TOTO, the top commode manufacturer in Japan, just unveiled an insane poop-powered motorcycle topped with a toilet that will travel across the island nation to promote company’s “Green Challenge” of reducing emissions 50% over the next five years. Dubbed the Toilet Bike Neo, the vehicle runs on biogas that is produced by an on-bike toilet, communicates in Japanese using LED lights, plays music, and TALKS. That’s right folks, poop and ride.
Only about 16% of Japan’s electricity is produced domestically, but Japan is located on the ring of fire and is rated as the third most geologically active country in the world. This threatens nuclear power with earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, but is ideal for geothermal energy development. Japan Geothermal Developer’s Council has announced that six Tohoku prefectures could develop a generating capacity of 170 MW and a total of 740 MW in those prefectures, if including sites in national parks, where geothermal plants are presently restricted.
The recent massive earthquake in Japan caused 6800 MW of electricity to go offline. It is estimated that conventional geothermal in Japan may have a combined capacity for 85,000 MW, more than enough to entirely replace its nuclear energy power plants.
Japanese children’s theme park company Kids City Japan KK has announced that it has plans to open new solar power plant just 15.5 miles from the still leaking Fukushima nuclear reactor.
The company has a chain of theme parks called KidZania where children are educated about differing professions. The company has plans to open the one megawatt plant by October of next year. They will be conducting tours where children will see first hand how workers maintain and monitor the plant.
Understandably, there’s an anti-nuclear sentiment growing across Japan after the quake and tsunami damaged the various nuclear plants.
The Earthquake followed by a tsunami that devastated Japan back in March has spawned a veritable clean tech revolution, both on the research and governmental fronts.
Now Mitsubishi Chemical Corp has announced it has developed a spray-on solar power technology whereby solar cells can be applied to buildings, vehicles and even clothing, just like painting. The solar cells are very thin (less than 1 millimeter thick) and weigh less than one tenth of crystalline solar panels of the same size.
China has “vastly increased” the risk of a nuclear accident by opting for cheap technology that will be 100 years old by the time dozens of its reactors reach the end of their lifespans, according to diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Beijing.
The warning comes weeks after the government in Beijing resumed its ambitious nuclear expansion programme, that was temporarily halted for safety inspections in the wake of the meltdown of three reactors in Fukushima, Japan.
Cables released this week by WikiLeaks highlight the secrecy of the bidding process for power plant contracts, the influence of government lobbying, and potential weaknesses in the management and regulatory oversight of China’s fast-expanding nuclear sector.
A bill requiring utilities to purchase renewable energy at fixed prices is now expected to pass in the Diet. While many challenges still lie ahead, the establishment of a sustainable energy system is something that Japan cannot avoid, and we throw our support behind the development.
According to the proposed bill, utilities will buy electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal power, the cost of which utilities can then add to consumers’ electricity bills. Utilities heretofore have bought only surplus energy from home solar systems, but passage of the bill will require utilities to purchase electricity generated by outside providers solely for sales purposes as well.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has launched a large-scale solar power plant on Tokyo Bay with enough juice to power 2,100 homes. The Ukishima power plant, situated on an 11-hectare site in Kawasaki City near Haneda airport, will generate electricity from approximately 38,000 solar panels made by Sharp.
It produces up to 7,000 kw, enough to power 2,100 households, and it’s expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 3,100 tons per year.
Softbank Corporation President Masayoshi Son is rolling out a plan to turn Japan’s 1.3 million acres of unused rice paddies into solar farms. Energy issues in Japan have been under heightened scrutiny since the March 11th earthquake, tidal wave and resulting Fukushima nuclear disaster, and particular attention has been paid to Japan’s slow adoption of renewable energy technology. Son has decided to tackle this problem head on and has done the math – turning just 20% of Japan’s unused rice paddies into solar farms would replace all 50 million kilowatts of energy generated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Another nuclear disaster, another round of worldwide questioning about the viability of nuclear energy. No doubt that nuclear industry makes a point when they argue that, overall, they have a strong safety record… but, as we saw again at Fukushima, when things do go wrong, they go really wrong…
So, what’s the status of nuclear energy now that we’re wrestling with the repercussions of the disaster in Japan? And what does that mean for renewable sources of power like solar, wind, and biomass? These are simple questions with incredibly complex answers, no doubt… but we can glean some information from side-by-side comparisons about costs, energy production, and environmental impact.
Pockets of lethal levels of radiation have been detected at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a fresh reminder of the risks faced by workers battling to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) reported on Monday that radiation exceeding 10 sieverts (10,000 millisieverts) per hour was found at the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between two reactors.
On Tuesday Tepco said it found another spot on the ventilation stack itself where radiation exceeded 10 sieverts per hour, a level that could lead to incapacitation or death after just a short period of exposure.
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