Earth Hour

DODDO · 31-03-2007, 07:39 PM

Earth hour, are you involved?

Im participating in it. Just to see the results, however im still using the computer and the playstation!!!

fordel · 31-03-2007, 07:43 PM

Im at work, they are going to doi t, but it has been decided as its an OH&S risk, only certain lights will be turned off.

What a crock.

Chris

GXL078 · 01-04-2007, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordel

Im at work, they are going to doi t, but it has been decided as its an OH&S risk, only certain lights will be turned off.

What a crock.

Chris

They made an anouncement at the football that they supported it in princible but for public safety reasons they would not be participating.

Force6 · 31-03-2007, 07:47 PM

All the lights in my house are off. But I can't see many other people doing it. What a shame...

gthofan · 31-03-2007, 07:49 PM

what the heck is earth hour?

DODDO · 31-03-2007, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gthofan

what the heck is earth hour?

It when you turn all the lights in your house off for one hour. I think its from 7.30pm tonight to 8.30 pm tonight.

Ive had the the lights off since then anyway. If im wrong, meh...

MO · 31-03-2007, 08:37 PM

What a crock...my guess is there trying to get everyone used to having no power.

Back to the candles......

fordel · 31-03-2007, 07:59 PM

http://earthhour.smh.com.au/

Seek and ye shall find

Mongoose · 31-03-2007, 08:43 PM

jeeez, thank god its over. I couldnt see a bloody thing. And my parents forced me to do it :(

flappist · 31-03-2007, 08:53 PM

Typical dropkick greenie stupidity.

Almost all of the electricity generated in NSW is by coal fired turbines. These are just really big engines. Like most engines they like to just sit on a continuous steady output and use more fuel if you change the output constantly.
Like speeding up and slowing down constantly in your car uses far more fuel than just cruising along.
Nights are already bad because the load has dropped after all the day use and heating (cooking) in the early evening.

It is quite possible that this stupid act actually used MORE fuel and created MORE greenhouse gas than not doing it.

MITCHAY · 31-03-2007, 09:00 PM

LOL all that was probably achieved is sitting in the dark for an hour. But people's hearts were in the right place!

:

Feathers · 31-03-2007, 09:12 PM

Well I wonder if there will be a rise in the birth rate in 9 months time?

MITCHAY · 31-03-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feathers

Well I wonder if there will be a rise in the birth rate in 9 months time?

LMAO! New baby boom? That made my day! and it's been a long one.

**GasoLane** · 31-03-2007, 09:50 PM

Seeing as Oz contributes about 0.1% to the World Greenhouse effect, why bother?
Like, we're gong to make a difference?

blutura · 31-03-2007, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Seeing as Oz contributes about 0.1% to the World Greenhouse effect, why bother?
Like, we're gong to make a difference?

Yeah, and while your at it, why don't you shoot your best mate in the face? He's only one man, no-one will notice, right?

RG · 31-03-2007, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blutura

Yeah, and while your at it, why don't you shoot your best mate in the face? He's only one man, no-one will notice, right?

Whoa, that was a bit harsh don't you think.

**GasoLane** · 31-03-2007, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blutura

Yeah, and while your at it, why don't you shoot your best mate in the face? He's only one man, no-one will notice, right?

Not allowed to do that. Bullets speed so Little Johnny banned them

Now look at this and tell me that turning our lights off for one hour will REALLY make a difference....

rcg · 31-03-2007, 11:32 PM

I don't think the idea was that turning the lights off would make a difference. . . it's more of a symbolism/statement thing

Miller · 31-03-2007, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Peter Godhard: "Earth Hour is a symbol of the connection of all of our efforts and a great first step in dealing with climate change as a community."

^^ That is what earth hour was for I guess.

**DJM83** · 01-04-2007, 05:14 PM

Does anyone have any pics of sydney with the lights off?

the_scotsman · 01-04-2007, 06:13 PM

theres a small before & after here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6509437.stm

pertuan · 01-04-2007, 06:51 PM

Thats a massive difference. Its amazing the amount of light pollution over the city when the lights are on.

GXL078 · 01-04-2007, 07:34 PM

Those poor buggers in Africa waste a lot of electricity.

Auslandau · 01-04-2007, 07:56 PM

.....I turned the lights off, then went for a one hour drive with my son in the two V8'S! I left the telle on though :dr_Evil:

| [/url] |

AU-MUSTD · 02-04-2007, 06:02 AM

Thank's nsw if you guy's can do this everyday over summer we might get a few less blackout's here in vic when all our air con's are blaring.

jimmy_c · 02-04-2007, 07:08 AM

The planet is in a constant state of change. Now the pecker heads in control or so called in control of things. Invent stupid ideas like this to make people feel better.

We have things to improve our life but the economic scale of living is unjustified for the the people who make our lifes hell. Because they will not make money.

I agree with what Flappist said.

Monkey · 02-04-2007, 08:30 AM

double post

Monkey · 02-04-2007, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

Typical dropkick greenie stupidity.

Almost all of the electricity generated in NSW is by coal fired turbines. These are just really big engines. Like most engines they like to just sit on a continuous steady output and use more fuel if you change the output constantly.
Like speeding up and slowing down constantly in your car uses far more fuel than just cruising along.
Nights are already bad because the load has dropped after all the day use and heating (cooking) in the early evening.

It is quite possible that this stupid act actually used MORE fuel and created MORE greenhouse gas than not doing it.

Wrong, while power stations do run continuously there output is controlled by demand .
The generator spins at roughly 3000rpm all the time and when more demand (load) is needed they turn up the output placing load on the generator and it starts to slow so the crank up the steam pressure to keep generator spinning at the same speed. more steam needs more coal, less steam needs less coal and when less coal is needed they turn off some of the coal pulverizers.
Collie power station runs at 3250rpm and this can be maintained with only two of its five coal crushers running and at 40kgs a second for each one is quite a difference.
Power output can not be changed quickly like revving an engine its a slow process to synchronize with the main grid to prevent power spikes .
The two peak times are early morning when every one wakes up and turns on there toasters and late afternoon when they get home .

But the whole thing is just to make the everyone feel good .
Getting rid of every second light post down the kwinana freeway would be a real effort to change things. one every fifty meters is over kill
City of lights ha.

flappist · 02-04-2007, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monkey Boy

Wrong, while power stations do run continuously there output is controlled by demand .
The generator spins at roughly 3000rpm all the time and when more demand (load) is needed they turn up the output placing load on the generator and it starts to slow so the crank up the steam pressure to keep generator spinning at the same speed. more steam needs more coal, less steam needs less coal and when less coal is needed they turn off some of the coal pulverizers.
Collie power station runs at 3250rpm and this can be maintained with only two of its five coal crushers running and at 40kgs a second for each one is quite a difference.
Power output can not be changed quickly like revving an engine its a slow process to synchronize with the main grid to prevent power spikes .
The two peak times are early morning when every one wakes up and turns on there toasters and late afternoon when they get home .

But the whole thing is just to make the everyone feel good .
Getting rid of every second light post down the kwinana freeway would be a real effort to change things. one every fifty meters is over kill
City of lights ha.

Of course they run continuously. You work in one do you? A nice shiny new one? NSW has some of the oldest and crappiest power stations in Australia.

If the load drops suddenly then the turbines will try an increase in speed. This will be prevented (hopefully) by reducing the steam pressure and if enough then by venting it (like a really big sort of BOV). That energy has just been wasted as the coal has already been burnt.
As the load is increased then the turbine will tend to slow down. The system increases steam pressure and may require more fuel to do so.

The worst scenerio is if the load drops so quickly that the system cannot compensate and to protect the turbines it trips all the breakers and dumps the steam.
This happened in NSW about 30 years ago. The result was the remaining powerstations went bezerk as the load bounced up and down the transmission lines causing the gensets to hunt until eventually they all tripped and NSW had a statewide blackout.

This was part of a course I was taught when I was a first year apprentice electrician in a power station in 1980. This was just before the power generation was taken away from the local electricity boards and centralised with QEGB.

QEGB at one stage had a 60 MVA genset hanging off a gas turbine from a canberra bomber that could spin up, sync and assume load in under 3 minutes just in case a simmilar situation occured up here. 60 MVA is bugger all now but is 1980 it was a lot of power.

But as I said it is possible and hypothetical and as you said it is just feel good fuzziness. But it made a nice news story.

mcflux · 02-04-2007, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

If the load drops suddenly then the turbines will try an increase in speed. This will be prevented (hopefully) by reducing the steam pressure and if enough then by venting it (like a really big sort of BOV).

/me pictures Sundeep and EFFalcon arranging an E-Series cruise to the NSW coal plants :P