News from Japan

Energy consumption in the world is steadily increasing. Taking transportation as a simple example, more and more airplanes, ship, buses, trains, and trams are being brought into service. Considering environmental issues and global warming, carbon dioxide emission from transportation vehicles using internalcombustion engines needs to be reduced. Increasing demand for passenger services is also increasing the demand for energy, especially in electrical form. Continuing to satisfy such a demand simply by building ever larger power networks could be disastrous; e.g., following the East-Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011, much public service equipment stopped working because of electrical blackout over a wide area.