Power Companies Battling Heat Island Effect in Japan

Here’s an interesting piece of innovation: Tokyo Electric Power Company managed to turn a piece of waste into a valuable and useful commodity. Fly ash from their coal burning power plants is being recycled into a type of pavement that is able to retain a cooler temperature than conventional asphalt. The result is that using the pavement will also reduce the “heat island effect” in cities – the tendency for cities to have a higher ambient temperature than the weather would ordinarily dictate – resulting, potentially, in much lower utility costs. Japan for Sustainability has more.