ENERGY SHORTAGES IN JAPAN: “We all take electric power for granted . . . . But as the Japanese are finding, we are one disaster away from electric power shortages.”

Plus this: “You might think the Japanese could save electric power by rapidly switching to more energy efficient appliances. But their standards for appliance efficiency are already very high (higher than the United States) and they’ve already made many of the easy changes for boosting energy efficiency. High energy efficiency has a curious side effect: If a single unit of energy enables production of a large quantity of goods and services then elimination of that unit of energy causes a larger reduction in total output than would happen in a less energy efficient economy.”