Moves in Japan towards a non nuclear economic recovery

Electricity in Japan Power struggle The Economist, Sep 21st 2013 | TOKYO “……….The LDP’s anti-nuclear coalition partner, New Komeito, also constrains the government somewhat. Meanwhile, rising business optimism appears to undermine the case that economic recovery depends on nuclear power. Probably no more than 12-15 reactors will be switched back on, says Kazuhiro Ueta, a renewable-energy specialist who sits on the government’s energy-advisory board. For the nuclear village, which once expected to supply at least half of Japan’s power, that would be a grave disappointment.

Instead, Japan is preparing for other long-term energy supplies. Since 2011 the number of independent power producers tapping renewable sources, such as solar power, has tripled, thanks in part to a new “feed-in” tariff system for renewables. Including hydro-electricity, renewables now represent 10% of the energy mix, leading to hopes that they might one day replace the share that nuclear power once claimed…………..

The cranking-up of fossil-fuel power stations, many working at well under capacity before March 2011, is one reason why the predictions of widespread black-outs never came about after the Fukushima scare. But another reason was the room for conserving energy. Tokyo alone has slashed electricity consumption by a tenth since 2011, according to the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation. The demand for power-saving devices has leapt. Sales of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have shot up from 3% of all Japanese bulbs sold in 2009 to over 30% today. By 2015, says the head of Philips Electronics Japan, Danny Risberg, incandescent and fluorescent lights will be nearly a thing of the past.

Long-overdue proposals to liberalise the electricity market may do much to diversify energy sources and lower electricity bills. The government’s plan, easier to push through now that TEPCO, the biggest utility, has been brought low by its handling of the Fukushima fiasco, is to split generation and transmission, with the residential electricity market open to new competition. If the reform succeeds, says Hiroshi Takahashi of the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo, the share of nuclear power in the energy mix would fall as new, non-nuclear providers won customers. It would, at long last, give the public some say over Japan’s energy choices. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21586570-shadow-fukushima-worlds-worst-nuclear-disaster-after-chernobyl-hangs-over-japans-energy