The Road Less Traveled

Energy Conservation

Friday, September 26th, 2008 | Lifestyle | 1 Comment

Here in Japan, energy costs are very high, so Japanese people are very big on energy conservation. For example, the master AC and heating for our dorm are set to 28C (82.4F) and 22C (71.6F) respectively. Yeah, that seems a bit backwards, but those numbers are right.

Of course, each dorm room has its own individual air conditioning control, also, and students are strongly encouraged to use the numbers above and turn the unit off when they leave the room. Maybe I’m just spoiled, but after a long day sweating in the heat and carrying a heavy bag full of textbooks around, I want to come back to a room that’s cool. However, I’m told by the nice people in the Center for International Programs that the dorm managers, Mr. and Mrs. Gotoh, have come to them with the electric bill before and complained that people are using too much power. Of course, I’m sure our computers being on about 24/7 doesn’t help, either.

Another place you can see energy conservation in Japan is in the cars they drive. Students often drive these’s little motor-scooter-like vehicles that get great gas mileage, but max at about 35mph or so. Everyone else in Japan seems to drive these tiny little toy-like cars, SUVs, and trucks. It’s pretty ridiculous, actually. However, gas prices here are about 165￥ per liter, which is about equal to $6.00/gallon, so they need vehicles that get better gas mileage. Going smaller and lighter… is certainly one way to go about that.

Now, this is all well and good, but there’s a problem hiding in all of this. Of course, I’m referring to the blatant, rampant waste of energy all over Japan. Chubu University is in Kasugai, which is a little town near Nagoya… and even here, pretty much every restaurant, car dealership, supermarket, and convenience store has not only super-ultra-bright lights inside the store which blind you as you go in, but no… they also have FLASHING LIGHTS out by the street just in case people weren’t aware from the blinding light coming through the windows that there’s some kind of shop there.

You think that this is an exaggeration… well, unfortunately I don’t have any pictures (I would’ve taken some today, but it was raining), but here’s an example (I know there are more out there… I’ll post them when I find them):

So yeah… energy conservation seems to be a dirty lie. That or the entire reason that energy is so expensive is because of all this waste. Who knows…