Earth Hour 2008

Making a difference or a total waste of time?

Discuss.

 Absolute total 100% waste of time.

 I am pretty sure that as a species we have been aware for the past couple of decades at least that our power consumption is an issue.

 Until a) the government

        b) the power companies

 take it seriously than nothing is going to happen.

 a or b won't change until it hurts them economically so the environment is fucked.

 The idea is good (sort of ) but people that think it makes on iota of difference are absolute fools.

 

 

 

 

 

surely it can't hurt. i participated. sat outside with the olds for an hour sinking piss. it should be a once a month thing.

It's mostly the common people that have to change. Over here where it's hot pretty much all year, everyone just cranks the AC 24/7, or of they want to save cash, it's multiple portable fans 24/7. The numerous shopping malls are like fridges and I've never got into a car or train here that doesn't have cranking AC's.

Frankly, most people don't seem to care as long as it's not hitting the wallet too hard. I'm sure it's much the same with people in Australia, I know some people where money isn't too much of an issue and comfort always comes first.

Times that by hundreds of other developed countries where the weather gets relatively hot at times (or cold also) and there's the problem. We lived without AC's before surely you can just put up with using it a little less...

So basically I agree with Stryke in that Earth Day is akin to a drop in an ocean. I'll still shut off my own personal stuff on principle just to get into the idea of it, only thing I have running that's my own here right now is my laptop, so I'll just switch to batteries for an hour! 

Edit: Just realised EH has gone for you Adelaideans already! T-Minus 60 minutes  for me...

Found this out on wikipedia too, I was interested in finding how high Bangkok is on power comsumptions levels and saw this:


The South Park Movie was right, Blame Canada! 

Came into the city tonight from the hills, I was like, um, where the fuck did town go?

Took us ages to realise that all the lights were off in all the office blocks so we couldn't see it like normal

Hmm I dunno if its an actual absolute waste of time, I think more than anything its an action which hopefully makes more people aware more than anything else.

At my house we had all the lights off all day & evening.

Just turned it on a couple of times to cook & see in the toot etc 

can you imagine, if this concept was to work.... with all of the lights off in adelaide just in one hour.. how much $$$ the electricity companies lose? Now multiply that by how many hours in a day and how many days in a year.

I cant imagine how much $$

Being environmentally friendly starts with yourself taking action IMO, then its a domino effect.

Its like cigarette butts being thrown away anywhere absent mindedly. yeh one cigarette butt wont hurt, but hey do it every day several times a day then it starts to add up. Theres cigarette butts everywhere!

Try crossing anzac highway and walk over the median strip. Its fkn disgusting from the amount of butts there are that people chuck out their car window

The cynical part of me wants to say it doesn't make a difference, but fuck, if it pisses off the conservatives like Andrew Dolt and Pudgy Ackerman, then that's enough for me to want to see it happening in future...

Every week is probably a better choice. Imagine once a day, fuck that would piss off the electricity companies ha!

I don't think it would catch on once a week, monthly maybe. People only like inconveniencing themselves for a worthwhile cause if it happens infrequently, and in their minds it justifies them doing exactly the opposite every other day of the year. If it was once a week it would not nearly see the same amount of participation.

i thought it was pretty pointless, but im already a convert to the cause so perhaps wasnt seeing it for what it intended.

i think its actually more a PR thing in getting people thinking about it (rather than actually saving the planet with 1 hour of reduced power usage), so in that respect it was probably a great success.

though i forgot about it and was in the middle of watching a marathon of the final 3 episodes of the sopranos
eat a dick leotardo!



and yeah J, anything to piss off andrew bolt

i lit up a whole heap of bunsen burners and a coal fire for it instead of using electricity for light and warmth. was that ok?

prices would just go up...  so it would probably piss consumers off more

They should really be promoting energy efficient products.

For starters they should completely eliminate filament based technology, starting with light globes. Give the pensioners some freebies to start off with and make a total ban on conventional bulbs. Then move on to power supply, heater, and fan technology.

Not only will this be good for the earth, but will also help promote locally made products, as all the cheap stuff comes from China, and lots the 'higher tech' stuff tends to be manufactured locally.

You can try to promote better use, and try to police it (ie water usage restrictions) but the only way to actually ensure compliance, and make it happen NOW is to give no other choice but to comply.

My 2c.

Oooooooh but energy savers are so much more expensive and dont fit in most light shade type things.. wah wah wah wah

Personally I agree but most people dont look at the bigger picture, like fluorescent doesnt blow as easily with power surges or shorts, doesnt get as hot, dont need to be replaced as often etc etc.

And the obvious use less power factor.. people are just stupid!

But it would save the environment...

I'm willing to pay a bit more to use less power if its going to make a significant difference to the environment.

i did my bit, the lights went off at labrina for about 5 mins!

are you willing to subsidise for the people who can't afford to?

I'm sure the government will introduce some world saving scheme where the cost is subsidised by taxes. So indirectly I would no doubt end up doing so.

If it was my choice? No. They can live on the dodgy side of the earth who doesnt look after it and I'll live on the sunshine and lolli pop side where everything is dandy.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the government to introduce this world saving scheme because initially they will loose money which they don't want to do yet.

 I am by no means a do-gooding cunt but what a shithouse comment alot of people are imoverished for no reason of their own. 

Uh-oh! Spaghetti-O's!

sorry i'd hate to loose points with mods

 Let it be known I am not against the theory behind this. The total bloody opposite really.

 What I want to see is plans for hundreds of square kilometres of solar farms in the outback, massive wind farms and the like. Some actual problem solving, rather than banner waving crap like Earth Hour. I don't know the solutions but show me something tangible.

 So 'awareness was raised'. Not really a big deal. Unless you live in a cave and therefore don't use power anyway I am sure that you must know about this stuff anyway. I am sure some people will make some power saving changes, some will put in an effort for a few months, most will forget about it by the end of this week until next year comes around.

 

 

Oh come on.

You really think that was serious? I know there are a lot of people out there struggling, my mum is one of them.

I'm with spanks, although I was under the impression solar panels were way expensive to build as far as a carbon foot print goes??

Wind farms on the other hand are rad, although apparently they kill all the animals what with their super fast spinning blades(sarcasm)

sorry mate

They're expensive here because energy here is still cheap. That is, Aussies still pay relatively little for energy in comparison to Europeans for example.

I was in Germany over the new year period and one thing amazed me while travelling on trains through the country. I had not been in Europe for 5 years and one noticeable change was the number of houses/buildings with solar panels covering the roofs. When I say "covering" I am not talking about 4 square metres of solar panels for hot water systems. I am talking about the entire roof covered in panels.

I spoke to some family members who have done this on their own residences and sure, the initial costs are expensive (in the tens of thousands of euros). But energy costs there have risen so dramatically in the past few years that solar panels are an attractive option and with some assistance from government generally completely pay for themselves within a 3 to 5 years of being installed.

Now remember I am talking about Germany here... This is a country with a very different climate to ours. These same solar panels installed here on our roofs in Australia would probably be 5 times more useful in terms of energy generated compared to anywhere in Europe!

What the hell is Australia doing? Seriously we are at least a decade behind all of Western Europe on energy policy.

Anyway, I'm with Stryke on this. It was another silly symbolic gesture which will be forgotten in a week.

Thats not what I was talking about, the amount of carbon emitted from the manufacture of the solar panels is actually quite large.

Thats just what I heard the other day though, I cant seem to find anything on google to that affect.

I'm all for power saving but think of it this way:

Things like fluros, aircons, heaters, batteries and whatnot will use the most amount of power when starting/charging up.
You turn your shit off for an hour.
After the hour is up you return from the Age of Aquarius and proceed to turn all your gear back on.
In the next 5 minutes upon turning all your gear back on the electricity companies are loving it due to everyone sucking down the grid from the massive surge of having to charge everything that was turned off - back on again.

My 2c


P.S. I used my laptop by candlelight.  

I find it hard to believe that in the bigger picture, the amount of carbon generated in the production of solar panels is anywhere near significant enough to make them a bad option. It's not like they need to be fed anything but sunlight once they're installed after all.

But yeah, if you find a credible source with information that analyses the cost of solar power production vs. the cost of other renewable energy methods I'd be interested to read it. I'm fairly sure that it's wise to balance multiple sources anyway... That's where most of the most progressive nations on these matters are heading (Western Europe) so far. They have a mix of wind and solar power where ever each is most suited based on geographic and other factors.

I saw a documentary once on solar power and the biggest problem with it, is the large space (and sunlight) required for it, meant generally it had to be a fair distance from residential areas meaning a large percentage of the power made was lost getting it to where it was required.

The location problem is hardly unique to solar power though is it? I mean, nobody wants a coal or gas or nuclear power plant in their back yard. I'd imagine less people would have a problem with solar panels on the roof. They certainly are not as invasive as the other's I've just mentioned. All of these sources can make use of transformers to move electricity around the same way as we have done for 100+ years.

its takes anywhere between 18 months to 3+ years for the energy pay back period, ie on average, in 2 years a panel has generated more power than it took to make it. and they have 25 year guarantees as standard.

there's spin on anything that threatens the profits of certain industries...

germany and japan have solar implemented because the government sees its the way to independently secure their energy needs...
germany offers a feed-in tariff 4 times the amount we currently do, and they guarantee it for 20 years, more than enough to pay back the capital required to outlay the equipment in the first place... we haven't yet worked out that its OK to rent your roof space to groups that wish to use it for producing clean energy,
     
   solar can be used remotely, in cites and for large scale operations... it doesn't create wars, poverty, control oppression or starvation.. is liberates society to a certain extent..that doco on sbs " saved by the sun" is a bit outdated

check the new research into storing the energy overnight etc...here
>> http://www.csiro.au/org/SolarResearch.html#2

or solar in space, which is way cheaper than earth based... check this
>> http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2008/03/13/2187801.htm

and the cost of producing panels ? its the aluminum frames ( see quote below), but most companies are moving to production of plastic components and recycling metals to do the manufacture
that's here >>
http://www.urbanecology.org.au/topics/solarpanels.html

"At present the energy payback time for PV systems is in the range 8 to 11 years, compared with typical system lifetimes of around 30 years. About 60% of the embodied energy is due to the silicon wafers. As the PV industry reduces production costs and moves to the use of thin film solar cells the energy payback time will decline to about two years.

The total energy requirement to produce a PV panel is 1,060 kWh/m2. In Sydney the useable panel output will be 153 kWh/m2/year [0.42 kWh/m2/day], giving an energy payback time (EPBT) for the panel of 6.9 years. After mounting in an open field or on a roof the EPBT will be 11.5 or 8.3 years respectively. These energy payback times are well short of the likely system lifetime of 30 years.  "

the way to go is geothermal... check the latest issue of ReNew at www.ata.org.au for a little more info...
they have a graph of each electricity generation method and its cost once carbon trading kicks in...

   awareness is exactly what we need and earth hour is a small part of reminding us of that... would people rather have their power cut without their permission ?... imagine if we had that done to us every week so other people in other parts of the world can live too, would you be prepared to do that ? something tells me a few attitudes around the place would stop any cohersion, community togetherness and general respect for the earth and the resources we have on it... so yeah we got along way to go and regradless of whether there's anyone out there still silly enough to believe oil backed speakers that say climate change is normal and we got plenty of oil and human CO2 emissions aren't enough to change the climate and that the sun is doing it, ( which is true to a certain extent), the way of and quality of life we are and should be heading for, if we keep embracing technology, renewable and sustainable ways of running the globe, then this world stands to do really really well, but we humans still got this " who cares i'll be dead" issue that plagues their natural swing toward what they know damn well is the way to go, using resources more efficiently, turning
"waste" into "food" and bringing all nations into line in regards to energy options and technology, i ain't quitting on this "green" future , simply because the haters who wanna rape this planet to the death don't quit, so how can i?  you see ?... it ain't gonna end till all the knowledge and awareness reaches a level where all people go.. " ok, i'm sold... this is gonna work... we got the skills to actually pull this off... wow!!! "

it's a time and money thing... and they both are being held back by the people who control them, yes people can control time, believe it or not, we have been held back for 20 years on certain things you know... it's sad... but promising as science is showing us the mistakes we've been making all this time, and industrially speaking, we will have plenty of healthy and exciting jobs should we want them... oh and lots of money... solar made 39 billion the year that "saved by the sun" doco was made...

so it has all the perks of a modern and profitable economy for all, but all need to agree to it first... sign up for 100% GREEN ENERGY, regardless . it's the easiest and cheapest way ( i make $ 17 , 000 ) to send that message to the government...

respect it up !!

You're referring to the energy pay back period here in Australia or some where else?

What I reckon, is to bull doze Mawson Lakes!

Imagine what we will save then!

Fuck the one hour... just get rid of Mawson lakes! (Please see random quiz thread  for further information )

 

australia for sure. twas a figure i heard again less than a month ago.

and i was quoting the newer generation of solar panels that use less silica in their production. that 8-11 years is for old ones... the crew at urban ecology probably havent updated their info (it is a volunteer run organisation!)

it accounts for all materials, as aluminum is quite expensive to make in the sense of energy requirements, not as much as stainless steel though...

the sliver cells factory in regency could offer more info, there was a 16 person tour that i missed out on recently...
also the suncube is gonna be manufactured here, it uses triple junction cells, that are as big as a SD memory card, but capture a wider band of light, not just infra red like the old solar cells ( and sliver cells too actually ), they actually generate energy in cloudy days using Fresnel lenses to focus the light onto the cell...
those triple junction cells are expensive, but last longer, therefore the pay back rate drops further as they last longer, the mars rovers are still running and they don't have much of an atmosphere to prevent them from getting fried, yet they still work...

embodied energy ( manufacturing ), primary energy ( before its used) end-use energy ( after its used and transformed into heat etc)  are things that companies will now have to declare and assess if they want to get carbon credits or offset their emissions... expect to here more about it...


when you account for power-line transmission losses, transporting, infrastructure and running costs of a coal or nuclear plant, solar cells have it down... you only emit carbon ( unless the factory's solar powered like suntech's in shanghai )  during the initial process, same as wind and geothermal, but if that initial construction is powered by renewable, its far better than continually putting carbon in the atmosphere using coal gas and nuclear...they can't cover that up, even geo-sequestration is wrong...
man i miss the old sustainable living thread !!!

check these for CO 2 sequestration done properly !!
pyrolysis !!!
>>
http://www.bestenergies.com/aboutus.html

and Agrichar
>>
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s2012892.htm?site=catalyst

big it up!!

hey that BEST stuff is cool!

I know a few peeps involved in the Cooperative Research Centre for C02, here at Adelaide Uni, and there have been some interesting Tuesday Lectures..Can get you deets if anyone wants to go, u need to rsvp early for em tho...

Anyways, the best thing to prevent c02 reaching the atmospheree (from anthropegenic sources) is to not produce it in the first place..bigups to the people developing zero emission technologies, glad to see SA is doing its best! Now, lets hope WA follows suit, they have a massive input to the economy/influences due to their mass of natural resources 

They didn't had 11 years of John Howard with his head in the sand

Yeah I know. It was a rhetorical question. Even still, we've been 10 years behind them for decades (before Howard) on these types of policies.

there's good and bad to that, it means that we could benefit by acquiring, manufacturing and producing the zero emission technologies that HAVE been proven in other countries already over the past 10 years...
or it could take another 10 until this government untangles the shit-web that was left behind ??

as far as australia's energy mix goes...
geothermal, wind and solar (solar thermal, solar heating/cooling, solar "gas") , wave energy (something the old oil rigs could be used for indeed), biomass ( from capping and storing methane in landfill and sewerage treatments ),  then, "clean' coal and nuclear if we really really need it ( which we don't cause geothermal can handle it all) ...

policy, legislation, incentives and regulations are the only thing that needs to be sorted and relatively quickly, say in the next two years,
the government would obviously start with grants for technology feasibility studies, skills training and recruitment, then the rest would be easy enough to work out...
there's certainly some anxiety in this all, as the US, for example, is currently shaking up its economic regulations to prevent what has happened form happening again ( refer housing market thread), this would have to be done in virtually every corner of australia's economic runnings, which means everything e.g., from getting silica out of the ground to making the solar cell and panel with it, would have to be monitored, energy usage calculated and assessed and improved or monitored further if necessary, this has a few people worried as it stems from accountability for everything, and all this information will have to stored and calculated using computers and cool programs that are floating around some of the research dept's in mawson, uni sa and i'm sure around the world...

some people find that exciting, other's find its too much change to deal with at once...
this is a shake-up that has nothing but positive outcomes for all world's people, i'm in it to the end !!!

Yeah, we could simply rush into things like the Germans did...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/30/wgreen130.xml

Haha. I have family very close to there actually. :o

At least we have enough room to do any drilling for geothermal energy a long way away from towns/cities. And we don't actually have any towns with beautiful old buildings that would be genuinely sad to see sinking anyway...

and its super heated water vs hot fractured rocks when germany 's and australia's geothermal energy is concerned...
with the use of HVDC cables, the transmission loss is significantly lower than conventional power lines from coal fired sources,
so in australia, they can be built relatively far away from cities and towns as oli said, its also a closed system when HFR geothermal plants are in operation, no loss in pressure and the water used never actually turns to steam, i think they use ammonia compound of some sort ( non toxic what ever it is ) ground sourced heat pumping, as featured in the article link you posted J , is probably best done using air and not water, or like the Council House 2 does in melbs using a salt solution (phase change material) in large basement level tanks to super cool recycled water and use it for air con, and possibly heating, the area i'm talking about is the lower right hand side of the image below, the shower towers are enlosed in a chute so the don't spray on the people below... check the video link here
>>
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1901482.htm


>>

yeah, i think i can personally take some credit for getting that guy to reconsider NOT making them domestically available... the panels cost a fuckload more, but the fact that its a focussed form of sunlight on the solar cell and tracked with the sun means the whole unit delivers the same energy as a standard fixed flat panel for the same cost BEFORE THE FLAT PANEL REBATE!
and its an SA invention

im putting a few on my house if all goes to plan...

Doesn't matter, some town in Germany is sinking because engineers didn't do their job properly and rushed it due to the fear of "global warming".

Just like Chernobyl, a tragedy that could have been prevented occurred, showing this is not as safe as everyone claims.

At least this hasn't wiped out the entire region though (yet)