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Daylight saving time a waste of energy


Still Waters

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Daylight saving time is supposed to reduce energy use, but data gathered from a state in the US suggests it actually does the opposite.

The US state of Indiana has 92 counties, but until 2006 only 15 of them adjusted their clocks for daylight saving time, with the remainder keeping standard time all year, at least partly to appease farmers who did not want the change.Then in 2006 the Indiana Legislature decided the entire state should adopt daylight saving time, beginning that spring.

This unique situation enabled professor of economics Matthew Kotchen and his PhD student Laura E. Grant, both from the University of California at Santa Barbara, to study how the adoption of daylight saving affected energy use. They studied over seven million electricity meter readings in southern Indiana every month for three years, and compared the energy consumption before and after the change. The 15 counties that had adopted daylight saving time much earlier were the control group, which allowed them to adjust for the effects of weather extremes over the period.

The result of the study showed that electricity use went up in the counties adopting daylight saving time in 2006, costing $8.6 million more in household electricity bills. The conclusion reached by Kotchen and Grant was that while the lighting costs were reduced in the afternoons by daylight saving, the greater heating costs in the mornings, and more use of air-conditioners on hot afternoons more than offset these savings. Kotchen said the results were more “clear and unambiguous” than results in any other paper he had presented.

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...And to inform everyone in states and countries wherever Daylight Time is observed, DST ends tonight so set your clocks back a hour and enjoy an extra hour of sleep. Maybe we can learn a lesson from Arizona, Indiana out of concern by farmers claimed their livestock will be disoriented and a town in the Oklahoma panhandle to stick with Standard time all year round. LoL, they have energy to save and no need to burn the midnight oil.

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You know, this instructive about "remember to set back your clocks", is fast becoming a facet of a bygone era. I have no clocks to reset. My cell resets itself, my computer resets itself, my DVR resets itself. The only clock in the house that doesn't is the oven and I suspect that will change someday as well.

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You know, this instructive about "remember to set back your clocks", is fast becoming a facet of a bygone era. I have no clocks to reset. My cell resets itself, my computer resets itself, my DVR resets itself. The only clock in the house that doesn't is the oven and I suspect that will change someday as well.

That's true. I do have some clocks in my house though that don't re-set by themselves. Plus the central heating/water heater, they both work off a timer and have to be adjusted manually.

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Aye, Ninja.

There are still plenty of folks, like myself, who prefer real clocks around the house rather than digital displays.

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