Japan Press Weekly

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2014 March 12 - 18 [POLITICS]

Government claims regarding domestically-produced atomic energy and unstable renewable energy misleading

The government has regarded nuclear energy as quasi-domestically produced, praising it to generate enormous amounts of energy with less fuel. However, the uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors is 100% imported.

The Abe administration claims that the suspension of operations of Japan’s nuclear power plants accounts for the country’s present low self-sufficiency rate in energy.

The fragile degree of self-sufficiency actually stemmed from the government policy continuing to devalue renewable sources of energy although they have great potential to generate abundant domestically-produced energy. Instead, the government has clung to nuclear power generation whose fuel is dependent on other countries.

It is possible to improve Japan’s energy self-sufficiency rate by taking advantage of renewable energy. Germany, in fact, set an objective of achieving more than 80% of total power to be supplied from recyclable forms of energy by 2050. The country’s self-supporting rate of energy is already at 30%.

The Japanese government, on the other hand, claims that a stable supply of energy from renewables will be difficult and that the installation of renewable power facilities will cost too much because of constantly changing weather conditions in Japan. The government intends to use solar and wind power only as backup sources of energy during hours of peak demand for electricity.

Wada Takeshi, former chair of the Japan Association on the Environmental Studies stated, “It’s wrong to point a finger at a specific source’s characteristics as disadvantageous. The more solar and wind power generate, the narrower the power fluctuation range will be.”

Japan’s long coastlines and its steep terrain are suitable for wind and water power generation. The forests occupying 70% of the national land in Japan and geothermal heating which is the world’s third largest in store are also available for power generation. Power generation with pumped-up water can contribute to renewables as well.

A combination of such a diverse source of renewable energy will make it possible to stably supply the needed amount of energy, said Wada.

According to the government’s projection, electricity generated by wind power will cost between 9.9yen and 17.3yen/kWh, which is about the same cost as that produced by nuclear power, and the system price for solar photovoltaic power generation will be less than one seventh of present costs within the next 20 years. The government, however, estimates that it will still cost somewhere between 9.9yen and 20yen/kWh.

Therefore, if the use of renewable sources of energy increases, the cost will drastically decrease. On top of that, they produce neither greenhouse gases nor nuclear wastes, unlike thermal and nuclear power generation.

The government claim that nuclear energy is semi-domestically produced and that renewables are unstable and costly is a deception.