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  weedkila at 11:13 AM JST - 8th July

  2 questions:

  Japan derives it's energy mostly from nuclear powered stations so how did this action save 450 tons of CO2 being pumped into the air? I've read that there are, quote "...virtually no atmospheric pollutants at nuclear powered plants." Is this info wrong?

  How much CO2 did these leaders and their entourages produce flying into Japan and how much garbage are they producing over the 3 days? (I remember Kyoto and Bali produced a small mountain.)

  It seems, as usual, that the buck is being passed onto the masses while these people do nothing. People should be ecologically minded but lets see it start with these guys first. Turning off the lights for a couple of hours is grandstanding.

  Btw, if anyone wants to check mean global temperatures themselves do a search on the 4 temperature tracking satellites: HadCRUT, RSS, UAH, and GISS. You'll see that worldwide temperatures have plummeted since Jan '07. Is the evil CO2 causing temperatures to fall too?

  http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

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  skipthesong at 12:05 PM JST - 8th July

  If Japan would get on the band wagon and start allowing home owner to properly buy and install solar panels and Wind Generators on their homes instead of making home owners pay 2million yen for stored power and not taxing imported products so much, this issue wouldn't even be an issue.

  Additionally, Japanese government needs to stop lying to people telling them that energy products from abroad don't fit the Japanese market. For the most part, all they are is glass and plastic parts.

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  thepro at 12:47 PM JST - 8th July

  Do it every week. Do we need to see the big ugly signs in susukino every day?

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  DenshaDeGO at 01:21 PM JST - 8th July

  some people think technology for a clean fuel is already available but is being suppressed by oil companies and the powers that be. sad and scary if that's true.

  I've heard that many times before. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were true.

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  Zen_Builder at 01:27 PM JST - 8th July

  Not just the oil companies but also major car-makers, electric makers, etc.

  They often buy a patent of something that has the potential to hurt their business.

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  telecasterplayer at 02:47 PM JST - 8th July

  Lights were temporarily switched off Monday night in about 76,000 structures in Japan, ranging from Tokyo Tower in the capital to the illuminated signs on buildings in the Susukino entertainment district of Sapporo, Hokkaido. The government has designated July 7 as ‘‘Cool Earth Day’’ to coincide with the first day of the three-day Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido.

  A bunch of dim bulbs would be a better tribute for certain G8 "leaders"..

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  kinniku at 04:10 PM JST - 8th July

  skipthesong,

  I was under the impression Japan is already on the solar bandwagon. Many homes have solar panels on them and have for quite some time. Certainly an increase would be even better. Are you referring to something else?

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  Betting at 04:52 PM JST - 8th July

  "Many homes have solar panels on them and have for quite some time".

  Yes, there are some homes in Japan with solar panels, but you could hardly say they are a standard item in this country. Japan would like to project that image that is up to standard with on many ecological issues, but the reality is very different.

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  kinniku at 05:02 PM JST - 8th July

  Betting,

  Certainly, not every house has them. However, many of the Chofu (and other companies of course) water heaters that you see on the roofs of houses do have solar panels. I believe they have been more of a standard in Japan for the past 20 or so years than in many western countries.

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  kinniku at 05:11 PM JST - 8th July

  Betting, just to add:

  Japan is the second largest country market for solar photovoltaics. In 2007, the country installed a further 230 Megawatts of solar photovoltaic energy.

  Around 26% of the world's solar cell production is manufactured in Japan.

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  skipthesong at 08:09 PM JST - 8th July

  kinniku: Yes, many homes have solar panels, but what is being sold is really mostly a show piece. You can run a small cabin off what is being sold, but that's about it. You can even make solar panels fairly easily. But, what the problem is by law, you can not store your power, nor can you give it to the grid. You will be fined once the power company finds your bills going down to nothing.

  You can have a decent running house with 12 car batteries storing your power for about 10 days should no sun appear. You can also use this for wind generation devices, but you would need several wind generators running.

  What we talk about a lot in the industry is once the Japanese power companies can keep their stance, you will see more and more homes being built with them.

  If you import your panels say from China and then buy the batteries there as a kit, you are looking at yet another tax for importing hazardous material. Actually, even without the batteries, you still fall under that stipulation.

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  wilbur at 09:07 PM JST - 8th July

  lights off in roppongi for saturday nights...lets see how much trouble we can get into

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  kinniku at 08:38 AM JST - 9th July

  skipthesong,

  Thank you very much for your response. However, you are mistaken about some points. The Japanese Government requires that electric utilities purchase excess electricity generated by residential systems (solar etc) at the same price they charge consumers.

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  kinniku at 08:40 AM JST - 9th July

  In addition, as I mentioned earlier, Japan is the second largest market for solar photovoltaics. The proportion of solar power in Japan is actually quite large for a developed country. While there is always room for improvement, we should also give praise where it is due.

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  berri_fusion at 11:03 PM JST - 10th July

  weedkila, I'm assuming since the majority of power comes from Nuclear (I'm sure some of it might not be Nuclear also) the co2 produced happens in transporting the radioactive waste. And I'm sure every aspect of the nuclear opperations is not 100% powered by nuclear energy. You also have to think about it similarly to the trickle down effect...When greater amounts of co2 producing energy arn't being used, then it's quite possible that smaller amounts have stopped being used elsewhere, and those sources may not be nuclear. Like, for instance, they turned off the lights to TokyoTtower, that means less people will tavel to see it at the time the lights are off which means less gas will be used, etc. Stuff like that, I'm sure they didn't even estimate the little things like that and just estimated the savings from the actually electricity used by all of those structures though, so the savings could actually be greater.

  My question is, are they going to do this EVERY night? or just on July 7th from now on? The artical kind of suggests both...It's hard to tell. It seems to me that every July 7th seems to be the most likely. So sad...

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