Power Crunch: Nissan plant opens on Saturdays

YOKOSUKA: Nissan’s plant is busily rolling out the Leaf electric car and other models on Saturday, having shifted production schedules for an aggressive nationwide effort to fight the power crunch created by a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant. “Setsuden,” or “save electricity,” is now Japan’s biggest buzzword. The March 11 disaster sent several reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into meltdowns, prompting the government to demand that major companies, shopping malls and universities reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent. Starting Saturday, Nissan Motor and other Japanese automakers are working weekends and instead taking Thursday and Friday off. The reworked schedule is for July, August and parts of September, to spread out electricity consumption at plants and offices during peak power-need periods.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2011.