Has Saving Energy Become the New Normal in Tokyo?

Tokyo Electric Power Company customers used 34.9 megawatts of energy this afternoon at five o'clock, up from 22.7 megawatts at 3 o'clock in the morning. Such arcane and precise information is a matter of common knowledge in Japan these days, where energy consumption rates are updated hourly and often reported alongside the weather forecast.

Since the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011, the Japanese have had to learn to become strident energy savers. Due to extensive safety checks, just 2 of the more than 50 nuclear reactors that produced some 30 percent of Japan's energy before the disaster are still active, still leading to energy shortages in the country 19 months after the disaster. Since none of Tepco's 10 reactors are currently active, all of Tokyo's energy - 40 megawatts at any given time - comes from non-nuclear sources.

“Japanese consumers try to save more energy than before” March 2011, said Jiro Adachi, director gener al of the Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society, or JACSES.

The energy usage updates supplied by Tepco are color-coded, much like the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System in place for most of the last decade. Green indicates that the power usage is within 90 percent of the country's energy capacity, yellow indicates that 90-95 percent of capacity is being used, orange tells Japanese consumers that they are using up to 97 percent of available energy and red is reserved for energy usage that comes close to reaching the total amount of energy available on any given day.

The “Setsuden” (“Energy Saving”) movement launched by the Japanese government in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and supported by the media was deemed a success and the government initially lifted restrictions on power use after the 2011 summer peak period.

While younger adults are more aware of the general need to conserve energy, explained Mr. Adachi, older adul ts understand that there is only a finite amount of energy available.

“Some people don't like such rationing, but many people are trying to reduce energy,” said Mr. Adachi, noting that consumers have reduced the use of lights and air-conditioning in the summer.

Consumers are also buying newer and more energy efficient appliances, he explained. His Tokyo-based non-governmental organization tries to raise public awareness and influence public policy around environmental issues.

Last year, Norimitsu Onishi of The New York Times reported on individual efforts to reduce power usage in a country that, though long obsessed with energy conservation, was forced to become even more efficient.

With the second summer's peak energy consumption period over and the memory of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima receding, Mr. Adachi fears Japanese consumers might unlearn some of their good energy consumption habits.

“Little by little people are forgetting th e need to save energy,” he said.

Last month, Hiroko Tabuchi reported that Japan's prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda had abandoned Japan's post-Fukushima pledge to do away with nuclear power altogether by 2040. “A day earlier, the chairmen of Japan's most prominent business associations, including the influential Keidanren group, called a rare joint news conference to demand that Mr. Noda abandon the 2040 goal,” Hiroko wrote.

Even before the massive business lobbying, Rendezvous reported back in June that Mr. Noda had begged his countrymen to allow just such backtracking. We also asked which leader would be the next to make such an about-face, in the face of growing energy demands?

What do you think? Do consumers need immediate and concrete reasons to reduce thei reliance on energy, or can we learn to save energy without an immediate threat?