Hello, this is Natasha writing! You might not have heard of me before since this is the first time I wrote on the lab’s blog. I am a second-year Master’s student (M2) and I am from Indonesia. Now, let’s talk about the last general seminar held online in fall semester 2020 in which I was the MC of.
Energy Poverty: Is it an energy issue or social issue?
We only had one research progress presentation from Mizukami-san that talks about energy poverty. You may have read about his research before as he already did a presentation weeks before. Here to read more about that. A little bit about the background of his research, Mizukami-san is interested in understanding how countries across the globe (though he focuses more on the global North including: UK, Scandinavians, North Americans) address energy poverty issues in their respective countries. Of course, the main country of interest is Japan. And he wants to extract some lessons and insight from those reference countries to be applied in Japan.
This topic is particularly interesting to me since it shifts the meaning of energy poverty that I have always known. Coming from a developing country, I have witnessed people living without today’s most important type of energy-electricity. I also have witnessed people living with conventional types of energy such as firewoods. And I always think that this condition is what people call as energy poverty which exhibits the lack of access to energy. People living in marginalized areas of Indonesia still don’t have access to electricity because there is no supporting infrastructure that provides electricity. That’s the main reason why there is this energy shortage in those areas.
However, Mizukami san’s presentation says that even in wealthy countries like Japan, energy poverty is still a damning nightmare. It is just defined slightly differently. Lack of energy infrastructure oftentimes is not the cause, yet inability to afford energy is. And those who can’t afford energy for basic heating in winter and cooling in summer suffer from poor living conditions. There are always vulnerable groups even in developed countries. Those include the elderly, the poor, etc. From a completely different lecture, I learned that hot summer nights in Japan have a significant fatality rate which usually victimize the elderly.
Mizumaki san tries to look into the energy poverty policy in those reference countries including Japan. Besides, he has also garnered some parameters that have links to energy poverty such as social spending (government supports for basic living needs), renewable energy and self-sufficiency rate (as they dictate the energy price which is an important aspect in energy poverty), etc. He finds a problem when evaluating the energy poverty indicator itself since there is no universal definition of energy poverty. He mentioned the 10%-indicator to determine whether ones fall under energy poverty. Despite its simplicity, the 10%-indicator is still flawed. Mizumaki san will keep working on that. And we couldn’t wait to see his research progress and development.
What is your motto in life?
That was the question of our bonding session from which I learned a lot. I couldn’t think of a better question especially after I listened to so many inspiring stories from all of the lab members including Abe sensei. For me, my motto is: to always give it all no matter where you are and what you are doing because you’ll never know who is watching. A story of a lady that sang in a London train station and became famous afterwards inspired me. To her, she just sings wherever she is because she loves it. And when a youtuber asked her to finish the lyrics of ‘Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, she didn’t hesitate. The thing is, she never thought that her video would be watched by millions of people worldwide, yet she still did her best.
A story from Miyauchi san also highly moved me. He was boxing from age 9 to 17. He said that his edge is not his strong muscles or other physical elements which I and I believe everyone would consider very important for an athlete to win his match. He said, his strength is his brain. His couch told him that he can win by strategizing using his brain not his muscles. That message sticks with him and now he is one of our greatest thinkers in Abe lab and apparently in Tokyo Tech.
Other mottos are: Mizukami san – Follow you intuitions – which I believe really speaks volumes about his true personality as he is a really intuitive person, in my opinion; Augustin san – Have a sense of gratitude; Nosa san – Life’s never fair and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us it is not– which I believe very true; Li san – Always remember your ultimate goals – which is a motto that we always need when facing difficult options and having to choose one. And the last one is from Abe sensei. His mottos are: persistence pays off, be flexible, and always listen. Those are extremely profound messages from him. Persistence does pay off so for those who are on the edge of quitting because it gets too difficult, remember this. Abe sensei also mentioned about our natural coping mechanisms that when we talk with people, we just want to listen to what we want to. I believe it is true that we should try to listen more not only to pleasant things but also unpleasant ones as long as it is true and having good intentions such as criticisms.
I will finish here. Thank you so much for reading till the end. Hope you learn one or two from this blog 🙂