Saving energy

This week, we look at media comment on energy-saving measures in Japan and at reaction to the British Labour Party’s annual conference.

Powering down

Following the destruction of the Fukushima nuclear-power plant in March, Japan shut down 39 of its 54 nuclear reactors. To conserve energy, the government ordered major power users to cut their peak consumption by 15 per cent. Electric lights and air conditioners were turned off, workers changed their shifts to early mornings and evenings, and families stopped doing daily laundry. The successful campaign is a role model for the US, according to the International Herald Tribune.

After a long, hot and dark summer in Japan, the days are cooler and the nights are brighter. For this the Japanese can give thanks not just to September, but also to setsuden, or “energy saving,” an ambitious and strikingly successful campaign to conserve electricity after the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear-plant disasters. … [T]his is a good lesson for the United States, with its fragile electric grid, huge power needs and raging fossil-fuel addiction: Consumption doesn’t always have to go up.

Bad for business?

Britain’s badly battered Labour Party has spent this week in Liverpool trying to rebuild at its annual party conference. The Daily Telegraph writes that the party will never regain power unless it can accept that state spending is not the answer to economic problems.

… What was … missing was any real recognition that it is the business community — and only the business community — that will power a sustainable recovery. … [Former Prime Minister] Tony Blair knew that planting Labour’s standard on the centre ground was a prerequisite to electoral success; and, without a constructive and mature relationship with the business sector, the centre ground will always prove elusive. …