TOKYO – As the world witnessed record heat this summer and rain disasters become more frequent, thousands of people joined a climate protest event here on Sept. 18, calling for a society powered 100% by renewable energy with stricter climate policies and no nuclear power.
Japan has one of the most interesting energy situations of the world.
No domestic fossil fuels, so they rely on imports.
Bad solar and wind potential.
Good geothermal, but the best sites are culturally significant, so they don’t really want to industrialize it.
So, many decades ago they looked at the situation and decided nuclear made most sense for them. But as a tectonically active country, it’s not really optimal either.
It really does kinda feel that everything about Japan’s climate and geography was created to be hostile to human life. Like someone decided to start a country at the Earth’s asshole and now the Earth is farting at them trying to get them to just leave.
If you read Japanese history, they were also hostile to human life, so it fits
Japan can do wind, but the places where it would be best, like Gunma (the strongest wind in Japan comes off Mt. Akagi in Gunma, and it’s very consistently strong in fall and spring), is basically farmland owned by old people who would never sell their land.
As for nuclear, one thing I’ll never understand is how TEPCO basically ignored the giant stone markers that had been put up a thousand years ago saying that was as far as water from a tsunami had reached. The Fukushima plant was built between where they were and the ocean, and when the tsunami hit, it got out to where those stone markers had been erected. They also didn’t have anywhere near the emergency equipment, like robots that could do into the highly radioactive areas, that they needed (I live in Japan and was here during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake).
And now, after Fukushima, no one wants a nuclear power plant built near them.
You don’t need to sell your land to add wind turbines, in fact the land owner gets a good royalty payment from the energy supplier. I’ll bet there is something else keeping renewables lower in usage.
They have a huge EEZ, they should have plenty of potential for wind power. And have as much sun as most European countries.
Although they really should stick with nuclear, just learn from their mistakes.
They actually are the third biggest solar energy producer already and invest heavily in off-shore wind and more exotic ideas like deep-sea hydro power.
There’s a solution to poor wind and solar potentials, and that’s to overinstall compared to what a sunnier/windier climate may enjoy and batteries / hydro storage to even it all out. It can certainly be done but requires resolve and investment.
They already are the third largest solar producer, invest heavily in off-shore wind and prepare quite unique deep-sea hydro projects.
There are things an island is usually not lacking… massive free areas surrounding it and a lot of naturally moving water.
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Couldn’t they build wind power farms in sea, though? Finland for instance is aiming for 100 TWh max capacity offshore wind farms in 2040.