Tokyo - some lights and electronic billboards turned off to conserve energy

On Friday, June 8, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda made a broad appeal to the Japanese public to support bringing one of the nation’s nuclear power plants back online. Japan suffered a catastrophic tsunami on March 11, 2011, resulting in a partial nuclear meltdown at its Fukushima-Daiichi power plant. In the aftermath, Japanese society pressured the government to shut down all of its 54 nuclear reactors.

Once the third largest producer of nuclear power, Japan was forced into drastic conservation measures and scheduled blackouts to ensure adequate supply to keep the economy running.  With the shutdown of the last reactor this spring, officials fear increasing blackouts and economic upheaval this summer.

Japan possesses few indigenous natural resources, and has been forced to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil to make up for the shortfall from the loss of nuclear power.

Indeed, Japan is the world’s largest importer of LNG, representing 1/3 of the global market. However, 80% of Japan’s natural gas-fired power plants are already being utilized, meaning there is little wriggle room to massively expand LNG imports. New gas-fired facilities can take 7-10 years to be constructed. Additionally, LNG can be considerably expensive to import, as the cost of liquefaction, transportation, and regasification carries high costs.

Increasing oil imports to use for electricity generation is also not an optimal solution as Japan is already heavily dependent on imported oil. Japan is the third largest importer of oil in the world, and 87% of its oil supply comes from the Middle East. Besides the fact that burning oil for electricity generation is exceptionally expensive, making the economy more dependent on imported oil raises energy security concerns.

Coal-fired power represents about 1/5 of total energy use, but many of Japan’s coal plants were located in or near Fukushima prefecture, with many suffering significant damage. The nation’s coal fleet actually shrank in 2011, and since coal plants also take several years to build, coal cannot easily be ramped up in the near-term.

Japan is making a strong push to expand renewable energy – wind, solar, geothermal – but it still represents only about 1.6% of total electricity capacity. Renewables will not be able to pick up the slack in the short-run.

Which brings us back to the Prime Minister’s plea on Friday. Japan has few options in the short-term to supply its economy with adequate power generation. While other power options are not workable, 50 nuclear reactors representing 49 gigawatts of power capacity sit idle. Japan may be forced to bring some of this capacity back online, or suffer through a hot summer with rolling blackouts.

Share on Facebook

Tweet