The blackouts have been canceled for the last week thanks to businesses and individuals doing such a stellar job of conserving energy. But even with conservation continuing, extra generators coming online, and small amounts of power shifted from Western Japan to us in the east, TEPCO is expecting an 8.5 gigawatt shortfall this summer. Yesterday reports on NHK said they want to try to avoid blackouts this summer, but expect as much as a 10 gigawatt shortfall on peak days. They are asking us to use 15% less power than last summer, partly by setting air conditioners to 28C or higher (that’s 82F) and for businesses to conserve 20-25% over last summer’s power use.
The Yomiuri Shimbun published an interesting chart last week comparing average daily electric use in various industries in TEPCO’s customer base and household equivalents (based on a world average of 9.7 Kw/h per day per 10,000 households)
- Car/Machinery Products: 4617 Kw/h = 4,670,000 households’ worth
- Chemical Products: 2470 Kw/h = 2,550,000
- Steel/Metal Products: 1753 Kw/h = 1,810,000
- Railroad Services: 1726 Kw/h = 1,780,000
- Food Product: 1530 Kw/h = 1,580,000
- Pachinko: 415 Kw/h = 430,000
- Beverage Vending Machines: 400 Kw/h = 410,000
- Tokyo Disney Resort: 57 Kw/h = 59,000
- Tokyo Dome (one game): 4 Kw/h = 4,100
Industry needs its power because it fuels the economy. So how can we conserve more power as households? One clever idea, put forth by Benedict Marshall is easy to understand and not too hard to implement:
“…if the 8.5 GW capacity requirement is divided into 61 Million
population of East Japan, then the required shortfall is approximately
139 W for each person.If each person in East Japan purchased 3 LED lights to replace 3
incandescent bulbs of 60 W, then the reduced energy use (assuming that
LED lights use approximately 10-20% the energy of an incandescent bulb),
would cover such a shortfall.”
I don’t know how many people still use incandescent bulbs. (And if they do, aren’t they keeping them off most of the time already?) Maybe switching bulbs will make a difference, but possibly not the full 8.5 gigawatts needed. Still, it’s a smart idea.
What other good conserving ideas are out there?
