I just read on Antony's blog that Earth Hour is occurring tonight at 8:30, your local time. Antony opted to say the following:
Why do I think this is stupid? Instead of switching off the lights, the industry should design energy efficient products, and generating zero-pollution electricity.
It's very rare that I agree with Antony, but this is one of those times. At this point in time, turning off the lights is symbolic rather than energy-saving. A so-called “smart grid” would make decisions on how much electricity to produce based on the current load on the power system, but of course such a system hasn’t been built out yet and is still the talk of politics. Unless local power distributors can accurately plan how much of a load there will be on their systems at 8:30 PM and reduce distribution accordingly, we’re essentially going to be wasting the rest of that energy.
Let’s consider all of the crap (sorry that I don’t have a better word for it) that everybody has plugged in at any given time. High-load devices such as computers build in switched power supplies with efficiencies typically somewhere over 75%, which while not being great isn’t too bad either. Compare that to your average gadget charger, which most likely features a linear supply that’s somewhere around 50% efficient and dissipates the rest as heat. Cheaper to build, sure, but this is one place where we could make great strides in energy-efficient products. The latter type of regulator is, after all, present in radios, VCRs, battery chargers, and plenty more.
In fact, let’s assume we did have a smart grid, and that we’re all using energy-efficient light bulbs like CFLs or LEDs. I’d wager that each household could actually save more electricity by unplugging a few unnecessary gadgets than by turning off their lights.
As for me, I guess I’ll keep my CRT monitor turned off anyway.