i have and idea to reduce green house gasses and save electricity, energy and the earth?

Question

would i be possible to for an hour get everyone in australia to use no electricity exept for those who have to. it could maybe be called"an hour of no power" or something. of course hospitals and things alike would have to keep it on but if for an hour people could turn off everything tthey could live without with for an hour. if evryone could turn off everything from the switch and not to watch tv or use the computer for just one hour, but if everyone in australia did it i think it would make a huge difference. what do you think?? katie xx

Answer 1

The Earth needs more people like you Katie.

For the reasons you've said yourself, not everything could be shut down at one time, factories need electricity for their machines etc, and some power plants CAN be shut down more quickly than others. They are used to provide peak load power (when everyone is cooking dinner etc)

Trying to reduce our peak load power use or spread it out so that is more closely matches base load could mean using fossil fuels less to produce electricity, since fossil fuelled plant are generally used for peak load where greener forms are available.

Even if your idea isn't enough to stop green house gas production 100% or wasteful use of electricity 100%, it is still more than many people are doing who think they are smarter than you.

Maybe you could do a project at school. If it is a nice day, everyone goes outside for one class per day and turns off all power in the school while they are outside. If you can measure how much energy saved you can tell how much money your school saved for not using electricity for one hour.

Keep up the good work Katie!

Answer 2

You are on the right track Katie. But the problem is that if everyone switched off for an hour at the same time the power stations would still have to run. They are not like cars that can be started quickly, they take many hours to get started and several hours to close down without damaging them. Of course they might be able to reduce output a little.

Here's a few ideas. Use a clothesline instead of a drier. Wash in warm water rather than hot. When ironing clothes, do several or all the items once you have the iron hot. Take short cooler showers, cold in summer. Replace all or most of the lamps in your house with compact fluorescent ones, specially the ones that are used for long periods like in the kitchen. Switch off all appliances at the wall when not in use, specially TVs, DVDs, printers and CD players that consume a little power even when "off". All this will reduce power bills too. What they call a win-win situation!

Answer 3

If all you did was move usage from that hour to some other time, the main result would be chaos in the electric power generation system to adapt to the sudden change in load. Power generation from nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, and solar sources has no effect on greenhouse gases. Not watching the TV or using the computer is of no benefit unless you actually turn them off. But in both cases, turning them off for an hour causes more environmental harm from the reduced device lifetime than does the electricity used.

On the other hand, if it convinces enough people that our modern lifestyle is unnecessarily extravagant, or that it's really not necessary to keep our living and working spaces at the 'ideal' temperature, it could have a long term beneficial effect.

Answer 4

You're right that we seriously need to conserve energy. But just not doing things for an hour won't really help. We'll just do them some other time.

The idea we need is not stopping doing things. It's doing them more efficiently. Better insulated homes, cars that get better gas mileage, compact fluorescent light bulbs, more efficient factories, etc.

Google "energy conservation" for many ideas.

Answer 5

Hooking up the grid system would cost Australia far more to reconnect the grid than to stop the system completely.There has to be something better than electricity.

Answer 6

Why...that's genius. That's as good as going to a gas station and refusing to put gas in your car even though you will run out of gas going to work. Geez. You must be an NEA teacher or something.