Displaying items by tag: japan

JAPAN’S government approved its new, but unpopular, energy policy in April 2014 by reinstating nuclear power as an ‘important base-load power source’. But it has tried to reassure the public that the overall direction towards less reliance on nuclear power generation has not changed, writes World Review author Dr Frank Umbach, Centre for European Security Strategies, Munich, Germany.

‘Japan was the world’s largest LNG importer even before the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in 2011. Its nuclear phase-out after Fukushima resulted in increasing costly-LNG imports,’ he says. ‘This increased its unstable energy import dependencies and related supply insecurities.’
 
Energy supply security has always been a major security concern for Japanese governments. Japan was the third-largest economy in the world, its fourth largest energy consumer, the third largest oil consumer and importer, the second largest coal importer and the world’s largest LNG importer before the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
 
‘Japan, with limited fossil fuel resources, was only 16 per cent energy self-sufficient at the beginning of 2011 and had one of the highest energy security risk indexes of developed countries despite one of the best energy efficiency standards in the world,’ he says.
 
LNG import prices rose by 38 per cent in 2011 compared with 2010 and between 2010 and 2012, the total value of Japan’s LNG costs surged from 3.5 trillion yen (US$42 billion) to 6.5 trillion yen (US$78 billion).
 
Japan’s rising LNG import dependence and the long-term oil-indexed LNG prices need addressing by the Japanese government and industry to establish a gas-to-gas and spot-LNG market with trading gas hubs, more flexible and long-term gas contracts and a reduced over-dependence on expensive LNG imports.
 
‘Renewable energy sources are still seen as a mid and long-term solution. The loss of Japan’s nuclear reactors has to be replaced primarily by much higher unstable fossil fuel imports in the forthcoming years,’ he says.
 
Read the full World Review article here.

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