By: Hongdi Zhang
Recently PG&E initiated a power outage plan to turn off power in California regions for up to seven days,
and people were very upset about it. When it turned out only power off one day, most people were
relieved. These planned power outages have similarities to Earth Hour.
Earth Hour is a global energy conservation initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to
address global climate change. It is promoted at 20:30 pm local time on the last Saturday of March each
year (2019 Earth Hour) At 30:30 pm on March 30, family and business users shut down unnecessary
lights and power-consuming products for one hour to show their support for climate change action. [1]
Climate change caused by excessive carbon dioxide emissions has now greatly threatened the survival of
humans on Earth. Only by changing the attitude of the global public on carbon dioxide emissions can the
public mitigate the impact of this threat to the world.
Earth Hour is simulating an unstable power supply. This unstable power supply shown benefits as
compared to its counterpart of stable energy. The higher the stable power supply rate, the higher the
power generation cost and the higher the pollution.
Environmental benefits of power outages and unstable power supply:
- Power outage can reduce emissions
Impact of electricity consumption on pollution and global climate change, reducing pollution from
electricity consumption - Power outages can promote new energy sources. Reduce coal power and reduce pollution. Promote
everyone to consider the role of clean energy such as wind power, solar energy and other air pollution,
and also spread to the public in various introductions. - Short-time power outage is manageable if well prepared
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19989173
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour
