DST Rant

DST - Daylight Savings Time.

For most, all it means is gaining an hour of sleep in the fall and losing it in the spring.

In this day and age, however, the original reason for suggesting DST no longer makes sense.

Let's begin by jumping back to the source of the problem in France, 1784. At this time, the man famous for saying "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" -- yes, Benjamin Franklin -- suggested that, to reduce the use of candles, people should awaken earlier and make use of the natural sunlight.

However, modern DST wasn't even suggested until 1895 (by New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson) and wasn't put into use until 1916. In 1916, Germany and its allies and occupancies in World War I used Daylight Savings Time to conserve coal. Britain, its allies, and neutral states followed shortly, as did Russia a year later. By 1918, the United States had accepted DST as well.

But is it really worthwhile today? DST was created to conserve energy, primarily household lighting. Nonetheless, household lighting only consumes 3.5% of U.S. and Canadian electricity. (This may seem significant, but think about how many people this includes, 307,006,550 in the U.S. and 33,311,389 in Canada -- for a total of 340,317,939 people!)

Some studies...
-The U.S. Dept. of Transportation (DOT) concluded in 1975 that DST might reduce the country's electricity usage by 1% during March and April, but the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) reviewed the DOT study in 1976 and found no significant savings.
-Although a 2007 study estimated that introducing DST to Japan would reduce household lighting energy consumption, a 2007 simulation estimated that DST would increase overall energy use in Osaka residences by 0.13%, with a 0.02% decrease due to less lighting more than outweighed by a 0.15% increase due to extra cooling; neither study examined non-residential energy use. DST's effect on lighting energy use is noticeable mainly in residences.
-A 2007 study found that the earlier start to DST that year had little or no effect on electricity consumption in California.
-A 2008 study examined billing data in Indiana before and after it adopted DST in 2006, and concluded that DST increased residential electricity consumption by 1% to 4%, primarily due to extra afternoon cooling.
-The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) concluded in a 2008 report that the 2007 U.S. extension of DST saved 0.5% of electricity usage during the extended period. This report analyzed only the extension, not the full eight months of daylight saving, and did not examine the use of heating fuels.

All in all, I have two beliefs that maintain my belief that DST is now outdated:
1) If people don't use electricity in the evening, they'll use it in the morning.
2) If people are up and about more during the summer, they'll spend more money on cooling.

Maybe it's just my lack of an extra hour on my already sleep-deprived body, but Daylight Savings Time is really no longer beneficial to present-day America.