Useless waste and necessary waste　1.4 Law of energy conservation (2)

Let's take a look at energy saving here.

Conservation of resources and energy means to use resources and energy efficiently in all industrial, daily and social activities. Such a problem has been taken up as a very realistic policy issue in Japan and other industrialized countries after the first oil crisis of 1974 caused by the Fourth Middle East War that broke out in October 1973. And the policy was strengthened further by the second oil crisis of 1979. The followings are possible measures to save resources and energy.

(1) Decrease in specific resource and energy consumption in each industry (development of resource and energy saving technology)

(2) Resource and energy conservation in terms of product usage (extended service life, popularization of power-saving TVs, etc.)

(3) Promotion of resource reuse,

(4) Development of high value-added industries with high energy productivity

In the 1980s, the supply and demand trend of energy and oil became eased. In particular, since 1986, the price dropped significantly and energy conservation slowed down, making it easy to forget the importance of energy conservation. Although there is little economic incentive due to the easing trend in the long run, there is a movement to limit the use of fossil fuels to prevent global warming due to global environmental problems. Energy saving has come to be emphasized in order to reduce the environmental load. There has been a big necessity for energy saving in consumer and transportation sections continuing energy consumption increase except industrial use, which has already advanced significantly.

In 1993 (Heisei 5), the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy revised the Energy Use Rationalization Law (Energy Saving Law) which came into effect in 1979 (Showa 54) after the Second Oil Crisis. A policy was established that requires office buildings to implement energy-saving measures similar to those of factories. In addition, companies will be fined if they fail to comply with the obligation to save energy in order to save energy. The outline of the revision of the Energy Conservation Law is as follows.

(1) It is obligatory for factories (designated factories) that consume more than a certain amount of energy to report usage status.

(2) Give recommendations and improvement orders to non-cooperative companies.

(3) Penalties are actively applied to companies that do not comply with this order.