We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:
Transcript
We’ll be springing ahead three weeks earlier than usual this
year. Congress has extended daylight saving time because the
politicians say it will save energy. Rebecca Williams reports
critics are not so sure:
Fans of extending daylight-saving time say longer daylight hours
in the evenings will save energy.
But critics of the change say it might actually be a wash.
Ryan Kellogg is a researcher at the University of California
Energy Institute. He studied what happened when Australia
extended daylight saving time.
“They did experience decreased electricity use in the evening
hours when they had more natural light. But they also saw
increased use in the morning when people were waking up in the
dark. Those two effects canceled each other out so on net,
extending daylightn saving time didn’t save Australia any energy
at all.”
U.S. politicians have been predicting we could save the
equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day by extending daylight
saving time. But critics say that’s misleading because most power
plants don’t run on oil.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.