A good satellite photo of Europe and Africa, same time zones. Darkness is cool? Am laughing.
I am reposting a nice intro to basic electrical engineering, from my engineer-economist friend, Cynthia Hernandez. Cynthia gave me permission to repost this. Thanks Cynths.
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March 20, 2016
Scene in the house last night:
Mother: (looks at clock) Naku! 8:30 na! We have to turn
off the lights for Earth Hour.
Me: (launches into my Earth Hour rant*)
End result: Lights and aircon stay ON! Woohoo!
*Earth Hour rant (slightly) condensed: Electricity is not
just the Demand side. You turn off the lights, your meter runs slightly less,
and you think, "Hurrah, I saved ×× kWh less, yey me, I'm such an Earth
Warrior!" Then you pat yourself on the back and not think about the
environment for the rest of the year.
However, on the Supply side, the huge generators that
have to run to feed the Nation's addiction to OTWOL (or whatever is the current
obsession. I don't watch TV so maybe that gives me environmentalist points?)
don't stop spinning. Why? If you're running your car at 100 kph, you don't
brake to 0 kph in 1 second, right? And these generators are engines that are a
million times larger and more complex.
So, when everybody turns off their lights, generators
don't spontaneously use less fossil fuel. They are not designed like that.
Especially if demand is expected to pick up again after an hour. Most likely
scenario is that they are still running in reserve mode and burning fossil
fuels as they do so.
Thus, the glowing news articles that appear a day after
Earth Hour saying "Hey, you brave Earth-saving person, you saved xxx tons
of CO2 from going into the air!" are simplistic. You might not be getting
billed for that electricity, but the infrastructure that delivers that
electricity to you has only slowed down slightly.
If you really want to make an impact, don't use
electricity for an ENTIRE DAY. That means not subjecting the electric grid to
the stress of an hourlong demand drop. The system operators, that have to take
extraordinary measures so that your appliances don't get fried by a massive
voltage surge, will thank you. That is, if you can stand to be without
electricity in this heat. Good luck with that.
#ThinkBeforeGoingOnABandwagon #ILoveElectricity
#EarthHourIsStupid
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Meanwhile, this quote is from Bjorn Lomborg, he tweeted it. Cool.
Global ecological socialism -- the main goal of climate alarmism and the "man-made" or anthropogenic warming/climate change -- is deceptive and lousy, they wish to see more, bigger governments. The WWF, Greenpeace, the United Nations, other big international campaigners are simply saying, "save the planet... (send more money to us)."
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See also:
Earth Hour 3: Letter to WWF-EH Campaign Leaders, March 21, 2011
Earth Hour 4: WWF-EH Censoring Critical Comments, March 30, 2011
Earth Hour 5: Celebrating Darkness is not Wise, March 30, 2012
Earth Hour 6: The WWF can Change Climate Change?, March 29, 2015
Climate Tricks 51, The CCC, Greenpeace and fossil fuels, February 01, 2016
Wind power, flattened mountain ridges, collapsed towers, March 08, 2016
Energy 60, PH solar companies, PagIBIG loan for solar, March 12, 2016
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