Earth fever takes hold across globe

[depakid]

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

EARTH HOUR is about to sweep around the world in what the United Nations is calling "the largest demonstration of public concern about climate change ever attempted". The event, which started in Sydney two years ago, will see well over 3000 cities and towns in more than 90 countries switch off their lights for an hour this year. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to take part.

From the international dateline, Earth Hour starts in New Zealand's Chatham Islands this afternoon and will conclude in Honolulu tomorrow night (Sydney time). In between, tens of millions of houses and public buildings will dim their lights to call for an effective global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. More than 10,000 street parties are planned. Sydney's turn comes at 8.30 tonight.

The Harbour Bridge and the Opera House will be joined by a list of world monuments that reads like a Lonely Planet guide. In the US, the Empire State Building will dim its lights, along with Sears Tower in Chicago, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the lights of the casino strip in Las Vegas. In Canada, lights at Niagara Falls and Toronto's CN Tower will be turned off.

Most major European cities are taking part....

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-hour/earth-fever-takes-hold-across-globe-20090327-9e71.html

[bbinacan]

1. What kind of stress will

this put on the power grid?

[Wednesdays]

2. Huh?

:wtf:

Reducing energy usage will put a stress on the power grid? Please explain.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Power companies are going to have to idle plants

if the cuts are large enough. They don't necessarily come back on as fast as you might think. Not like throwing a switch. This will be disruptive, and cause some headaches, but probably won't be a huge deal, in the end.

[Deja Q]

10. And the cost of all this will be trickled down to us by next month's invoice.

:D

[Xipe Totec]

6. Northeast Blackout of 1965

The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on November 9, 1965, affecting Ontario, Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States. Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km²) were left without electricity for up to 12 hours.

The cause of the failure was human error that happened days before the blackout, when maintenance personnel incorrectly set a protective relay on one of the transmission lines between the Niagara generating station Sir Adam Beck Station No. 2 in Queenston, Ontario and Southern Ontario. The saftey relay which is set to trip if the current exceeds the capacity of the transmission line was set too low.

As was common on a cold November evening, power for heating, lighting and cooking was pushing the electrical system to near its peak capacity, and the transmission lines heading into Southern Ontario were heavily loaded. At 5:16 p.m. Eastern Time a small surge of power coming from Lewiston, New York's Robert Moses generating plant caused the misset relay to trip at far below the line's rated capacity, disabling a main power line heading into Southern Ontario. Instantly, the power that was flowing on the tripped line transferred to the other lines, causing them to become overloaded. Their protective relays, which are designed to protect the line if it became overloaded, tripped, isolating Adam Beck from all of Southern Ontario.

With no place else to go, the excess power from Beck then switched direction and headed east over the interconnected lines into New York State, overloading them as well and isolating the power generated in the Niagara region from the rest of the interconnected grid. The Beck and Moses generators, with no outlet for their power, were automatically shut down to prevent damage. Within five minutes the power distribution system in the northeast was in chaos as the effects of overloads and loss of generating capacity cascaded through the network, breaking it up into "islands". Plant after plant experienced load imbalances and automatically shut down. The affected power areas were the Ontario Hydro System, St Lawrence-Oswego, Western New York and Eastern New York-New England. Maine, with only limited electrical connection southwards, was not affected. The only part of the Ontario Hydro System not affected was the Fort Erie area next to Buffalo which was still powered by the old 25 Hz generators. Residents in Fort Erie were able to pick up a TV broadcast from New York where a local backup generator was being used for transmission purposes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965

[dipsydoodle]

8. I recall that analyisis

from James Burke's series "Connections" back in the late 70's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)

Also produced in book which I'd recommend it as worthwhile reading.

[Deja Q]

9. Exactly. An hour of limited usage* followed by a massive jump in power requirement...

Brownouts galore...


* I doubt anybody will turn off their refrigerators, et al... A shame, that...

[krabigirl]

21. yep, one of the reasons I think it's lame.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Not much

Lighting isn't a huge part of the electricity requirements; and what's more, the start and end of this is quite well defined. I doubt this is more to them than their regular planning of electricity loads due to advert breaks when people go out to turn on appliances and flush toilets (thus needing a surge in the water pressure) while leaving the TVs on.

From last year:

Toronto Hydro saw a drop of 8.7 per cent, York Region reported a three-per-cent reduction and Ottawa fell by four per cent.

Martine Holmsen of IESO said the operator had forecast an 800-megawatt reduction during Earth Hour and was pleasantly surprised when it surpassed that number.

“We were ready for both the decrease and the increase in demand,” she said.

Holmsen said IESO regularly forecasts the amount of electricity the province will require to anticipate events that might spike power needs in Ontario.

“A television show might spike demand unexpectedly,” she said. “I guess the record was when Tiny Tim got married on Johnny Carson back in 1969. Because all the televisions were on at the same time, it caused a spike in the demand. The final episode of M*A*S*H was another one that we prepared for.”

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplayGenContent.aspx?e=5533

The thing to remember is that what we do for this hour is what we should do all the time. Stop unnecessary energy usage.

[Ex Lurker]

3. a lot of RW sites are telling people to turn all their lights on n/t

[Wednesdays]

13. More power to 'em

They're really gonna feel proud when their utility bills comes due. :crazy:

(Please forgive the pun.)

[fascisthunter]

19. dumb ass willful slaves to the wealthy

the right wing.

When I see stuff like this, I think of an obedient dofg being beaten by it's master and yet still remaining obedient. ...nothing but tools.

[Norrin Radd]

5. Guess what?! I gotta fever...and the only prescription

is more Earthbell!

[dipsydoodle]

7. It's at 10.30pm GMT in the UK.

Several famous UK buildings will be plunged into darkness later as part of a global climate change campaign.

The London Eye, The Gherkin, and the BT Tower will be among those taking part in WWF's Earth Hour at 2030 GMT.

The environmental group hopes millions of people around the world will switch off lights. It expects cities and towns in more than 80 countries to take part.

WWF want the "visual statement" to show world leaders "the need to take urgent action to tackle climate change".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7969523.stm

BTW - for anyone with friends here we go onto summer time at 2am tomorrow when our clocks go forward an hour.

edit - Rec. and off to the greatest with you.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. 2030 GMT is 8:30pm, not 10:30 pm

Just so you know what's happening when :D

[dipsydoodle]

16. Indeed it is

I'll nominate March 28th as "Now I feel really stupid" day :rofl:

[Matilda]

11. Earth Hour has just ended in Sydney.

I decided that we should eat outside by candlelight tonight, because
it's still fairly warm. We have one of those umbrellas over the table
that absorbs solar heat, and the light is enough to see by. So we
darkened the house, except for some candles, TV and computer off, and
had a pleasant meal. Mr Matilda thought it was all rubbish, but our
son went along with it quite happily.

I'm just glad we did it - if nobody bothered, governments would know
they can get away with doing nothing about climate change because people
really don't care. However small a difference it makes, I think it's
important to make a statement.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. How much CO2 do you think you produced from the candles?

As a rough illustration, 1 kWh of electricity produces perhaps 1.35 pounds of CO2 (in a largely fossil fuel-driven system), or 613 grammes. So a 20W CFL bulb for an hour would be a fiftieth of that, or 12g of CO2. That's equivalent to 12 *12/44 = 3.3g of carbon, or 3.3 * 14/12 = 3.9g of hydrocarbon (ie wax).

So, did you burn less than 4 grammes of wax during the hour with the candles rather than a lightbulb?

[krabigirl]

22. I honestly think this one hour, once a year gimmick shows the government NOTHING about caring about

climate change.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. The article does not say, but the "hour" is 8:30 pm tonight in USA.

Except for those pesky time zones, it could have been a huge event.

[Delphinus]

14. My lights will be off,

but, there are basketball tournaments - can't recall what they're called - and too many will NOT be participating. Can't interrupt those games.

[defendandprotect]

20. 8:30 to 9:30 pm tonight -- Saturday . .!!!

Turn off non-essential lights!