh well, different things amuse
different people I suppose.

In fact, regardless of our senses of humour, it seems unlikely anything
would happen, unless enthusiasm for Earth Hour were much greater than it
actually is. A snapshot of the 5 minute demand graph for NSW at the
relevent time is here

http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/earthhour.png

It's taken from

http://www.aemo.com.au/data/GRAPH_5NSW1.html

which changes with time.

Bearing in mind that the time axis is standard time, and that we're
currently in summer time, it's hard to see any impact of Earth Hour.
Certainly variations of a similar magnitude are seen at other times of day.

Sylvia.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

Not amusing that those who wanted to reduce power consumption for an
hour end up reducing it for a day? Oh well, different things amuse
different people I suppose.

**Your words:
"It would be really funny if an Earth Hour triggered cascading
blackouts....."

I do not share your sense of humour. Such an event would be catastrophic and
would almost certainly lead to the deaths of people.

In fact, regardless of our senses of humour, it seems unlikely
anything would happen, unless enthusiasm for Earth Hour were much
greater than it actually is. A snapshot of the 5 minute demand graph
for NSW at the relevent time is here

http://members.optusnet.com.au/sylviae/earthhour.png

It's taken from

http://www.aemo.com.au/data/GRAPH_5NSW1.html

which changes with time.

Bearing in mind that the time axis is standard time, and that we're
currently in summer time, it's hard to see any impact of Earth Hour.
Certainly variations of a similar magnitude are seen at other times
of day.

**Which is pretty much what I said elsewhere. It is a symbolic act.

 

[Sylvia Else]

**Your words:
"It would be really funny if an Earth Hour triggered cascading
blackouts....."

I do not share your sense of humour. Such an event would be catastrophic and
would almost certainly lead to the deaths of people.



**Which is pretty much what I said elsewhere. It is a symbolic act.

Mostly symbolic of ignorance when people light candles instead, thus
increasing their CO2 output, compared with what they'd have output using
ordinary lighting, and turn off things like refrigerators, which will
simply consume the unconsumed energy when they're turned back on.

Sylvia.

 

[Nick Andrew]

**Again: It's SYMBOLIC. Far better would be for people to stop using their
air conditioners, pool pumps and all the other stuff that consumes lots of
power.

If it was so symbolic they wouldn't ask us to turn off things at a
specific time on a specific date. Better for them to say, turn your
lights off for 1 hour every night; you choose the time.

Nick.

 

[David L. Jones]

If it was so symbolic they wouldn't ask us to turn off things at a
specific time on a specific date.

Wrong. the whole point is to make it a big fun event that people (and the
media) can get behind, that's what helps builds awareness in peoples minds.
To do that you have to have a specific date and time, and not make it too
often that people bore of it. Look how much media coverage it gets, it's
massive. You'd get zero media coverage or interest if there was no specific
date or time.

Better for them to say, turn your
lights off for 1 hour every night; you choose the time.

No way, because then you are simply telling people to do something, it would
almost certainly be a complete failure.
People will switch off (no pun intended) to stuff like that unless there is
some compelling reason to do it.
Symbolic/awareness programs are entirely different to programs designed to
get immediate measureable results.
To get immediate practical results usually requires either laws and
penalties (works in Shanghai for example), or incentives. Without those you
have to rely upon changing peoples mindsets over time.

Sydney Water for example have had good success in reducing overall water
consumption through various awareness programs, and Earth Hour is doing a
similar thing for power consumption.

Dave.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

Mostly symbolic of ignorance when people light candles instead, thus
increasing their CO2 output,

**Do they? Who did? I didn't.

compared with what they'd have output

using ordinary lighting, and turn off things like refrigerators,
which will simply consume the unconsumed energy when they're turned
back on.

**Of course.

 

[Mr.T]

You miss the entire point of earth hour.
It's all about increasing awareness of energy conservation.

It's failed miserably then!
Frankly I will only take notice when they do something about the REAL
problem, global over-population.

MrT.

 

[David L. Jones]

It's failed miserably then!

With all the publicity it gets, it can hardly be called a failure.
It's actually quite a brilliant and successful idea as far as awareness
plans go.

Frankly I will only take notice when they do something about the REAL
problem, global over-population.

Yes, the root of most of the world's future (and current) problems (religion
aside).

Dave.

 

[Mr.T]

**Dunno what kind of PC you use, or are familiar with, but the figure (for
a, say, Core 2 Duo + LCD screen), the figure is far closer to 50 ~ 100 Watts
in standby. In use, you can add around 20 ~ 30 Watts.

Dunno what kind of PC you use, but *in use* there are *very few* desktop
PC's that draw LESS than 70-130 Watts! Some CPU's alone can draw more than
that! And some PSU's waste nearly that much!

MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

Better for them to say, turn your
lights off for 1 hour every night; you choose the time.

Most people turn them off for 5 or 6 hours every night already!

MrT.

 

[Sylvia Else]

**Do they? Who did? I didn't.

Well, presumably you know better. But a lot of people don't, which means
they're protesting about an issue they have little or no understanding of.

BTW, one can certainly buy 'green' electricity for less than the cost
the candles, but try to charge people the cost of candles for the power
they'd be using outside Earth Hour, and they'd definitely be protesting
even louder.

Sylvia.

 

[Sylvia Else]

Nuh. Nothing that a good operator couldn't handle. He'd have to put his
coffee and sports mag down for a bit.

That view seems well supported by the graph I posted. The media article
referred to dispatching increased frequency control sevices, and running
the voltage at the lower end of its permitted range. I can only assume
the AEMO were preparing for a much larger popular support for Earth Hour
than it actually got. Maybe in future years they'll just ignore it.

Sylvia.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

Dunno what kind of PC you use, but *in use* there are *very few*
desktop PC's that draw LESS than 70-130 Watts! Some CPU's alone can
draw more than that! And some PSU's waste nearly that much!

**A Core 2 Duo will use as little as 5 Watts, if not doing all that much.
Certainly power consumption will rise substantially, when rendering graphics
or playing games, but not if it's just sitting around in an office at night.
Support electronics (not high end graphics, of course) will typically
consume another 20 Watts and a hard drive will use less than 10 Watts.
Figure on around 2 Watts for the monitor and another 20 Watts for power
supply inefficiency.

 

[Adam Anderson]

That view seems well supported by the graph I posted. The media article
referred to dispatching increased frequency control sevices, and running
the voltage at the lower end of its permitted range. I can only assume
the AEMO were preparing for a much larger popular support for Earth Hour
than it actually got. Maybe in future years they'll just ignore it.

Sylvia.

Coal fired turbines take about 72 hours to ramp up / down. They normally
run at an average = to market demand, during peak times the operators of
the power stations (hello Macquarie Generation) wait for the price of
power on the national grid to rise a little bit then they switch on the
Gas powered turbines and make a half a mil and then switch em back off
as the peak subsides.

 

[Sylvia Else]

Coal fired turbines take about 72 hours to ramp up / down. They normally
run at an average = to market demand, during peak times the operators of
the power stations (hello Macquarie Generation) wait for the price of
power on the national grid to rise a little bit then they switch on the
Gas powered turbines and make a half a mil and then switch em back off
as the peak subsides.

That's for ordinary dispatched supply, but in addition there are
frequency control services, which are generators whose power output is
adjusted on the fly to maintain the frequency - essentially they're
adjusting to match second by second variations in demand. Running
generators that way is more expensive, so owners have to be paid extra
to do it, and AEMO only contracts for the maximum amount of variation it
expects to see.

Sylvia.

 

[John Tserkezis]

With all the publicity it gets, it can hardly be called a failure.
It's actually quite a brilliant and successful idea as far as awareness
plans go.

Though some people simply don't get the idea of irony. Our building is
plastered with the Earth Hour posters, however, one of the occupants is
a company that makes coal and gas power stations.

Being in IT, and having been in electronics engineering, I fully
support that (the manufacturing, not the earth hour bullshit).

Turning off the lights doesn't actually DO anything productive.
Lighting (at least the ones that are under normal control) form only a
small percentage of the total power outlay, so even if *everyone* turned
off *every* light it will do nothing for the longer term issues we're
going to have to cover. Less so since it's only an hour.

Google "earth hour sponsors" and have a gander as to what the media is
saying on this, or more importantly, what they're NOT saying.

Not to mention the exemptions, where wikipedia says:
"Essential cultural events like Canadian hockey matches will carry on
regardless of Earth Hour. According to the Vancouver Sun, "TV,
particularly when tuned to the Canucks, is classified as an essential
use of power."

So there you have it. **** the planet, hockey is more important. Or,
translated to English, 'nobody cares except the media', presumably
because they're going to make a buck out of it.