6.6 billion kilowatt-hours
Oh gee what do you know it turns out all those Christmas lights use a lot of electricity. I thought there had to be a special dispensation from someone that made them magically not part of our brisk destruction of our own ecosystem, but no.
With the world moving towards cleaner energy and looking to reduce emissions, there are questions to be asked about the heavy usage of Christmas lights.
Yes like why the fuck don’t people just stop doing it, seeing as how we’re racing toward disaster as it is.
I bet a lot of people think it’s “for the kids,” but if so that’s sad because guess who is going to be dealing with much worse effects of climate change than we adults are.
A 2008 study from the US Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) found festive lights accounted for 6.6 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity consumption every year in the US.
That may have just been 0.2% of the country’s total electricity usage, but that amount of energy could be enough to run 14 million refrigerators, according to the study.
And it’s completely optional and unnecessary. There’s no law that says you have to stick lightbulbs on your house in December. People are mostly inside watching Don’t Look Up after dark anyway, not outside gaping at your lightbulbs. The fact that it’s “only” 0.2% (which is actually a hell of a lot if you think about it) doesn’t make it ok to make the problem worse for no real reason. The need to stay warm in winter is one thing, the need to be able to read outside at midnight is another.
The people in my neighborhood are getting worse about it instead of better, too. More lights than ever, and left up apparently forever. The people across the alley from me – who have them all over a very large roof & deck & porch & god knows what else on the far side where I mercifully can’t see them – still haven’t taken theirs down, 26 days after Christmas, and they’re not the only ones.
It would also have been enough to provide electricity for the whole of El Salvador, where the Central American country’s consumption was 5.9 billion kWh in 2016.
What I’m saying. 0.2% of US consumption is not “only.”
I don’t think you’d like to live in Lobethal, with three weeks of this shit every December. Garish plastic pap.
There is also the matter of the physical waste of it all. I worked in an op shop a while back, and one of the recurring things we saw people drop off was christmas trees and related decorations. If we caught them in the act of dropping it off, we would tell them the same thing every time: we don’t accept what won’t sell, and those won’t sell until at least November. Every such donation that we did not manage to prevent went straight to landfill.
A friend of mine runs a printing business, catering mostly to commercial customers wanting huge banners, posters and the like hanging in and around large stores. Every October or so the business is flooded with orders for christmas crap, and every year the same customers return to repeat the order… because they throw everything out the moment the christmas promotions are over.
Christmas really does exemplify the worst of commercial excess.
While energy efficiency is indeed important, the chances of actual Christmas light consumption being even half that are basically zero. The vast majority of Christmas lights on the market today, and indeed over the past 10 years, have been LEDs. In 2008, most would have been incandescents. Incandescents were displaced from most household uses by compact fluorescents by 2010, but Christmas lights were an odd outlier. Since 2010, compact fluorescents have been displaced by LED systems, and Christmas lights have been a near ideal application. Current consumption would be less than 10% of that number.
@ Holms – And it’s getting worse instead of better. I don’t understand people.
I try to take heart from the fact that my neighborhood has gotten better; only two houses with Christmas lights in three blocks. But I suspect that is more than made up for by the increases elsewhere in town. And yeah, starting before Thanksgiving, and not stopping until mid-January, if then. We have one person who kept his lights going until May until his neighbors complained; after that, he put a sign up in his yard addressed “to the atheists” and complained about their complaint. It’s unlikely his neighbors were atheists, but I guess he assumed because they were killjoys they must be.
I cringe at all the Christmas waste; I used to do a lecture every year right before Thanksgiving about it, but I haven’t had time in recent years because I have to stop to explain 90% of the words I use to my students every day.
Naif @2: LED use may have increased, but so has use of (at least in my area) lit, animated, inflatable decorations. Anyone want to do the math?
Still largely unnecessary in either case, though.
It’s the Jevons paradox plus human competitiveness. This stuff is so cheap that you no longer need to be wealthy and/or obsessive to participate but that just drives the obsessives to further excess and everyone else follows behind.
The answer is, of course, that human beings rely (perhaps somewhat paradoxically) upon frivolous things in order to derive a sense of meaning. Every ritual is in some sense an enormous waste of energy, except in the glue it provides to adhere the rituants to one another and to anchor them in the world.
Now, I myself have little use for rituals of any sort, and no use for Christian ones; I am deeply skeptical of any group of primates larger than about three people, and slightly skeptical of the rest. But I also know that I am an outlier, and in many ways not an emulable one. And even I have, on occasion, enjoyed the simple pleasure of driving through a neighbourhood and taking a look at the lights and decorations the inhabitants have put up.
Yes, it would in some sense be a more-sustainable world if people stopped having children (even more quickly than they are already stopping having them), if people forswore every simple pleasure that someone else looked upon disdainfully as a waste, and if people decided to spend all of their time on subsistence gardening on smaller and smaller patches of earth as the population reduced to somewhere between one and five hundred million over the course of three or four generations.
But people are not going to spontaneously do any of those things, not in enough numbers to matter — and any world government powerful enough to compel them to do so is likely not to have the long-term survival of the human race at the top of their priority list. Instead, people will do as Naif’s comment implies — find more efficient ways to sustain a facsimile of the lifestyles to which they are accustomed, and hopefully keep inventing technologies that India and China find more economical than digging up all of their coal and burning it and dooming mostly themselves and their fellow poor countries to the worst vicissitudes of the unstable climate.
It may be a long shot, and we may already be doomed from Siberia and Canada shedding their methane to a fate much worse than the IPCC reports indicate is most likely. But I remain fairly convinced that the IPCC’s worst prognostications are a bit worse than the most likely outcomes, especially given the breathtaking rapidity with which enormous parts of the US, Canada, and Europe have become carbon-neutral. The Fukushima disaster set Germany back quite a bit in that regard, but even so, that spurred a frankly embarrassing amount of investment in wind energy that will offset the increased coal usage fairly soon, and there is a chance that nuclear will make a comeback on top of the wind farms.
But the climate disaster will not be mitigated even if every single American and European decides to never put up another set of Christmas lights again; it won’t even be meaningfully impacted if the West magically becomes carbon-neutral tomorrow, unless that magic can be extended to India and China and Africa. Our job, with our resources and our lead time, is to figure out how to make a facsimile of Western lifestyles in a way that won’t destroy the environment and export those methods to the people currently desperately bootstrapping their way into those lifestyles with fossil fuels. If we cannot do that, then quibbling over Christmas lights isn’t going to make a single whit of difference.
The advantages of Xmas in summer. All bar one house in our street was lit up, and 90% of the lights were solar. Everything packed away (not thrown away) and ready for next Xmas.
@Der Durchwanderer
I don’t know how much your comment was directed at me but I’ll take the opportunity to point out that when I criticise people for their bad behaviour it’s not as moralist wanting to improve them. Rather it’s to highlight the folly of supposing we can solve any problems simply by promoting personal or social enlightenment. Like you I have very little personal need for ritual but understand its importance to others. And I’m hardly likely to criticise behaviour for as frivolous when just about everything I’ve done in my life is regarded by the culture at large as entirely pointless. (Poetry books, anyone?) Still, there’s a long history of customs becoming socially unacceptable and falling by the wayside. I mean, when was the last time you saw a spittoon or an advertisement for a cockfight?
So, yes, I really wish we lived in a world where there was strong social pressure in favour of behaviours that are less environmentally damaging. The real work may be else where but the damage has already been done. We’re in damage control mode now and what we do collectively will determine just how bad things get.
That said, I’m frustrated rather than pessimistic. I’m tremendously heartened by the fact that, in a decade, the UK has gone from generating a majority of its power in coal-fired stations to burning no coal. And while I don’t trust the Chinese government for a second, I do think it is serious in efforts to stop burning coal even as it continues to burn an unimaginable amount of coal. As for Africa, I would be extremely surprised it didn’t leapfrog fossil fuel power generation the way it did fixed-line communications.
So yes, it’s not (all) about individuals but as someone who has got through sixty years without owning a car I reserve the right to complain.
This is such an odd thing to go after. Makes you seem like almost literal Grinches.
If you’re truly worried the earth is going to turn into Venus and you’re not strongly advocating for nuclear power, then you’re not being rational.
Well, one could both decry excess energy use and advocate for more efficient and ready sources of renewable or non-carbon emitting energy sources. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Skeletor:
Chernobyl or Venus? Now that’s a hard one.
The world is starting to get decked out with windmills and solar panels. (My own roof sports 20 of the latter.) For the coal and nuclear enthusiasts, too much capital is going into renewables; and to the extent that coal and nuclear are beset with falling rates of profit. Which is why ‘conservative’ politicians do their damnedest to stop renewables, and with diminishing success.
Why is this “such an odd thing to go after”? I need a better explanation than “Grinches.”
As for saying “you’re not being rational” because you write a blog post about X without “strongly advocating” for Y, that’s just ridiculous.
There are some elaborate Christmas displays in my area, but most displays are modest. Some of the elaborate ones are exceptionally well done, some are tacky. Some households put up the kinds of large lit inflatables ibbica mentioned; one house has several up for every holiday in existence, all year long. My wife likes a modicum of Christmas decoration, and we’ve discussed getting an inflatable Grinch for a variety of reasons, but we don’t have anything like that at the moment.
I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t think 0.2% of the electric usage is very much, it’s just that there is a huge amount of electric usage, and a huge amount of people in the US, so it adds up. I am not attached to communal rituals, but surely Christmas lights are not the worst offenders among frivolous ritual activities consuming electricity. I suspect listening to music consumes more electricity, for example; turn off the piped-in music in shopping centers, stores, office buildings, restaurants, and public places. Those are all far more annoying to me than Christmas lights, and they go on all year long.
I do concur wholeheartedly about the sheer waste of things that are bought for Christmas purposes and then discarded immediately after. There has got to be a better way.
I am somewhat reminded of my visceral reaction to the phrase “too much time on their hands”; people use that phrase when someone else does something that maybe seems pointless or frivolous. It’s easy to dismiss or disparage things we don’t personally enjoy. But other people find joy in them, sometimes partly BECAUSE they are frivolous. “Too much time on their hands” just makes me want to figure out what activity the speaker engages in that I could similarly disparage as frivolous; petty, yes. I might react better to “It’s lovely work, and most assuredly is fun, but he’s got to get a paying job and fend for himself”, to pick one situation where I hear the phrase used.
Well, I think 0.2% is a hell of a lot for something so optional. I’ve always assumed it was a much tinier fraction, and told myself to stop finding it so annoying therefore – I would have guessed a lot of zeroes before that 2. Yes of course it adds up, but that’s the point. Enough electricity to power all of El Salvador is a lot. I agree with you about turning off all the piped in music though – but we always disagree about how antisocial it is for people to sit in their cars and trucks with the engines running for hours on end, too. (I passed a truck parked with its engine running at a view point yesterday when I was out for a walk. Passed it on the return leg about half an hour later – engine still running.)
The Christmas lights aren’t simply a harmless personal frivolity that makes no difference to anyone else. They are by nature very public – that’s the whole point of them. Of course I don’t disparage other people’s frivolities just because they’re frivolities, I’m talking about non-essential energy waste that contributes to global warming.
And for the record, I quite like a little Xmas/winter illumination myself. I still think it’s a luxury we could do without at this point.
There’s also the whole issue of light pollution…
My four strings of LED lights I put outside use 120 watts of electricity, and the lights on our tree use another 90 watts, so I figure I’m not overdoing it.
When I move to Arizona next year to a home that will be powered by solar panels though, I’m going to add a few more lights I think. ;-)
I agree, for what it’s worth. I had a friend comment that people who display Christmas lights or eat beef but worry about climate change are hypocritical, and I think that’s similarly ridiculous. People can worry about things or criticize things without having to adopt wholesale a certain set of views and engage in a variety of actions.
J.A., yes, a couple of old-style lamps’ worth doesn’t seem like overdoing it.
My word, all of you CLEFs are so hateful! ;)
Sackbut – it’s worth plenty!
And such an exclusive group! Just treble and bass; no, we must add alto; and tenor; oh dear, soprano wants in; and mezzo-soprano, well, OK; great, now contra-tenor wants to be in for the sake of “completeness”; baritone claims he’s just like contra-tenor, but completely different from contra-tenor; sub-bass wants in because baritone is in; French treble wants in because sub-bass is in; and now all the octave-adjusted variants are coming down the hall with protest signs *throws up hands*
Sackbut,
Different demographic I’m afraid. I was referring to Christmas Light Exclusionary Feminists of course who sing a decidedly different tune.
‘CLEFs..!’ Yet another damned acronym to remember. This is how the world ends: knee deep in acronyms.! No.!
Up to its neck in them.! How about CLAEFs.? Christmas Light and Acronym-Exclusionary Feminists.? Works well enough for me. ;-)
Pliny, I saw your meaning immediately, but I caught the opportunity and ran the gamut with it, to mix metaphors that should never be mixed. Clarity isn’t my long suit, to mix yet another metaphor (all metaphors are valid).
Sackbut, no worries =- sometimes I have Treble with my Clefs.
*snort*
Omar: Chernobyl or Venus? Now that’s a hard one.
Go down to Chernobyl on this link. The ONLY power reactor to kill anyone.
http://alderspace.pbworks.com/w/page/122002278/Bombs%20Wastes%20and%20Accidents
See also this.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-terawatt-hour-by.html
There are no honest arguments against nuclear power.
Skeletor@10: you’re exactly what’s wrong with this kind of debate. The unstated premise in your comment is that unbridled growth, as we have it now, is fine–all we have to do is switch to nuclear and ta da! All is well! Who CARES how much energy gets used, how much light is sprayed out, how gauche and rude it is, as long as the energy is limitless and free?
James,
Yes, if energy is “limitless and free”, then…it doesn’t really matter how much energy gets used. And in such a paradigm, we would have enough energy to solve most pressing problems — we would have the energy to build truly dense cities with vertically-integrated urban agriculture, we would have the energy to mine asteroids for all of our mineral needs, and we would have the energy to desalinate as much sea water as we needed to keep us and our urban gardens watered while we let vast swathes of the planet return to a state of human-less nature.
Alternatively, we can return to the medieval or even pre-agricultural status quo, a war of all against all, where every minute of every day of practically everyone is spent in the cruel and dirty business of subsistence. Where nature is always something to be combatted and tamed and taken from in order to keep oneself alive to tomorrow, as we hair-shirt ourselves into an ascetic’s wet dream, forever. But such a fate would see humanity destroy as much of nature as nature could take destroying before we died out or evolved into a less-intelligent-but-less-destructive group of species.
There is no God to judge us for how gauche and rude we are. There are only priests, eager to exploit our innate follies, among which are a deep tendency to apocalyptic thinking and the desire to tear others down rather than to build ourselves and everyone else up. But we have the power to overcome these impulses, if we are careful and thoughtful and wise.
Jim @ #28:
My remarkable friend and mentor, the late physicist-turned-ecologist Dr Alan Roberts of Monash University, Melbourne provided one. He called nuclear power ‘the phantom solution’ to climate-change. (See link below.)
https://www.alanroberts.net.au/nuclear-power-is-a-phantom-solution-to-climate-change/#:~:text=Dr%20Alan%20Roberts%2C%20from%20the,going%20to%20save%20the%20earth.
Der DurchWanderer:
“Yes, if energy is “limitless and free”, then…it doesn’t really matter how much energy gets used”
I have a bit of a quibble with that. We could use several times humanities current energy use without causing problems, but if energy use on earth keeps increasing, at some point the waste heat would cause problems.
See http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_170.shtml
Any who is interested in the issues of energy & the environment should read the whole of
http://www.withouthotair.com/
Omar
It is now on my to read list
However, the start doesn’t encourage me. It fusses about uranium enrichment, which isn’t needed for nuclear power. See the CANDU reactor which runs on non-enriched uranium. Also any reactor which breeds Pu from U238 or U233 from Thorium would make enrichment redundant at least after initial start up.
Jim:
The Roberts article is available in PDF format at the first site below. ($$$) As the original article is now over 20 years old, time and tech have moved on.
However, fundamental problems like waste disposal, proliferation and the good old Second Law of Thermodynamics remain. eg What is the probability of a core meltdown in a “CANDU reactor which runs on non-enriched uranium. Also any reactor which breeds Pu from U238 or U233 from Thorium [which] would make enrichment redundant at least after initial start up…” if it is hit by artillery fire, or a 9/11 type Islamist raid?
Also the proliferation of renewable sources: solar, wind, geothermal etc, along with pumped hydro and battery storage, have chewed into the profitability of both coal-fired and nuclear power; which is why the coal shills are so against renewables; see second site below.
When I last looked, most electricity was consumed in low-grade water heating. A solar water heater is on my own shopping list at the moment. A huge proportion of the world is covered by deserts and sunny areas. There is also a plan to supply SE Asia with solar power form Australia. See third link.
1. https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/ielapa.200509550?download=true
2. https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/11/renewable-energy-myth/
3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-matter-of-when-the-20bn-plan-to-power-singapore-with-australian-solar
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
other fish to fry?
Solar is good for low grade water heating in the broad band either side of the equator where seasonal variations in sunlight are modest. Ie: better were you are in Australia (correct?) than where I am in Canada.
As for electricity
For some data on what works to cut CO2 emissions see:
https://app.electricitymap.org/map
It shows how much CO2 is emitted per kWh of electricity generated for regions where they get data.
Color coded from green for very low through shades of brown to black for very high.
You can click on a region to get how much electricity came from what source over the last hour or day.
Spoiler alert:
The regions that are consistently green use a mix of hydro, geothermal & nuclear for most of their electricity.
The regions that try to use a lot of solar or wind vary from fairly green to quite brown, because when the wind isn’t blowing & the sun isn’t shining they burn natural gas to provide the electricity they need.
Jim: Yes. I am Australian.
Were CO2 not a heat trapping gas, and the only use for fossil carbon was burning it in power stations, then the world could perhaps keep on burning it for another 1,000 years until supply ran out. But modern agriculture depends on plastics for polythene irrigation and stock-watering pipe, plus nitrogenous fertilisers, plus synthetic rubber (read hydrocarbon) for truck and tractor tyres, etc .
Australian soils are deficient in the elements nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K).) The N comes from the atmosphere, back to which it inevitably returns on the N-cycle. It is combined with hydrogen (H) in the well-known Haber Process to form ammonia, (NH3), and from there becomes synthetic urea CH₄N₂O . And where does the H come from? Out of oil wells, due to run out in about 50-100 years depending on who you listen to. All over the world, we are eating petroleum, and depend on it not just for food production, but for the transport of that food from source to dinner-table. Canada, the US, Australia and I think Argentina are the only net exporters of food in all the world. Electrolysis of water to yield hydrogen is much more expensive.
It gets worse. Australia’s phosphate comes from fossilised bird shit (guano): very high-grade on the island of Nauru; lower grade from older deposits. The K comes from Chilean deserts as Chilean saltpetre, KNO3, or potassium nitrate: highly soluble in water, hence only from deserts like the Chilean altiplano.
The party can’t last forever. Will the last guest to leave please turn off the lights?
#34
to clarify . . .
the apologists funnel it down to “data mining” (specifically of “bitcoin”) but due to the “block chain” type tracking and similar technologies required to enable any and all digital currencies, their excessive power consumption is endemic.
the comparisons using “bitcoin” and any other power consumption are the 1% arguing for their superior rights