Measures to beat power crunch new norm for corporate Japan

Maybe people could work at night. Every office building and new home should have solar roofs and also glass windows that are also solar. Where is the magnetic energy using positive and negative rotors to create enless energy. What is going on with wave energy. Why do monkey people wear suits and ties in the summer when Aloha shirts and cool biz has been around a long time. Why don't homes have ceiling fans powered again by solar. What did people do before Fujitsu made air conditioners? How much energy is used heating floors in winter.

Thon and Saxon - you are EXACTLY correct! In my office too, and on a train, women are wearing sweaters and scarfs inside - even today! Beautiful sunny day! Why you pretend is cold?

My office is always 26-28 degrees. In a summertime, they say "we must save enerzi, it's good for eco, right?". Then it's October. Still 26 degrees outside. Oh, suddenly, we don't need saving enerzi.

If so-called power crunch, power crunch is all through a year. Not only summer. If we must save energy, don't use a heater on a warm day. Do you know meaning of "Room Temperature"? Less than 28 degrees, is my promise!

Turn the frigging nuke plants back on. No other short to mid term alternative.

@Kazuaki Shimazaki--It seems your suggestion is very unpopular.

But it is a reality that in the short term, we won't see wind and solar farms go up fast enough. So fossil fuels will be burnt in the inter-rim. I don't want that either.

So how about a conversion to Thorium? If the plants in Fukushima were thorium, there would have been no problem. How long will it take to convert to thorium? How many plants does Japan actually need?

If you support turning on the few nuke plants to generate the energy Japan needs, contingent on a thorium conversion, thumbs up please.

ThonTaddeo, absolutely. The Japanese definition of "cold" appears to be any temperature below 27 degrees where I work. 25 is seen as cold enough to cause illness. If it's 26 at my desk, there will be women in the room wearing scarves and/or hoodies. This power-saving on A/C only applies to cooking us in the summer. Having the office heated to over 28 in the winter is normal here. It has nothing to do with power-saving, and everything to do with the preferred temperatures of women who spend all day hanging onto a mouse staring at a spread sheet without moving. I feel your pain.

I am not the brightest guy around, but how about this? Close the Frigging doors!

Every major store has it's AC running on full blast, but have the doors on the ground floor open so that all of that cold air is wasted into the environment. Which BRAINIAC came up with that idea? Probably the same one which produced the opinionated model who says smoking outside is worse than smoking inside.

employees have grown used to sweaters in the winter and open collars in the summer

Sweaters in winter? Not in my experience. Energy conservation goes in one direction only: hotter in the summer, but no change in the winter. How often do you walk into a store or office in the winter and still feel cold indoors? I don't think I've ever been indoors with an ambient temperature below 20°C -- just one degree below the non-power-rationing standard -- whereas it's 27-28°C everywhere in the summer.

"Warm Biz" is not real. There is only "Cool Biz". And I'd be more accepting of the latter if the former were actually implemented.

@K. Shimazaki.

Prof Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who chaired the Japanese parliamentary inquiry in to the Fukushima disaster: "Man-made, and made in Japan." So there HAS to be and IS an alternative. We have done and WILL continue to reduce consumption.

I'm sure he meant to say that the safety measures implemented by TEPCO are not everything they could be. With the benefit of hindsight, and the lack of a dual responsibility that's inherent in any business - to maximize profits (or for the government - to maintain a balance between safety and cheap power), not that we should get rid of nuclear power, or Japan really can.

Admittedly, the Japanese have worked very hard to reduce power consumption, but because of that, they are already running out of "easy" solutions that they were actually willing to keep up over a long period (as opposed to briefly in order to show solidarity) of time.

Time to face reality.

Well, the good thing not using nuclear power is that it generates inflation since money has to flow out of Japan to cover energy costs. It also generates more tax profits for the government.

Yet, we sweat in schools, offices and stores in the summer. A clerk in a store told me to take my time looking and relied "I can't it's too hot in here."

how about stop working? Don't start until 1pm. Nothing would change only reduced energy bills

@K. Shimazaki. Prof Kiyoshi Kurokawa, who chaired the Japanese parliamentary inquiry in to the Fukushima disaster: "Man-made, and made in Japan." So there HAS to be and IS an alternative. We have done and WILL continue to reduce consumption.

Credit where it's due, the author is perhaps using the US as an energy efficiency benchmark.

with rolling blackouts in Tokyo shortly after the disaster and offices ever since adjusting their thermostats to cut air conditioning bills and reduce heating costs.

There were never rolling blackouts in Tokyo, all 23 areas of Tokyo were exempt.

already long famous for its energy efficiency.

Japan is not famous for its energy efficiency, it is famous for it's energy wastage. The writer has confused "reliability" efficiency and energy efficiency. Japan is one of the biggest wasters of electricity.

Necessity is the mother of innovation. Keep it up, Japan!

Turn the frigging nuke plants back on. No other short to mid term alternative.