Onset of Expressway Toll Discount Program in Japan Sees Traffic Climb By Up To 52%
28 March 2009
Kyodo. The first day of a two-year expressway toll discount program for weekends and holidays in Japan resulted in a 52% increase in traffic from year-earlier levels on the Tokai Ring Expressway in Gifu Prefecture, 48% on the Banetsu Expressway in Fukushima Prefecture and 46% on the Tohoku Expressway in the Fukushima-Tochigi prefectural border, according to the expressway operators. The discount program is part of stimulus measures for the economy.
The uniform toll of 1,000 yen [US$10.23] for an unlimited distance on weekends and holidays came into effect for passenger cars and motorcycles equipped with electronic toll collection devices traveling on expressways outside the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas, which are subject to separate tolls.
“With the discount rate, I can travel much more cheaply than using the ‘shinkansen’ bullet train service,” Minoru Okita, a 58-year-old Hiroshima company employee, said at a rest area on the Meishin Expressway in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, on his way to Tokyo to see his daughter.
The world population is growing so we need more energy. Unfortunately the days of venting energy into the atmosphere as lost heat are over.
The Reinhardt Turbine achieves 60%+ efficiency and only costs $10 per KW. Distributed energy production will solve the problem of global warming.
Posted by: vv-tec.com | 28 March 2009 at 07:20 PM
Hows your math? 60% efficient still means 40% is being converted into waste heat!
Posted by: Paul | 29 March 2009 at 02:48 AM
Thermodynamic efficiency of human muscle is about 15%. Divide it in half for essential human functions, like breezing, blood pumping, brain/kidney functions and alike.
From that perspective even V-8 gas guzzler is example of efficiency.
Posted by: Andrey Levin | 29 March 2009 at 03:52 AM
I challenge the first poster to support the 60% claim with evidence. I posit that such efficiency is not possible with the fluid friction losses in small turbines and requires combined cycles even in half-gigawatt capacities.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 31 March 2009 at 10:25 PM