The prices of gas, electricity, bread, mayonnaise, coffee etc. still keeps increasing and damage our domestic budgets this year. These price hikes have roots in our dependence on oil. Moreover, a crazy product called “bio-ethanol” is being produced raising the price of corns.
Bio-ethanol is ethanol produced from raw materials such as corns, sugar canes and sweet potatoes. This new ethanol is highly expected to reduce greenhouse gases, but the fact is we still depend on oil very much, because we need to use large tractors, chemical fertilizers and pesticides in a process of producing corns and sugar canes. Also, we have to consume large electricity to maintain a temperature of fermentation tank to ferment the materials and extract ethanol. There is no chance to reduce CO2. This bio-ethanol business resulted in a boost of international corn price that has doubled from 2 years ago. In Japan also, although Japan is not producing bio-ethanol, price-gouging is causing a raise in prices of sweet potato shochu (distilled spirit). It’s a serious situation.
from “Nikkei Shimbun”
The total area of cornfields in the U.S. is the largest now since the WWII, because corns make much better money than other crops. So the other crops eventually increase in price too.
As a result of this, the world is experiencing a double punch of oil and food. Bio-ethanol is not cheaper at all. TV news of the U.S. said it is nonsense to drive more than an hour each way to go to a gas station of bio-ethanol just to drive the car with ethanol.
This tendency has a huge impact on general consumers. For example, in Illinois, electricity price for individual users has been raised 8%; bus fare and train fare have already been raised two times. Food prices of course increased too from 3.5% to 4.5% average. Prices of Beer, bread and of course gasoline were raised in Japan. In Russia also, food price has gained 10%, and even 17% in China.
In Germany, bread has increased 5% and milk has increased10% in price. The train fare also rose. I’ve worried that this price-increasing rush has a huge impact now that the whole world is turning into a world of disparity, and makes our future society even bleaker. But now, more and more people are trying to save things in Japan, remembering the Japanese have been the people who are good at saving from ancient times.
I’m not sure if this helps you, but as my “domestic saving missions” I make homemade drinking water by adding 0.1% ore mineral to water using a 2-litter empty bottle. I set a magnetic device called Maglobe on the tap, so the tap water is so soft and have a surfactant effect that I don’t need chemical detergents. For example, I can clean the bathtub by wiping without detergent; I use only one third or fourth of the usual amount of kitchen detergent to wash dishes. Also, the freshness of vegetables can be kept by immersing them in the water, so I hardly ever throw away vegetables. I put only one American washing ring in the washing machine and I can wash clothes without any other determent. I buy groceries at a professional-use supermarket. Since I plan what to cook in the night before, I can avoid buying too much groceries and having them rotten in refrigerator.
I am planning to perform some experiment about gasoline too. I will put a magnetic device like Maglobe I use for tap water at the gas inlet every time, and reduce the cluster of gasoline, while maximizing the contact area to oxygen and bring out complete combustion. The power and mileage would be improved at the same time according to this hypothesis.
When I was given gift certificates, I buy good fish at a grocery corner of a department store. I do not buy clothes or accessories. I use professional-use boxless tissues at home that were bought together with tissues at work. I use them after repackaging into smaller sizes, so they can last 10 times longer. My family members are all agreed to turn off the lights frequently.
Last year, we renovated our house and implanted cellulose fibers all over the house as a heat shield. This method succeeded in saving so much energy. It has so much energy-saving effect especially in winter. In rooms facing South or East, the solar heat warms up the room during the day. At night, temperature is still 1 or 2 degrees under 20 degrees C. So all I have to do is turn on a heater for only 5 minutes before sleep, and the temperature will stay over 20 degrees until the next morning. You can avoid wasting heating energy by installing a thermometer and a hygrometer in each room. Especially in a room floored with muku wood, you can feel much warmer than in a room floored with other materials at the same temperature. It is a victory of natural-material renovation that you can live so comfortably by heating up for only a very short time without wasting extra heating energy.
