Garrett Wollman via tz wrote in <27047.22667.186417.310186@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu>: |<<On Tue, 3 Mar 2026 10:32:20 -0500, Brooks Harris via tz <tz@iana.org> \ |said: | |> I find it curious how we all live by the clock on the wall rather than |> natural daylight. This of course makes sense since the whole point of |> civil time it to "coordinate activities", But DST basically makes no |> sense. Why do we need more sunlight in the afternoon in summer when we |> naturally have more sunlight in the afternoon in summer? | |Historically, when a large amount of electric power demand was due to |lighting (all those incandescent bulbs), it was highly desirable to |align working hours with daylight, and DST moves solar noon to 1 p.m., |the middle of the working day. | |Today, when a large amount of electric power *supply* comes from solar |energy, having sunset *after* the end of the working day means that |the evening peak can benefit from solar energy (particularly of the |behind-the-meter variety) which reduces the slope of the ramp and thus Now you counteract all the "battery farm" propaganda, dear Garret Wollman. To me it seems that "direct air electrolysers" that use excessive energy from solar and wind to generate hydrogen from air (humidity) many would have liked to see in action years ago, and also compressing air (energy storage) is a very interesting thing, if done right (the chinese seem to have state of the art technique [1,2] with stunning 71% conversion efficiency)A. Of course any conversion looses something. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-026-00150-9 [2] https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202601/29/WS697ab602a310d6866eb36530.html (Of course fuel cell should be it, night-long fights for wording in certain political committees aside (battery cars should never have been it, permafrost unfreezes and they start a race to grab rare earth like lithium in the few still healthy places, with all the massive infrastructural changes, everywhere), and "we" look forward to nuclear fusion for decades, with the "ITER".org hopefully will bring cross-nation scientific results. But "properly" storing renewable energy of all kind is a good thing.) |the cost to the electric grid. Obviously it's not possible to have |sunset after 6 p.m. all year, unless everyone gets up in the dark or |we all move to the tropics. | |Both of these economic benefits only accrue with coordination, and |it's much easier as a coordination problem to change clocks than it is |to change employment contracts, operating hours, traffic regulations, |and so on, all at once. It is just, to me, you know, that we get hammered with such biased or let's say superficial or one-sided or just let's say "lobby-stylish" things all the time. Whereas in reality everything is known to practically everyone since ever. I bet you can ask just any stoneage healer, and possibly even almost anyone who crossed a certain age and had to face certain setbacks. You will die and the drag disappears like that of a ship in the ocean, already in sight. Bhutan had (and still has) a "gross national product", but "gross national happiness". (Quote: ~"not that this means everything is friendly and fine".) All those so-called scientific reports shown here are mediocre; i exclude the ones i cited, because these women at least seem to have a good intent. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)