I am in Japan this week looking at some new and exciting environmental technologies in their early development. The evidence from this trip highlights for me the interesting different ways different parts of the world are addressing major environmental issues.
Firstly it needs to be understood that the world is facing a future of uncertain climate events. Many people in Japan are still talking about the last summer where they experienced temperatures much higher than normal and typhoons soon after that were bigger than ever seen before. The same discussions are being had around the world including Australia where our summer has been incredibly hot for many parts of the country. But individual climate events cannot be taken as literal evidence of global climate change, but collectively they do build a trend of change.
It is interesting to compare how the major economic centres are responding to environmental concerns. In Europe the significant response has been through complex government policies such as emissions targets, carbon trading and carbon reduction targets for individual cities. This has the effect of putting pressure on society and European industry to address environmental issues. Visitors to Europe cannot help but notice how people who live in the EU seem to embrace eco programs such as recycling and bike riding in cities.
[Related: More environment news]
The North American response to climate change has been well documented by a number of academics in climate change. Many firms and environment groups in North America engage celebrity spokespeople such as actors and sports stars to promote ‘green’ products. Many have said that the US will try to consume itself out of climate change.
The Japanese response to climate change is perhaps the most promising in regard to its past and future potential outcome. About 25 years ago the Japanese Prime Minister coined the term low carbon economy. With tax incentives this sparked a transformational change in Japanese industry in that a number of companies sought to invent and produce technologies that reduce the impact of society and business on the natural environment.
Energy efficiency technologies such as Voltage Optimisation, VO, that is just now coming to the printing industry in Australia, was invented and first produced in Japan in 1993 by a company called VT Holdings. In Japan there are as many as 400,000 units installed in factories, hotels, hospitals and many other business and sites across the country reducing energy consumption by more than 20 per cent in many cases. Many units are installed in printing firms throughout Japan.
The next big thing to come out of Japanese technology centres are systems that are able to convert waste such as heavy ink coverage paper which is unsuitable for recycling and turning it into electrical energy, without using heat. The same technology can be used for plastics. The outcome is five to six times more energy out of the system than used to drive the technology. It is a carbon neutral energy technology from waste materials.
In the transport sector a Japanese technology group has developed a fuel saving technology that cuts consumption by 10 to 15 per cent. Recent tests by an Australian transport group have confirmed the result. Already more than 100,000 light and heavy road transport vehicles have the technology installed, and it is also in more than 2,000 seagoing vessels.
The Japanese experience over the past 20 years has shown that innovation and creative thinking can result in significant technology solutions to what is likely to be a major global climate change problem. But the technologies that have been developed have greatly reduced costs for many businesses in electrical energy and fossil fuel for transport. Both of these areas are certainly going to witness increases in prices for many years to come.
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter