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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Saving daylight, not energy

No one likes waking up at 8 a.m. and feeling like it’s still 7 a.m.

Since Indiana adopted Daylight Saving Time in 2006, Hoosiers moan and groan when their alarms sound before the sun comes up. Indiana residents aren’t alone.

This year, DST has gotten a large amount of national backlash. Major media outlets like the Atlantic and USA Today have called for an end to the custom. Even John Oliver released a segment entitled “Daylight Saving Time: How is this still a thing?” on his show, “Last Week Tonight.”

All of these news providers referenced Indiana when making their case.

The main reason DST was created was to conserve energy. Benjamin Franklin suggested the practice in 1784 as a means of saving candles. Germany was the first country to use DST in order to acquire fuel for the World War I war effort by cutting back on artificial light usage.

The problem is this: in today’s technologically advanced society, it’s difficult to determine whether energy is actually being ?conserved.

“Data on energy consumption at such a ?fine-grained level are fairly hard to obtain,” said Zach Wendling, a doctoral candidate at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs with a focus on energy policy. “Energy savings in one area, like reducing lighting costs, are offset by increased consumption in other areas, like air conditioning.”

Wendling explained Indiana was the best state to get information from because, as one of the last states to switch over to DST, it provided the necessary data on the before-and-after effects of time change. When the state adopted the practice, researchers looked closely at records from before and after the change and concluded Indiana actually experienced a 1-percent increase in energy consumption after the time change.

“Anyone who grew up in the ’70s definitely associates Daylight Saving with a push to conserve energy,” Wendling said. “Every year people are surprised to learn that the energy savings are kind of an illusion, or not what they’re cracked up to be. Most people just enjoy having the extra hour in the evening, which isn’t as quantifiable a benefit as energy conservation.”

This negligible difference in energy use is evident even on IU’s campus, said Mark Menefee, the assistant director of the IU Bloomington Utilities Division.

“At IUB we may see some energy savings due to the fact the hottest part of the day is moved one hour later, which can help us on peak load since campus starts emptying out around 4 p.m.,” Menefee said. “But the total kilowatt usage on cooling may go up with increased air conditioning usage in the dorms in the evening.”

Along with no meaningful decrease in energy consumption, the lack of sleep combined with the extra hour of darkness during morning commutes have shown to increase traffic ?accidents.

“I bike to campus, so the mile-or-so ride is in the dark now, which is worse and more dangerous, especially in the rain,” said Megan Burger, an IU student with an 8 a.m. class. “It also makes it tougher to wake up in the morning.”

Regardless of few energy-saving benefits, dark mornings and car crashes, many people, like Burger, are still happy to set their clocks back.

“Mornings are slow whether or not there is light,” Burger said. “I have work or class in the morning, so I cannot take advantage of the light like I can in the evenings, so I like having it then more.”

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