Environmental engineer and university professor, Richard Crume, is one of our expert bloggers who quickly grasped the potential of writing for Renewable Energy Magazine. He is using his blog to inform readers about how Japan is facing its biggest energy crisis in the hope that we can all learn from the country’s experience.
In the first of his five-part Report from Japan series written from within Japan itself, Richard looked specifically at the Fukushima accident and the consequences thereof. “We have many lessons to learn from the tsunami and subsequent nuclear radiation release. I hope that one outcome is to expedite the development of renewable energy technologies so that the world need not depend so much on nuclear power in the future,” he says.
In his second piece, Richard set out to discover how Japanese citizens are facing up to power restrictions. He found that they are, in fact, coping rather well. “Everyone is making an effort to save electricity in every way they can, including reducing the air conditioning,” Crume explains. “As always, the Japanese are coming up with creative solutions to the challenges created by the local climatology, topography, and tectonics. One idea that has caught on across Japan is to create ‘green’ outside window curtains using goya plants.”
Crume finds that while the nation struggles with recovery, optimism is growing. “There is a lot of talk about renewable energy now, and the government wants to promote wind and solar power in a big way, particularly in reconstruction areas,” he finds.
To read more about Richard Crume’s experience in Japan, check out his blog. Richard will be posting three more pieces on his trip to Japan in coming weeks. The first will look at how the nuclear crisis has sparked new ideas for energy conservation and renewable energy applications. “If Japanese industry can achieve the mandated 15% energy reductions almost overnight, so can industries in other countries,” highlights Crume.
The final piece in the five-parter will examine how Prime Minister Kan wants to lower the country’s dependence on nuclear power in stages, eventually creating a society that can function without any nuclear power at all. This, says Crume, would be a complete turn-around in Japan’s energy plan, laying the groundwork for an aggressive renewable energy policy.
[Photo inset: Japanese lone pine, Everette Kennedy Brown, European Pressphoto Agency via WSJ Japan Realtime]
