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Daylight saving: Waste of time?

When some laggard counties in Indiana finally flipped the switch to DST, the state's collective electric bill rose by about $8.6 million.

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
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Jon Skillings

Perhaps it's because we're often doing a rapid scan of a bajillion or so headlines before the sun comes up, but we missed a story in last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal about what happened when some laggard counties in Indiana finally got around to adopting daylight-saving time. As it turned out, flipping the switch to DST actually added to the state's collective electric bill by about $8.6 million, contrary to conventional wisdom and the exhortations of politicians. (Tip o' the nightcap to Slashdot for bringing the story to our belated attention.)

Enlighten yourself at WSJ.com: "Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says"