Save energy!


A government white paper called Tuesday for households to save energy as a means of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Japan.

The white paper, Kyodo notes, mentions that household energy consumption in Japan has increased 44% in 2005 from 1990. Energy used for hot water represents 30% of overall energy consumption in Japanese households, the white paper said. It proposed that Japanese households try to save energy by "shortening showers by 1 minute a day and introducing solar power and energy-efficient water-heating systems."

According to NHK, the white paper says the use of renewable energy such as solar power is spreading rapidly in Europe and Asia, and the global market for renewable energy has grown by 40 percent in the last 10 years, to about 670-billion dollars. But:

[The white paper] points out that Japan lags behind in this area. The paper says eco-business has grown only by about 10 percent in the last decade in Japan, and that new installation of solar power is actually on the decline.

At the same time, Japanese trading house Itochu Corp has bought 10 percent of the Norwegian solar power technology firm Scatec As for 1.3 billion yen ($12.4 million) to join development of solar facilities in Europe, according to Reuters:

Itochu already holds a stake in Scatec's group company Norsun, which is building a plant to produce monocrystalline silicon wafers used in solar cells. The Norwegian group plans to build solar facilities in the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria and other European countries where governments are expanding support for clean energy projects... Itochu will also spend some 100 billion yen to develop a solar park in Bulgaria by 2010 to generate 100 megawatts, making it one of the world's biggest.

Kyodo/Japan Today: Gov't urges households to save energy to curb global warming

NHK World (story & video): Japan should help to create new CO2 rules

Reuters: Japan's Itochu to spend $1 bln on solar parks

(Photo from Handcellphone.com. I assume it is still ok to take a nice, long bath, then, as long as I bring my brand new fancy cell phone?)

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