In Australia, CSIRO is cajoling you to not use christmas lights. From the Courier Mail article:
“SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. …Dr Glenn Platt, who leads research on energy demand, said Australia got 80 per cent of its electricity by burning coal which pumps harmful emissions into the atmosphere.”
Now just hold on here.
A coal fired plant is going to be running over 90% capacity during Aussie summer regardless, if for no other reason than air conditioning. Actually using a fraction of the capacity for holiday lighting is NOT the same thing as adding capacity: the same amount of coal will be used whether lights are on or not. There isn’t any energy being “wasted.”
I’m all for newer, cleaner tech. I like the idea of lowering power bills, of using 20W to do what used to take 200W. On the other hand this has little to do with plant capacity and how power generation works: even if you buy new efficient LED lights that use 10% of what the older models required, the power plant still runs at the same capacity. There is no capacity based savings until ALL power demand is reduced across the board.
In my mind CSIRO etc would come a cross as less of a political Big Brother wannabe and more of a serious entity were they to work with energy sucking technologies (e.g. air conditioning manufacturers) behind the scenes to improve efficiency rather than browbeat Joe and Jane Average with their scary messages. For that matter if they were to work even with vacuum cleaner manufacturers to create super efficient machines that require 4 amps and not 12 to do the same job, I’d be impressed. On the other hand apparently it’s a lot simpler to scream at ordinary consumers, as if crappy vacuums and poorly made air conditioning was their fault. Bummer.
