UK energy crisis: MPs urged to learn from Fukushima response

theguardian.com:

Britain could learn from Japan’s response to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster by reducing energy consumption to deal with soaring global gas prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, academics have said.

Suggesting a coordinated response to record gas prices could help ease the pressure on households, experts told MPs on the Commons business committee that steps to reduce national demand for gas-fired power next winter could be deployed.

Michael Bradshaw, a professor of global energy at the University of Warwick, said lessons could be learned from Japan, where the government launched a national movement to cut energy usage after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident.

He also said Britain could look to the 1970s, when campaigns to reduce energy consumption were run in the UK in response to the oil price shocks triggered by the Yom Kippur war.

“Perhaps we need to learn the lessons of the past,” he told MPs in response to questions about the UK’s energy security after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We do need to think of ways of building resilience going into next winter where people can make adjustments. They have got summer to do it – but more importantly they understand how their heating system works and what measures they can take to turn it down and save money.”

Tokyo ran a media campaign called Setsuden(power saving) after the Fukushima disaster, calling for neon lights to be switched off, trains to run slower and households to cut their energy consumption.

In the UK a campaign called Save it was ran during the 1970s, to highlight energy waste, while the late former Conservative cabinet minister Patrick Jenkin achieved notoriety as a shadow energy minister by urging Britons to brush their teeth in the dark to save