This week, the news has been frontlined by reports of companies seeking ways to cut electricity to cope with the summer electricity demands as a result of the shortages caused by the nuclear reactor disaster in Fukushima. Yesterday, the Democratic party of Japan put forward a bill to require vending machine companies to turn off their machines from 10:00am-9:00pm every day in July through September, the period in which electricity demands are expected to surge. The vendors and the soft drink makers are not very happy about that, especially since the latter reaps one third of their sales through vending machines. However, this effort would cut electricity consumption significantly, since according to last year's data, there are 5.2 million vending machines in Japan, and two of them consume the same amount electricity annually as an average household (1533kw per machine to be exact).
Other companies are making efforts by themselves: NEC, Sony and others will extend their summer vacation periods from 2 days to one week or more to cut power consumption. Sony will adopt its own version of daylight savings time in its offices to reduce the burden on peak usage periods.
Individuals and stores are being encouraged to use LED lights as they are supposed to consume less electricity. In a small bid to reduce at my workplace, I keep the lights and air con/heat off during my classes.
Today was a warm day and normally the air conditioning would be blasting in the train. Not today - which is a very good thing (and gets a big cheer from me!), so I hope the trend continues.
On the other end of the power spectrum, part of Fukushima was able to turn on the lights for the first time in 35 days. Yet, all the while, the reactors lurk in the background, still out of control. The disaster rating now equals or surpasses Chernobyl.
However, the world over here keep chugging along with the expectation that things will somehow be calm and safe someday.
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