Kurashi - News From Japan

Toyota has introduced the most advanced hybrid technology and sold some 2 million of its Prius cars. Yet, in the United States, there are patent issues that could stop the sales. Yup, there are people in the US who are trying to argue that hybrid cars from Japan should not be sold in the US. I first mentioned hybrids in a post way back in May, 2005, quoting Walt Whitman. Toyota introduced hybrid engines in 1997. From their annual report that year: We welcome healthy disagreements in research and development. Spirited debate and competition are the essence of fertile R&D. In the words of the poet Walt Whitman, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then....I contradict myself; I am large....I contain multitudes." The pioneer at Toyota who developed the hybrid engine is Dr Takehisa Yaegashi . Yaegashi-sensei is not that well known, but he won a prestigious award for "Best engine of the year" at the Engine Expo 2004, Stuttgart. In 2002 he was co-recipient of the Ameri...

JR East, the Japanese railway company here in central Japan, has introduced the world's first environmentally friendly hybrid train into commercial service. The train is powered by a diesel engine together with an electric battery that gets recharged by energy created from braking at curves and when entering stations, East Japan Railway spokesman Shinichi Harada explained to AP (quoted by US environmental NGO NRDC ): Although gas-and-electric hybrid automobiles are already touted as a way to fight global warming, the JR East's hybrid train is the first of its kind in the world, Harada said. The train, called Kiha E200, developed by East Japan Railway Co., will debut on the Koumi Line in central Japan on July 31. The new technology helps reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter by up to 60 percent, compared to conventional trains, Harada said. It cuts fuel consumption by up to 20 percent, and also runs more quietly. "It is our responsibility to help reduce...

I recently purchased a Yamaha PAS City-S Lithium hybrid-electric bicycle. A hybrid-electric bicycle is one which can be pedaled like any ordinary bike, but which also has an electric motor to assist when accelerating, climbing a hill, riding against the wind or carrying heavy loads. Yamaha has been building them since 1993 and currently offers twelve models. PAS stands for "power assist system". This bike utilizes a Lithium-Ion battery and 240 watt motor to provide a range of power assistance levels and up to 104 km (64 miles) of range. Hills, headwinds, and weight all affect the range of course, and I find on average I get about 75 kilometers per charge. My usual trip into the city for groceries is about 20 to 25 kilometers round trip. Recharging a fully discharged battery takes 3.9 hours. Li-ion batteries are not harmed by being topped off, so I recharge whenever the battery indicator lights on the control switch indicate a charge level of one half. I live about 8 ki...

12 years ago, Toyota introduced a revolutionary car, the Prius, on the market. It was a "hybrid" meaning its engine could switch between gas and electric drive modes. Now, the new Honda Insight is the best-selling car in Japan for the month of April. It is the first time ever that a hybrid car tops the list here in Japan (or anywhere in the world). Other car makers have been much slower to introduce hybrid cars, and even Ford had to licence Toyota's technology in order to get its first hybrids on the road. I don't own a car, and I don't plan to buy one (I love trains) but I do think we are witnessing a paradigm shift away from gas-guzzling automobiles, to an era where mobility means we only use energy resources as efficiently as possible. I'm sorry to say that U.S. -owned car makers Volvo and SAAB are so far from this race that they frankly deserve to go under, unless they can start to make cars with fuel efficiency that match the hybrids - and why not? In Sw...

I don't own a car, but if I had to buy one, I'd like a hybrid car. Toyota and Honda make them, and they are getting really common here in Japan. Recently, there was news from the US about the terrible state of Ford and General Motors. These companies have fought hard against environmentally friendly cars, like hybrids. Instead their focus has been on SUVs that use a lot of gasolin. But, consumers want the hybrid cars, as gas prices have sky-rocketed, partly because of the US war in Iraq! The pioneer at Toyota who developed the hybrid engine is Dr Takehisa Yaegashi. He has been getting a lot of recognition recently. Last year, he won a prestigious award for "Best engine of the year" at the Engine Expo 2004, Stuttgart. Toyota introduced hybrid engines in 1997. I like the quote from their annual report that year: We welcome healthy disagreements in research and development. Spirited debate and competition are the essence of fertile R&D. In the words of the poet Walt ...

I don't own a car and do not plan to buy one, especially considering the economic situation we face, which is really a global bubble bust, and if you are lucky, you live in a country that still has a banking system. I take the trains and walk a lot. If I was in great need of a car, what would I do? (Again, not a scenario that is on the radar) In the midst of all the news from Europe about huge risks that the Euro Zone may collapse, and what will the Germans do after the Irish bailout, with worries about Spain (and others), how is this for some "good" news: The Telegraph: Nissan Leaf wins Car of the Year Yup. The world's first mass produced battery electric car wins the premier European award. That's how serious things have gotten. No more SUVs, Hummers (and Volvo, now owned by a Chinese upstart, came 6th in the rankings). I find it ironic that mass media is still so caught up in the car craze. I understand that a lot of people live in places where they really, rea...

If you ever read MSN News in Japanese, which I do, you may be used to having to sift through commercials posing as editorial material. Or is it the other way around? Their summer campaign for hybrid cars takes the cake. Now, I enjoy reading about two girls driving from Asakusa, Tokyo, to Izu (and then apparently they will travel to Hokkaido) but shouldn't it be made much more clear that this is an ad? The young girls pose in bikinis for both Toyota Prius and Honda CR-Z (from July 23) but from what I can gather, this is not really a MSN News segment. So what is it? OK, it is very hot and maybe someone decided that this was the best they could do to combat global warming, let's get out of Tokyo, summer in the city, 2010-style ;) Click on the image to enlarge Sigh - have we learnt nothing since 1957, when Vance Packard published his book called The Hidden Persuaders , about how images were being manipulated in advertising to induce desire for products or ideas in a subliminal fas...

Japan's top automaker has been keen to see the fuel-saving powertrain enter the mainstream since launching the Prius, the world's first hybrid car, in 1997, but sales have come at the expense of profitability given their high production costs. But Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of powertrain development, said cost-cutting efforts on the system's motor, battery and inverter were bearing fruit, and the cost structure would improve drastically by the time Toyota reaches its sales goal of one million hybrids annually in 2010 or soon after. "By then, we expect margins to be equal to gasoline cars," he told Reuters in an interview at Toyota's headquarters in Toyota City, central Japan. Early May data showed US gasoline prices at an all-time high above US$3 a gallon. Takimoto said he expected energy prices to continue rising, according to Reuters. Toyota likely achieved cumulative hybrid sales of one million units this month, having moved 998,9...

Nice to see that SAAB still is making good cars. Now they have introduced the world's first fossil-free hybrid vehicle. I like that there are zero fossil CO2 emissions, and what they call "a range of energy-saving features by combining the use of pure bioethanol fuel and electric power generation for the first time." The Saab 9-3 Convertible show car also becomes the world's first hybrid soft-top.

US Consumer Reports is a great read, always independent and never dull. Over many years, its advice has indeed become the leading source of information not only in the US, but all over the world. Take their Top Picks for best cars in 2006: They tested 200 cars and for the first time, all the magazine's top picks were made by Japanese auto makers. Their selections are based not on any other guidline but the consumers' best interest. I'm impressed (although I don't like cars): Four new models made our Top Picks list this year. The redesigned Honda Civic is our choice among sedans priced below $20,000. The outstanding Infiniti M35 dethroned the Lexus LS430 in the luxury-sedan class ($40,000 or more). The Toyota Highlander Hybrid scored highest among SUVs priced above $30,000. Among pickup trucks, our choice is the new Honda Ridgeline . The addition of the Highlander Hybrid means that our Top Picks now include two hybrid models, but for very different reasons. The Toyo...

No activity can be more important than saving seeds of the plants we all need for sustenance - but we have mostly forgotten that art, or science. People here have not given up on traditional ways of seed saving, according to Imaizumi and Akitsu. What are the moral codes for seed-saving? From the interviews with practitioners in Japan: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-287-417-7_20#page-1 (pdf) 2015 Food Security and Food Safety for the Twenty-first Century Proceedings of APSAFE2013   http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789812874160 Editors: Soraj Hongladarom ISBN: 978-981-287-416-0 (Print) 978-981-287-417-7 http://seedsavers.net/ has more: Seedsavers Reunion in Japan    Seedsavers as a movement has expanded in Japan beyond belief in the last 12 years. Today the quest for clean food in Japan is linked to varietal diversity. old varieties of fruit and vegetables...

Switzerland has named Toyota's Prius the world's greenest car. Reuters reports that the Swiss government gave the Prius the highest green rating in a draft study evaluating the environmental impact of driving around 6,000 different cars, including carbon dioxide (C02) emissions which contribute to global warming: The Swiss government said it hopes that the list—which is still in draft form and could be revised before it is finalized next year—will persuade drivers to buy cars which have the lowest impact on the environment. The list could also be used to impose an emissions-related tax on cars. 'The goal is to modernize the fleet of cars and to make the use of natural resources as efficient as possible, so that using cars will exert less pressure on the environment,' said Adrian Aeschlimann, a spokesman for the Federal Office for the Environment. The Prius — a hybrid car twinning battery power and a combustion engine — was launched in 1997 by Toyota, the world's big...

I like the 4 new hybrid electric buses at Haneda Airport . Daimler , the German company, owns Mitsubishi Fuso, that has supplied three, while Hino supplied one. Batteries on the roofs are from Toyota: great to see that companies can cooperate for sustainable development - and the bus rides are free, linking Haneda's first, second and international terminals. As we all want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this is clearly a win-win situation. More details over at Treehugger . A bit of history - Haneda first opened in 1931. During the 1930s, Haneda handled flights to destinations in Japan, Korea and Manchuria, and was taken over by the U.S. in 1945 as an Army Air Base. Scandinavian Airlines DC-7 began regular flights between Haneda and Copenhagen via Anchorage beginning in 1957. There is a nice memorial in Tokyo with a rune stone, to comemorate the very first SAS flight between Scandinavia and Japan in 1955, over the North Pole.

In the first part I dealt with the way we can save seeds from plants, by carefully paying attention to what happens during their entire cycle. In this part, I want to talk about saving seed - from seed companies. And I mean that in the literal sense: we need to understand the way the seed companies control farmers, and thus how they control what we eat. If you want seed for your garden, and you buy what is available in the usual garden shop, you basically support the large, multinational seed companies. Saving (as in "rescue" or just avoiding) seed from the companies that try to genetically manipulate (and patent) is a first crucial step. I have also previously talked about F1 hybrids, that do not breed true. F1 hybrids are not GMOs, but if you try to save seed from F1 hybrids, you don't know what the outcome will be in the following generations (technically speaking, the F1 seeds come from "inbred" lines of parent plants). The reason seed companies spend so mu...

Most of our gadgets work in mysterious ways, that our high school science teachers didn't prepare us for (or we didn't pay attention). Remember the Periodic Table? Periodic Table in Japanese If you have been wondering what "rare earths" are, it may be useful to go back to Chemistry or Physics 101. Or even better, use google or yahoo for something useful, for a change! Sorry if that sounds patronizing. I liked Mutant Frog's post called Breakin’ Supply: Electric Boogaloo but The Japan Times was unusually informative today, 1-0 to print media. In addition to the usual US perspective, Hiroko Nakata also has the details about Japan's dealings with Kazakhstan to secure a steady supply of these important metals: Meanwhile, the industry ministers of Japan and Kazakhstan confirmed Wednesday that the two countries will cooperate on production of rare earth elements in central Asia. In March, Sumitomo Corp. signed a deal with Kazakhstan's national nuclear power co...

Some people really make a difference. 100 or 200 years from now, if people do not have the seeds to produce food, they will ask - why did these important veggies and fruits and foods disappear? As we debate this issue and that, we tend to forget that each day, we eat just a few foods, some 10-20 varieties usually. People who are busy living in cities may rely on even less. Yet, for our health, there are thousands of crops that can make a huge difference. They all help us human beings stay healthy and sane. Thus we ought to treat them with more respect. Like, farm them, harvest them, enjoy them. In Japan, my guess is that we rely on not 10-20 varieties but more like 100-200. You can help me with the research. It is important. Here is a documentary film that tries to explain this. From the Youtube site: Throughout history, farmers have grown crops suited to local environments and of native species, by nurturing and hand-selecting the seeds to carry on a lineage. However in ...

Japan gets its moment in the spotlight now with the G8 Summit on July 7-9: 1) IHT: Japan set to show off its expertise on energy frugality Japan, by many measures, is the most energy-frugal country among the world's developed nations. After the energy crises of the 1970s, the country forced itself to conserve with government-mandated energy-efficiency targets and steep taxes on petroleum. Energy experts also credit a national consensus on the need to consume less. It is also the only industrial country that sustained government investment in energy research even after oil prices fell. "Japan taught itself decades ago how to compete with gasoline at $4 per gallon," said Hisakazu Tsujimoto of the Energy Conservation Center, a government research institute that promotes energy efficiency. "It will fare better than other countries in the new era of high energy costs." According to the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, Japan consumed half as much energy pe...

We all like to compare, and here is how Bloomberg got Japan at 4th place among the world's most innovative countries. 4. Japan Japan ranked fourth in Bloomberg's Global Innovation Index. Here is how the country ranked in the determining factors: R&D intensity: 5th Productivity: 14th High-tech density: 8th Researcher concentration: 9th Manufacturing capability: 6th Tertiary efficiency: 30th Patent activity: 3rd I would be much more impressed if Bloomberg added an energy capability to its index. And why not other factors related to environmental protection? We all held our breaths, and sorry to say, Toyota once again is the world's number one car manufacturer . Too bad, I would say, as Japan has no idea how to supply the gasoline to promote a car-owning culture. I know, they are awfully fuel efficient and they do the Prius and all of that, but come on, we are facing a future with massive emissions of carbon dioxide, and other man-made gasses a...

Yesterday, Japan's Environment Minister announced a "green deal" for Japan as a way to both boost the economy and the environment. Officially, it is called something like “Innovation for Green Economy and Society,” at least until the proofreaders come up with something better. The Ministry of Environment says that through these measures, Japan will create 1.4-million new jobs. One of the main features of the new program is to help fund technologies or programmes that cut CO2 emissions. It will impose a compulsory emissions trading scheme for fossile fuels - introducing an environment tax for the first time in Japan. Yomiuri has already talked about one feature of the more general stimulus package that I like: Subsidies for consumers purchasing fuel-efficient automobiles and energy-saving home electric appliances are expected not only to serve the original goal of helping the global environment, but also help sales of these products recover. And to make sure increases in ...

I can only hope that you are all having a jolly good holiday, wherever you are, in Japan or anywhere else on this precious planet. Thank you for visiting Kurashi, and a very God Jul to all of you. May I introduce an episode of the 1991 Hercule Poirot series, called How Does Your Garden Grow? It is set in 1935, in a Britain that was once so great, with a treat: how the RHS Chelsea Flower Show might have looked back then. You will enjoy Poirot proudly presenting his polyanthas rose (with a strong fragrance) and Chief Inspector Japp noting that Poirot would not have been very interested in the "hybrid tea" roses that were so popular around that time. I just love that kind of attention to detail! Rose breeding is a bit of a futile hobby, if I may say so, with a lot of effort to achieve what nature does not approve of, in the long term. Many varieties look fantastic, but they will not be sustained beyond that one plant. After the plant dies, you have nothing left. That is indeed ...