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Committee Offers Scenarios for Japan's Energy Future

Posted by Unknown on from the doomed-no-matter-what-you-do dept.

ananyo writes with a story about more concrete plans for a reduced or nuclear-free energy future for Japan. From the article: "It's official: nuclear power will have a much smaller role in Japan's energy future than was once thought. Since the meltdowns and gas explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in March 2011, all of Japan's remaining reactors have been shut down for inspections and maintenance. The government offered a glimpse of their future, and that of the country's nuclear power in general, when it published an outline of four ways to satisfy Japan's future energy demands. One scenario recommends using a market mechanism to determine the nuclear contribution. Under the other three, nuclear power would supply at most one-quarter of Japan's energy by 2030 — and in one case, none at all. The scenarios come from a 25-person advisory committee to the industry ministry. The sharp reductions in the nuclear power part of the country's energy mix mean that Japan will struggle to reach the 31% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions that it had planned by 2030 (PDF)."

5 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Pick one by crazyjj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Reduced nuclear
    2) Reduced coal, oil, and natural gas

    Any third option for the foreseeable future is a hippie pipe dream (unless you count regular, sustained blackouts as an option). And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.

    --
    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    1. Re:Pick one by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One thing we have learned is that, in nuclear power, "not making mistakes" can cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. One of the mistakes we heard about when the Fukushima Daiichi event happened was continuing to operate these poorly-designed older-generation reactors for so long.

      From the sounds of it, this new report has come out strongly in favor of not repeating that mistake, which sounds pretty logical to me.

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      2*3*3*3*3*11*251
    2. Re:Pick one by Luckyo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is the devastating irony of modern nuclear power. The more we invest in it, the safer it becomes. Yet investments in nuclear power are often viewed as something that increases risk of accidents due to "more power plants".

      It's a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result of it we're still running many plants built in sixties when nuclear energy generation was not even a decade old.

  2. So in other words... by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So in other words Japan will make nuclear power taboo so there will be little research/upkeep on the remaining reactors making another Fukishima more likely. Wonderful!

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  3. The choice was made well over a decade ago by dbIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They haven't built a new reactor in a very long time. This announcement is not much different to the German government one - letting the existing plants run down and not putting in a huge amount of capital to revive an almost abandoned reactor construction industry to build new ones. Everyone involved in building the previous ones has long moved on and spare expertise outside of their country is scarce.