Date published: 2008/02/29
The BBC says:
The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage.
E-Day asked people to switch off electrical devices they did not need over a period of 24 hours, with the National Grid monitoring consumption.
It found that electricity usage was almost exactly what would have been expected without E-Day.
Colder weather than forecast in some regions may have led to higher use of heating, masking any small savings.
The event also received very little publicity, despite having backing from campaign groups such as Greenpeace, Christian Aid and the RSPB, and from major energy companies such as EDF, E.On and Scottish Power.
"I am afraid that E-Day did not achieve the scale of public awareness or participation needed to have a measurable effect," said E-Day's organiser Dr Matt Prescott in a message on his website.
The Grid's final figures showed national electricity consumption for the 24 hours (from 1800 Wednesday to 1800 Thursday) was 0.1% above the "business-as-usual" projection.
...
Dr Prescott had hoped E-Day might bring a small but measurable reduction in electricity use, perhaps in the order of 2-3%, equivalent to the output of one or two fossil fuel fired power stations.The idea was to demonstrate that numerous small personal actions could make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions.
So not a big success. But even if this one day had reduced demand by 2-3%, it would have not proven very much except that a mass herd instinct could reduce demand on one day by that amount. Well, if everyone deemed this to be a major war effort then perhaps demand could be reduced by at least that much permanently (except that demand is always increasing, so this would be relatively speaking). But most people don't see it as a war, in spite of the perpetual hectoring lectures from the academic middle class like the BBC.
Of course another way to reduce demand is to have a carbon tax on all sources of greenhouse gas emissions. This would also have the beneficial side effect that energy sources like solar and wind would not have to be subsidised to be put on a "level playing field". Unfortunately the ruling elite only really want to have a carbon tax when it comes to cars and airplanes.
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