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Japan uses quite a bit less energy than the US, partly by fuel cells (heavily subsidized) and partly by conservation. Some interesting ways to conserve: $5.20/gal gasoline, smaller dwellings, space heaters, recycling bath water. It would take a lot for most of my countrymen to engage in this stuff, much less the government mandating it.
Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/worldbusiness/06japanfuel.htm...
I read one article that said that Japanese drivers actually turn off their engines at red lights, to conserve fuel. That right there tells you all you need to know about the difference between Japan and the U.S.
What it really says is how gullible people are. I have been to Tokyo, Osaka and many towns in between, and I never saw people turn off their engines at red lights.
Several people posting from Japan confirmed the story.
It is routine in Germany to do this at a train crossing, even if only for a few seconds - along with the long rolling stop, motor idling. German cars are still mainly manual transmission equipped - Germans seem to hate automatics, and if you take a driving test using one, your license is restricted to automatics only.
Further, warming your car up, for example to defog the windows in the morning, is essentially illegal (Ordnungswidrigkeit - a minor offense against the public order), and will definitely earn various reproaches from your neighbors. However, such regulations are essentially local, and obviously not rigidly enforced - except for your neighbors' opinion, of course.
While here, the cool people have remote control starters, so you can look out your home or office window and start your car without actually having to go outside. I know people who start up their cars remotely half an hour before they plan to use them. So they'll be nice and warm, and they won't have to scrape the windows.
their add says they can start the car up to one mile away .............. what, walk a mile to the car ? get a ride ? take the bus ? taxi ?
Office in the penthouse of a skyscraper. Huge parking lot below...far below.
I have lived in Japan for three years, and will be here for a few more years. Very few people turn their engine of at red lights, but public buses have been doing that in my city ever since oil becmae expensive (they didn't do this when I first arrived).
The main reason that Japan uses so little oil in comparison per capita with the U.S is because almost no houses have central heating here (or insulation strangely enough). Instead they use portable kerosene heaters for a few hours at a time (but not at night due to the high number of accidental carbon monoxide deaths, especially this winter). We also use a Kotatsu (heated table) and sit under that instead of heating the whole room. Most schools also don't have central heating but just use kerosene in periods.
Comuting distances are not as large either, and public transport is very efficiant and relatively cheap. Also in cities like Tokyo, cars are inconvenient for getting about on as opposed to subways. But because many families live communally (with grandparents, in laws, etc), many Japanese friends go to convenience stores and park outside them for several hours at a time as it is the only private alone time they get. And they idle the engine the whole time to keep the car warm or air conditioned depending on the season.
Natural gas is getting more expennsive here, and almost everyone I know has instant hot water heating devices using natural gas. My bill for hot water per month is about 4,000 yen ($33 U.S.D) and that is just for my showers (I live alone). And petrol is 168 yen per litre (Equates to $5.40 U.S.D per gallon). So at that price for natural gas and petroleum products no one is going to use it for something such as central heating.
I'll confirm it again. You don't see it as much on the city roads (in central Tokyo, for example) but it's routine out in the suburbs / countryside.
I'd caution against thinking you know anything about Japan from a 'Lost in Translation' business trip to Tokyo :)
Were you looking in other people's cars to see if they were turning off their engines? In our car, if you have the brakes on and turn the engine off, the brake lights stay on. I turn the ignition back on right away, but don't engage the starter, so the headlights and running lights stay on too. The only thing you would see is a quick flash of the headlights and a lack of exhaust. When the car is warmed up, you probably wouldn't see that either. I doubt anyone around here has any idea when I turn our car off at a red light.
You know, I shut off our car's engine at lights when I know it will be a while. It's another thing I love about simple manual transmission cars. On the other hand, the car is a Subaru, and I studied Japanese in college for two years. Maybe I was brainwashed and didn't know!
Back in my bus driving days I acquired the habit of shifting to neutral to unload the torque converter at red lights. It took less effort on the brake pedal which adds up to alot of weariness after a 8-9 hour day. The practice also improves braking on slippery roads. Don't know if it saved any btus.
Unless your engine speed really went up when the transmission went to neutral, it saved quite a bit. (Coasting and idling in neutral is one of the ways I am able to beat the EPA numbers for my car by such a large margin.)
I would suggest that market forces have far more to do with acts of conservation (such as shutting of cars at long lights) than social differences. If the US lived with $5 / gallon gasoline for an extended period of time I'm sure you'd start to see people shutting off their cars at red lights.
No, I think this is a social/cultural difference. Japanese tend to be a lot more civic-minded and a lot more environmentally-conscious than Americans. Indeed, it's quite striking.
The article was about a government office in Japan, where they all agreed to go without heat to save energy. Everyone wore heavy coats and hats at their desks, were typing on their keyboards with gloves on, etc. I can just imagine what the reaction would be if they asked that of government workers here.
In Germany, it is a social difference - the main reason not to run the engine is based on environmental concerns, not fuel savings, though obviously the two are 'synergistic,' to use a favored expression of American business. As a side note - busses turn off their motors here at any bus stop if they will be waiting any appreciable amount of time, such as before the start of their route or at a rail crossing, but generally don't while in traffic. Sometimes, bus stops are changed as the people living near them complain so fiercely about the exhaust.
Sounds like a battery-powered or PHEV bus with charging built into bus stops would go over well in Germany.
The fuel cell mentioned in the article uses natural gas to create the electricity, therefore a loss of energy in conversion must take place. He would have been better off in terms of efficiency to burn the gas outright for heat. Also the fool cell costs 50 grand, and is subsidised by the government. It's a fool cell boondongle...even the Japanese are pursuing technologies with no future.
GROK,
As the article mentioned, the fuel cell in the article is a _cogeneration_ fuel cell, so it generates electricity from the natural gas, then the coolant fluid (probably water) is used to heat the hot water tank. If this person has a new house, the hot water might also be used for radiant heating under the floors.
As a result, the fuel cell's overall efficiency (electric + thermal) is >80%. The best gas-fired water heaters get about 65% (thermal only). Note electricity is a higher "quality" energy than heat.
http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/topwater.htm
Though the fuel cell initiative might seem a boondoggle right now, we'll need to wait a decade before passing judgement. As the article notes, ten years ago, the Japanese gov't ran a similar program for rooftop photovoltaics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics (partway down the page)
Now, four of the five top PV manufacturers worldwide, are Japanese companies. (Anyone have the data? I think I saw the numbers on www.solarbuzz.com but couldn't find it just now)
The Japanese gov't helps domestic manufacturers become first-movers, reasoning that when the technology becomes commercially viable, Japanese companies will be the dominant players in the global market.
So: if fuel cells don't take off within a decade, yeah it'll have been a boondoggle. But if they do, future Oil Drum readers will compliment the Japanese gov't's far-sightedness... ;-)
Cascadian
Cascadian,
I agree that co-generation is a more efficient use and that the Japanese engineering is top notch. Fool cell technology in the terms of millions of units for personal use is not feasible! The use of platinum alone will kill this technology outright...I see a trend where technologies that can't be scaled up cost-effectively are touted as "the future", like the concept cars that Detroit hauls out every year that are never built for distribution. Our civilization has limited resources and time from here on out and proceeding to waste money on stuff that doesn't conserve RIGHT NOW means there will be less time before TSHTF.
Japan has lots of passive solar possibilities. They could retrofit and redesign their structures right now. Waiting for fool cells and the fusion illusion is a suckers game.
I really don't understand why Japan doesn't do more with geo-thermal. It would appear to rival Iceland in terms of activity (the number of hot springs is amazing) but it seems to be almost completely unexploited.
The hot springs used commercially for bathing in my town are all 1km deep. The water is not just there at the surface waiting to be exploited. Well water is used to melt snow in car parks, however.
The main reason cited for the lack of geothermal take up is the high cost of boring compared to other countries. As for low-cost implementations like Slinky coils that go in shallow trenches, most people don't have enough land. Typical UK applications use 100m trenches.
Cogen can be achieved in many ways, such as by Stirling engines.
Most old Japanese residential buildings are not worth retrofitting. They are too flimsy, too shabby, too leaky, and too poorly insulated. You'd be better off ripping them down and starting again, this time with the intention of learning from the past and building to last. Very few post-war structures were built to last.
Modern houses can be state-of-the-art however. The only question is how they will stand up to the climate in the long term. In the countryside, you can have summer at 35C, winter at -10C, high humidity most of the year, and very heavy snowfall on the Japan Sea side. That is more variation than houses face in many temperate countries. You're right about passive solar because much of Japan lies further south than Italy. We get some strong rays!
Delphi is working on a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) APU for automotive use. They delivered a prototype to DOE which would have a production cost of $254/kW (5.4 kW unit) and 49% efficiency.
Vehicular production volumes run to "millions of units", and cars and light trucks qualify as "personal use". It's not only feasible, it's going to hit you before you know it.
This page says the old GM EV1 was a 102 kilowatts unit. $254 * 102= $25K in power generation costs, before we build the car, the motor, the energy storage, ...
Please also note (per that page) that the EV1's maximum battery capacity (NiMH) was 26.4 kWh, which yields an average 13.2 kW power consumption at a 2-hour drain rate; in other words, your figure is peak (unsustainable) power. If you wanted to keep up with that plus a few kW of housekeeping loads, a 20 kW fuel cell would do. $5000 or so. The energy consumption figures appear to be at the charger; even assuming 260 Wh/mile from the fuel cell, burning gasoline (126,000 BTU/gallon) at 49% efficiency would yield 18.08 kWh/gallon for a rating of 69.5 MPG. Real efficiency would probably be twice that (no charger losses, much lower battery losses).
But the real improvement comes from putting the fuel cell in the house. Burn a therm of methane at 49% electric efficiency and 90% total efficiency, and you get 14.35 kWh of juice plus 41000 BTU of heat. That would heat more than 60 gallons of DHW and supply the juice to get two EV1's through the 23-mile daily commute, for under a buck.
How much the plant costs depends how fast the job needs to be done, but a 2 kW cell would handle it overnight. $500.
Ah, I am prepared for this ;-)
I considered after I posted that a hydrogen FC car might not need a FC to match peak output, so I went and looked up an actual model:
http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx
Interesting, isn't it, that they match a 86kW FC with a slightly smaller 80kW motor.
86kW * $254 = $21844
Now, while I do actually have hopes that FCs or batteries will advance to where they do fit "conventional" automotive costs, these are chickens which have not hatched. I cannot count them.
The only real technologies available today are efficiency options, high (40-60mpg?) efficiency automobiles available at relatively low costs (esp. in Europe).
(natural gas fuel cells in homes seem much closer and more practical, yes)
Of course Honda did that; that model doesn't use batteries for load-levelling (it just has an ultracap for regeneration). They sized the FC for peak loads, but that doesn't mean you have to.
Unless you're towing, you don't need 86 kW continuous. Heck, even when I AM towing, I get by with about 65 kW pulling up mountains! Freeway cruising at 70 MPH is well under 30 kW by my calculations (assuming 40% thermal efficiency from the diesel, which I doubt I get; at 35% it would be about 25 kW). A slightly lighter, cleaner vehicle would cruise all day on 20 kW, no problem.
Right, but we have a bit of a conundrum here when neither FCs or Big Batteries are ready to roll in $10-30K cars. Does spending on Very Expensive Batteries save enough on the cost of a Very Expensive FC ... enough to bring it down to reasonable production costs?
(you are after all towing with a diesel, one of those currently-practical technologies I endorse)
Some back of the envelope on that. The typical car gets 23 mpg (I actually think this is dreaming, based on Hwy numbers, but going with it) and travels 12K miles per year. That's 522 gallons of fuel per year. A 45 mpg hybrid or diesel (being conservative) would use 227 gallons. A savings of 295 gallons. Moving from there to an effective 100 mpg (however you do it) reduces fuel consumption to 120 per year. A savings of 402 relative to the current fleet but only 175 relative to the hybrid.
You've got a classic case of declining returns on investment. We can get a 295 gallon savings today, by choosing a low cost efficient alternative ... or we can put our money on cars costing $10,000 to $1,000,000 more ... just to squeeze out that last 175 gallons.
I note that E-Drive is still hoping to hit a $12K conversion price for a plug-in Prus, and given that they assert "most Prius EDrive users will likely get closer to 100mpg,"
... it will only take $12,000 / (175 * $3) = 23 years to break even.
Reducing the number of miles driven seems a far easier solution.
31 mpg, about 150 to 180 miles/month works for me.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Given the choice between a $10K+ upgrade and cutting the miles, I think a lot of people will agree with you.
I know we're not ready to roll today, but two things:
The last time I bought a battery for my UPS (105 AH, 12 V) it cost me about 5¢/Wh. Firefly Energy's batteries will use much less lead per Wh, but let's assume they cost the same (but last 3,000 cycles and 5 years). If I bought 20 kWh of batteries to get 60 all-electric miles out of my PHEV, that would come to $1000 for batteries; they'd age out before wearing out, costing me $200/year for batteries. Electricity at 300 Wh/mi, 10¢/kWh and 12K mi/yr would be $360/yr (total $560/yr). At that price, an ICE sustainer would probably be enough for me.
But take the situation of a travelling salesman who can't stop every hour to charge. He averages 400 miles/day 250 days/year (total 100,000 miles per year), 60 miles/day on juice and 340 miles/day on fuel. If he can boost his mileage from 50 to 100 MPG with a fuel cell sustainer, he'd cut his fuel burn from 1700 gal/yr to 850 gal/yr; at an import-abatement-priced $5/gallon, his savings would be $4250/year. A $5000, 20 kW fuel cell would pay for itself mighty fast at that rate (much faster if the size discounted it to $3000). If you discount the FC by the avoided cost of the ICE sustainer ($1000?), he'd probably pay for it in 6 months.
These things all have their place. Take heavy trucks. If you can swap a diesel at 40% efficiency for a turbo-compounded MCFC at 70% efficiency, a 6 MPG truck goes up to 10.5 MPG. At 100,000 miles/year, the difference in fuel consumption is 7140 gallons/year; at even $3/gallon, that's $21500 more or less. A $50,000 fuel cell would pay for itself very quickly at today's fuel prices, and in less than 2 years at $5/gallon. (This does assume that something in the 300 kW range could sell for about $170/kW, but that doesn't seem out of line.)
And notice, "His cell, which generates one kilowatt per hour, provides just under half of his household’s electricity." So this fuel cell produces 24kWh/day, and this is *half* their usage! There's something wrong there. I suspect the reporter wrote that wrong, and meant that they use just under half the output of the fuel cell. Or maybe that's what happens when you use heatlamps in the bathroom to dry your laundry?
I also wonder about whether four people using the same bath water would use more or less hot water than four people using a low-flow showerhead with a cut-off valve. Using the bathwater for laundry... Have to think about that...
The device is basically hot-water heater that also produces electricity while it is producing hot water. So it won't be running all day full pelt. Unless the guy leaves the hot water tap running all day, of course.
Japanese people shower to get clean and then relax in a hot bath. A shower-only would be more efficient of course, but bathing is engrained in the culture. People won't give it up in a hurry, not even the bureaucrats in that small town who work in unheated public buildings.
The linked article falls into the same trap as many articles about Japan in that it takes an extremely small sample of Japanese people (one person in this case?) and asks their opinion, which then is presented as somehow representative. This is possibly because the reporter (1) is lazy and/or (2) cannot communicate in Japanese, limiting source material to only English-capable Japanese, a distinct minority.
For starters, current mandates in Japan push for all new homes to be equipped with 24-hr active ventilation. Such systems expel air from all rooms via a heat-exchanger to heat or cool the external air drawn into the home. Obviously the idea here is that you heat or cool the entire structure, which should be well insulated and airtight. Active ventilation also acts to prevent sick-house syndrome that can occur in airtight homes made with synthetic materials. The architect in the article is way behind the curve if he thinks point heating is the way to go. A highly insulated-highly airtight modern Japanese home in a cold region can be heated for the same cost as his living room. Aside from creating major discomfort, point heating in older uninsulated and draughty Japanese homes kills a good number of old people who suffer heart attacks as they move from heated to unheated spaces, such as when they go to the toilet.
As for passive solar, traditional Japanese houses ("kominka") are built facing south and have large eaves to shade out summer sun and allow winter sun to enter. We've just bought one that we're going to renovate. In the city, residential areas are so built up that southern exposure is not available for many. Also, if built wrongly, a passive solar house in Japan will be a furnace in summer.
Regarding cogeneration, Honda and the filling station operator Eneos are also pushing their own systems. Honda's is a natural-gas-powered engine, not a fuel cell. I suspect one reason for the promotion of cogen systems is that gas and kerosene are losing market share to heat-pump water heaters that run off low-tariff overnight electricity. Japan has a lot of hydro power, so overnight electricity from nuclear is currently used to pump water uphill. Heat pumps give you more heat for your money than cogen, but may be less efficient in total due to transmission losses and heat loss at the power plant. I don't know the numbers.
I just asked myself if a period of stagnation will have a dampening effect on energy consumption, taking a look at Japanese electricity consumption this doesn't appear to be the case.
Regarding electricity production oil was reduced somewhat mainly in favor of nuclear and coal.
Source: www.stat.go.jp (historical data and recent data don't line up in GDP figures but the trend is clear, nuclear fuel consumption jump in 2003 appears strange)