Is there any proof that extending daylight savings would save

[rzemanfl]

fuel? To my knowledge daylight savings time was extended during wartime when rationing was in effect and in the early 1970's along with a 55 mile an hour speed limit, restrictions on outdoor lighting and a 66 degree temperature limit in public buildings. Is there any empirical proof that any fuel would be saved just by extending daylight time? After all, people would be getting up in the dark and turning on lights in their homes while they got ready for work or school, so where does the savings come from?

[Dookus]

1. It will allow us

to add to the Strategic Sunlight Reserves.

Once we refill all our sunlight reservoirs, we can then hook it into the grid to provide sunlight at night, thus saving countless lightbulbs.

Actually, I have no idea. Daylight savings seems like such a stupid idea anyway.

[rzemanfl]

2. Good idea, we can put mirrors in salt mines and just bounce it

back and forth until we need it at night. We can call up the Sunlight Reserves and then institute a stop-loss policy.

[Clark2008]

3. Personally, I like DST much better than standard

It gives you more time in the evening to do chores.
How 'bout we just leave it that way all year 'round?
It's dark when the kids go off to school at 7:15 a.m., anyway (which was the complaint about keeping it year-round a few years back).

[Dookus]

4. I don't care which one they use

I just think it's silly to change the clocks twice a year. Standard time, daylight time, I don't care. It just seems remarkably silly.

[Pithlet]

10. Yes. Keep DST. I'd support that.

I hate the time change. My sleep cycle is screwey enough as it is, and I tend to insomnia very easily. Twice a year I'm thrown out of whack. I've always hated it.

[KG]

5. nobody cares about conservation anymore

so much more macho to invade a helpless foreign country and steal their reserves.

[kath]

6. And it makes a guy feel like he has a really big penis to drive a huge SUV

-- and feel like he's hung like a horse if he drives a Hummer!

[against all enemies]

23. So when I see a woman driving a big SUV, she feels like she has a

very big - what?

[rzemanfl]

27. Penis inside her, of course. n/t

[rzemanfl]

7. This is what I love about asking questions, nobody ever

answers them.

[kath]

8. Well, clearly when they did it during the energy crisis in the 70s

(extended Daylight savings Time) they felt like it saved a significant amount of energy, along with the other measures you mentioned.

[rzemanfl]

26. "Felt like" doesn't cut it for me. With all the measures in effect at

the same time, how could one tell which ones were working? It could have been done just for the psychological effect, so that people thought Nixon was "doing something." I can tell you that some business owners, movie theaters in particular, virtually turned the heat off in those days. Small towns turned off almost all their electric advertising signs, while bigger places virtually did business as usual. The sign thing was pretty stupid in places that used hydroelectric power.

[rodeodance]

9. dst was originally set up for rural/farmers-one more hour to work in field

and get the crops in and out of fields.

[Dookus]

11. I never understood that argument

it's not like it actually creates an extra hour of sunlight.

Don't farmers "get up with the sun" anyway?

[Eureka]

16. I think it works the other way around

I live in a state that doesn't have daylight saving while the rest of the east coast pretty much does. The 'farmer argument' is an argument against daylight saving here, and goes a little like this.

If you have daylight saving, the sun effectively goes down later in the day, and as such rises later. This being the case, the number of daylight hours before markets close (say 5:00pm) is one fewer during times of daylight saving.

Therefore, during daylight saving farmers have one well lit hour less each day to get their produce off to market, which is bad for the farmer.

[Dookus]

19. thanks

I'd never heard it related to markets before.

Of course, the obvious question is can't the markets stay open 'til six?

Do farmers actually take their wares to market the same day they harvest?

[Eureka]

20. That would be too hard I think

Keeping the markets open, I mean. If you have to shift the schedules of everything because the time changed by an hour then why not just not change the time and leave everything as it is?

Also, it has a flow on effect. If the markets stay open an hour longer, that's one hour less the truckers have to get the produce to the feed lots (sorry, cities :) ) before people need their breakfast. And, the people who then have to work later in the day miss out on the benefits of the extra sunlight because they are at work anyway.

And yep, a lot of farmers take their produce to market on the same day as it is harvested, especially for fresh food like fruit & veg. It's not so important for grains and whatnot because they are stored and processed first, but anything that is eaten 'as is' needs to get to market quickly.

[jmowreader]

25. Dookus, it depends on the crop you're harvesting

If you're harvesting the "aspiring vegetables"--those that grow above ground, like corn or green beans--or fruits, freshness is critical, so they will take those to the buyer as soon as they fill a truck. Stuff like root vegetables and grains can go out at the end of the day because you want it off the farm, but you don't necessarily need to worry about the absolute peak of freshness.

Cotton's different. The cotton growers out in Wayne County bale it, modulize the bales, and take it to the gin on module trucks. (A module truck looks a little like a rollback for cars--it can pick up this huge lump of cotton and haul it to the gin with no forklift required.) The gin they use is in Sampson County, and during the receiving season they will stay open 24/7 to receive cotton modules--sixteen bales of cotton, a total weight of 24,000 pounds of cotton, handled as one big lump. A cotton module weighs twelve tons. All the equipment in a modern cotton gin is designed to deal with twelve tons of unprocessed cotton in one big lump (it's about the size of a boxcar), so you harvest and bale cotton until you have 24,000 pounds of it before you go to the gin.

And then there's tobacco. That's a whole 'nother kettle 'a' fish because you don't just pick tobacco and throw it in a cigarette machine. Tobacco has to be cured. That takes a few weeks, so they can make an appointment at the warehouse to bring it in. (In the good old days--you know, four years ago--all tobacco was auctioned. In North Carolina the opening day of the tobacco auction was a big deal. The agriculture commissioner came to one of the auction barns, the cigarette companies all came, it was a big deal. Now tobacco is grown under contract. You go to RJR or Philip Morris or whoever buys your tobacco, they tell you how much tobacco to grow and when they want it, and you fill their order. Oh, and you agree to a price before the season starts. This is a double-edged sword, naturally; if fuel goes through the roof like it is now, or sucker control chemicals get expensive, you're gonna lose your ass.

[rzemanfl]

22. Check your Wisconsin history. For many years, Wisconsin

did not have daylight time in the Summer. I grew up in Illinois and when we went through Wisconsin we had to switch to "farmer" (standard time). Farmers did not like DST.

[all.of.me]

28. i worked on a farm, and the boss said...

... it didn't matter what the clock said. he was out before daybreak and home after sunset. the time had nothing to do with his schedule.

[Pithlet]

12. Since we're such a 24 hour society now.

I would think the energy saved would be negligible. But, I haven't seen any numbers.

[keith the dem]

13. Engineer here

Who deals with building energy usage. Haven't looked deeply into this, but I do not see how extending DST will save energy. The sun is already up for the normal work hours during the months that they propose the extension, shifting the time may actually increase energy usage because you will use lighting at home to get ready for work when you wake up in the dark. Very few workplaces use daylighting, most have the lights on all day whatever is happening outside. This is just another stupid RW diversion, I think they may actually believe that DST increases the amount of time that the sun shines.

[Blue Diadem]

18. I had to LOL at your last sentence. n/t

[rzemanfl]

24. My God! Someone who addressed the question instead of

talking about SUVs and penises. Thank you so much. I am inclined to agree with you. The other factors (rationing, speed limits, lowering thermostats, etc.) would make it impossible to have any clear data on savings from a time change alone. Republicans tend to get the offices with windows-which may color their judgment, if they have any.

[Orsino]

14. I've been wondering...

...why this issue even gets mention in the press. Try as I might, though, I haven't figured out how this is yet another scheme to enrich the wealthy or to smother dissent. There's gotta be a catch. What is it?

Could it be that someone in Congress actually believes that extending DST would be of some benefit?

[sinkingfeeling]

21. They claim that businesses will have less expense in lighting..

mainly exterior lighting: parking lots and neon signs. The catch is it actually causes alot of people more energy in the home usage. Two weeks ago, it was just getting light here when I get up at 5:15AM. By 5:30, I could turn off my kitchen lights until I left for work at 7AM. Didn't need to turn lights on in the evening until around 6PM. This week, on Central DST, I have to turn on lights just to get down the stairs at 5AM and they must be on until I leave. I'm still turning on lights at 6:30P, so I'm using about one hour more electricity on DST!

[dbonds]

15. Because it has the word 'Saving' in the title, RW think that means

you conserve energy.

[mtnsnake]

17. What's the one in the Fall called? Nightdark Losing Time?

Just wondering :think: