Interesting Things We Have Learned in Japan

This country is an engineer’s dream.  Everything here is built incredibly well.  Even the snow fences along the road have moveable vanes so they can be folded up in the summer.

Japanese are always on time. If the schedule calls for an 8 AM departure.  Everyone will be at the  meeting point at least 10 minutes early. It’s a great system because you never have to make excuses for being late.

Likewise our schedule is very well coordinated.   When we visit a energy installation or a government official they already have our team bios so they know all about us and what we want to learn.

There is no tip expected for service and the service is always exceptional and polite.

There is no hidden sales tax on purchases.  What you see marked is what you pay.

The Japanese like to give gifts.  Even after putting us up in their homes, they will give us gifts to take home and food for the road.   They are so generous that we have to be careful not to admire or compliment them about something they have or may be wearing.  They will try to give it to you.

Japanese wine and food are wonderful  Even when we are not sure what it is we are eating it turns out to be delicious.  And there always seems to be enough Sake and beer to make for an enjoyable meal.

Gasoline costs  $5.50 per US gallon and diesel is $4.25.  The Japanese drive small fuel efficient cars and use more diesel cars than we have in the US.

The Japanese  pay between 20 and 25 Yen ( $0.22-$0.27) for electricity.   This is roughly twice what we pay in Colorado.

From what we have been able to figure out it costs about about twice per watt   to install a PV system here as it in the US.  We are still working to figure out why it costs so much more.   The homeowners do not receive any kind of rebate for installing these systems.  However they do get 2X the energy cost when they sell power back to the utility.

Many government buildings have PV systems because the federal government subsidizes the costs. Generally these systems provide less than 10% of the energy requirements of the building so all the energy is used on site

We tried to  visit a wind farm installed on the top of a mountain range. There was too much snow and wind to allow us to get to the generators but we leaned from the operation manager that the utility does not want to purchase any excess power from the wind generators because it is not a reliable 24/7 source.  So when they produce power in excess of their needs they have to waste the extra power.

They are using more wood pellets for heating.  This is a good use of wood products that would otherwise be wasted and it is renewable.

There is lot of geothermal resources in this volcanic country and the Japanese have a long tradition of using the associated hot springs for bathing and relaxing. They have not maximized the use of this energy source for electrical energy production.  Most of these areas are located on federal park lands and it would be difficult to get more any projects approved.  They may use this resource more if the cost of power increases substantially in the future.