Study: Daylight saving time a waste of energy

March 16, 2010 by Lin Edwards

(PhysOrg.com) -- 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.

Kotchen and Grant's work reinforces the findings of an Australian study in 2007 by economists Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, who studied the extension of daylight saving time for two months in New South Wales and Victoria for the 2000 Summer Olympics. They also found an increase in energy use.

Daylight saving was initially introduced, and has been extended, because it was believed to save energy, but the studies upon which this idea was based were conducted in the 1970s. A big difference between then and the present is the massive increase in the take-up of air conditioning. In hot periods daylight saving time means air conditioners tend to be run more when people arrive home from work, while in cooler periods more heating is used.

Professor Kotchen presented the paper at the March National Bureau of Economic Research conference.

More information: via WSJ

© 2010 PhysOrg.com

New York City’s Green Taxi Program Red Lighted By Federal Judge

Written by Jerry James Stone

A federal judge has stopped Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to clean up the air in New York City by using fuel-efficient hybrid taxis.

The judge, Paul A. Crotty, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, issued a 26-page ruling (PDF) to stop the city from enforcing the rule because, he said in a written order, the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in a key legal argument — that only the federal government has the right to set fuel efficiency standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which bars state and local governments from setting their own, competing standards.

The hybrid-cab requirement was the centerpiece of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 package of environmental initiatives. It required all new taxicabs to be fuel-efficient hybrids and that all yellow cabs would be green by 2012. The initiative which would have started on Nov 1, specifically required a new cab coming in to service to get 25 miles per gallon, and the following year the standard would be 30 miles per gallon.

The standard yellow cab gets about 14 miles per gallon. Considering there are about 13,000 cabs in NYC and only about one-thousand of them are hybrids, this could’ve had a large positive effect on the city’s pollution.

Bloomberg said he was “very disappointed” and blasted the ruling for relying on “archaic Washington regulations” that keep New York and other cities “from choosing to create cleaner air.” He said the city was exploring options to appeal.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade — they represent about a quarter of they city’s taxis – sued to block the enforcement. They argued only federal government could impose such restrictions, not the city’s Taxicab & Limousine Commission. They also noted that Hybrid’s aren’t safe enough to use as cabs.

“Millions of people who ride taxicabs and the thousands of drivers, owners and other participants in the New York City taxi industry can breathe a sigh of relief today,” Trade association president Ron Sherman said in approval of the decision..

“Greening the taxi fleet is a major priority, and we are going to use every mechanism at our disposal to make New York a cleaner, healthier city,” Bloomberg vowed.

Hopefully Yahoo doesn’t mind donating a few more of those green cabs…

Image source: Yodel Anecdotal on Flickr