BST
History of BST
In 1916, During world war I, the official dates for British Summer Time were set by parliament. BST offered the benefit of an extra hour of sunlight during the evening, saving valuable energy through the reduction of demand in electric lighting - among other benefits too.
Normally, BST is +1 hour to GMT through the summer months within the UK. During the second world war however, BDST (British Double Summer Time) existed, which is +2 hours. This put us in line with central Europe, but again had benefits of saving energy while resources were low.
Plan to Change BST
If we can introduce BDST for the war, surely we could do exactly the same to reduce our carbon emissions? In fact, we could actually make a version of BST to be +3-4 GMT (Call it, Energy Saving British Summer Time)
In effect, a change to this degree would mean we would wake up just after dawn (8am ESBST will be 4am GMT), go to work 9-5 (5am-1pm GMT), and spend the evening with a warm sunlight, with it finally setting around midnight - 1am (depending the time of summer).
Social Factors
If we think about it, having the evening with sunlight will reduce certain types of crime, and bring a feeling of living in a safer atmosphere during the what would have been hours of darkness. When people start to leave clubs for example, they will leave during dusk rather then when it is completely dark. ‘Dark streets’ will feel lighter and safer during the evening, and people’s attitudes to them will change.
It will also aid cases of depression, having visible sunlight all day long. It will certainly lighten up people’s attitudes; when they come home from work, and after eating, they can spend more time outside, avoiding indoor activities such as mindless TV or computer usage. In the same vain, it could help the economy, as people in the evening would be more inclined to spend their time out and about. Social events/activities will increase, evening concerts/arts will be more appealing. All in all, this will be a very positive thing.
Energy Savings
By moving the clocks forward one hour during the summer periods, everyone throughout the country uses one hour less electricity for powering lights per day. Lets work out a rough estimate on how much energy we will save on lighting alone:
(Note that this estimate could be slightly on the high side, but we’re not going to take into account the vast amount of power lost through transmission lines)
We know from the 2001 census that there are 21,660,000 occupied residential households.
Lets estimate that the average household uses 3 60watt light bulbs for 3 hours a day. This will equal 0.54kwh per day, or 113.4kWh for the 7 months (210 days).
Now, if we multiply this by the number of households, we get 2,456,244MWh, which will be the equivalent of removing an evil Coal or gas power plant?
This is only lighting. If people start watching less TV in the evenings, there will be additional savings from this, possibly of the equivelent nature.
