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“Team Mirai”, a “technocratic” new party in Japan

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In July 2025, Anno Takahiro, the leader of the new political part Team Mirai, won a seat in the House of Councillors (Upper House) election in Japan. The party has been described as “technocratic” and focuses on subjects such as e-government and the use of AI. Anno himself is an AI engineer and science fiction author who graduated from Tokyo University.

I was curious about the party’s policy on energy. Looking at their manifesto, it is clear that their emphasis is on ensuring a steady supply for energy hungry AI data centers but not much thought seems to be given to the environment.

A massive amount of electricity is essential for the full-scale adoption of AI. It is estimated that the world will need an additional amount of electricity equivalent to the entire country of Japan in the short period leading up to 2030. For Japan to master AI and use technology as a driving force for growth, securing a stable and large amount of electricity is a prerequisite.

However, Japan is poor in fossil fuel resources, and relying on thermal power generation would result in a large-scale outflow of national wealth due to fuel imports. Furthermore, the limited plains of the country pose geographical constraints on the large-scale introduction of renewable energy.

Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate technological development and capital investment that will enable Japan to maximize the use of all energy resources available in the country while simultaneously securing large-capacity power sources and realizing a zero-emission society.
(“Policy Manifesto 2026: Energy”)

Their main objection to fossil fuel-based power generation is not the disastrous effects on the climate but the outflow of money for fuel imports.

A goal of “zero emissions” is not mentioned until the very end of the paragraph, almost as an afterthought.

Outside the power sector, it is mainly transport, heating and industrial processes that currently use fossil fuels and therefore produce carbon emissions. Electrification is the only way to decarbonize all of these, but none seem to merit a mention in the manifesto, unlike AI. To me, that’s a lopsided approach.

Renewables are mentioned primarily to claim that their scope in Japan was limited. In reality, wind turbines do not need limited flat land and they coexist quite well with agricultural use. They work especially well on the coast lines, of which Japan has plenty. Akita, Aomori and Hokkaido in particular have huge potential for both on-shore and off-shore wind. Rooftop solar is far from reaching a saturation point in Japan. Sitting on the “ring of fire”, Japan has some of the greatest geothermal potential in the world.

Team Mirai view of renewables is stuck in the past (though Mirai means “future” in Japanese) when they claim:

A significant increase in renewable energy will pose major challenges in terms of both the burden on the public and practicality.

The public burden due to renewable energy surcharges is expected to reach 2.7 trillion yen in fiscal 2024 and 3.1 trillion yen in fiscal 2025. The introduction of additional renewable energy will lead to an increase in the public burden.

Japan does have a system of renewable energy surcharges on electricity bills that was used to get solar projects online back when equipment costs were much higher than they are today. Back then, renewable energy suppliers were guaranteed a fixed feed in tariff high enough to cover those higher capital costs for a certain number of years. The renewable surcharges are to pay back the investments from years ago. They do not reflect the current competitive situation. Nowadays solar and wind are the cheapest sources of electricity in most of the world, which is why the International Energy Agency (IEA) writes:

Over 2025-2030, renewables are expected to meet over 90% of global electricity demand growth.
(Renewables 2025, IEA)

For example, Pakistan doubled its solar capacity from 2024 to 2025 not because of any feed-in tariffs or renewable energy subsidies (they don’t have the money for that), but simply because photovoltaic panels are so cheap to buy and install, their power is cheaper than grid power from hydro or coal.

When Team Mirai warns of the cost of an “unreasonable expansion of renewable energy”, it misrepresents the actual cost basis of renewables vs. fossil and nuclear power.

The problem for Japan is not that solar and wind would consume huge amounts of subsidies (they don’t). It’s that the Japanese grid is outdated and will need significant upgrades to move power from regions with the best potential for renewable energy to the regions with the highest demand. While China has been installing thousands of km of HVDC lines to bring hydroelectric, solar and wind power from rural areas to the cities and industries, Japan still has very limited power exchange capacity between eastern and western Japan (which use different mains frequencies, 50 vs. 60 Hz) or between its major islands like Honshu and Hokkaido.

So what is Team Mirai’s prescription for expanding power generation?

Like the LDP and several other mainstream parties, it wants to restart as many nuclear power stations as quickly as possible. Beyond that it wants to bet on unconventional nuclear technologies such as nuclear fusion and small modular reactors (SMRs):

We will strengthen investment in research and development of nuclear fusion technology , demonstrate our international superiority in nuclear fusion technology, and prepare for a fundamental solution to long-term energy problems.
We will support the technological development and dissemination of next-generation nuclear power (SMR, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, etc.) with an eye toward the late 2030s and beyond.

Japan is one of the major participants in the international fusion project ITER. However, under current project timescales (which already moved by many years from plans drawn up before the project was launched), actual fusion experiments that may produce energy (deuterium-tritium fusion) are not expected to take place before the year 2039.

Nuclear fusion is a highly complex technology that, if it can be made to work at all, will still take decades to make work at the scale needed to significantly contribute to supply. All this complexity has a cost. Meanwhile the cost of renewables and storage has been falling year after year. They are very mature technologies with tons of experience and benefiting from economies of scale. Whatever nuclear fusion technology wins the technology race, it will have to compete with fusion energy from a reactor appearing daily in the sky whose output can be captured by anyone using ever cheaper photovoltaic panels and batteries. It is far from clear if nuclear fusion will ever become as cheap as renewables.

Electric vehicles will add huge amounts of storage that can be used for vehicle to grid (V2G), which addresses a lot of the intermittency of renewables. A typical EV battery stores several days’ worth of electricity consumption of an average home. With an expanded HVDC grid, local intermittency is of much less concern when power generation can shift between different regions with different weather and climate (e.g. Kyushu and Hokkaido). Wind and solar peak at different times of the day and different months of the year, making them highly complementary to each other.

SMRs are becoming fashionable at the moment, but so far they are not in commercial use anywhere on earth. It remains to be seen if they can actually realize the cost savings their proponents promise. We have to remember that historically, nuclear reactors started out with much smaller sizes and then every generation grew in output per unit. Nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers essentially are still powered by SMR designs from the 1950s, but these designs are not cost effective for commercial non-military use.

It’s only when they are mass produced that SMRs have a chance to produce power more cheaply than conventional reactor designs. So far those mass production benefits are only on paper. It will be around 2030 that the first new SMRs are expected to come online, with larger scale deployment not achieved before the middle of the 2030s.

To summarize, Team Mirai’s energy policy is not driven by scientific or economic realities. It grossly underestimates the potential of renewable energy in Japan while betting on technologies with an uncertain economic outlook that may simply come too late and at too high a cost to solve the problem of decarbonizing the Japanese economy before the country is devastated by climate change.

My Hyundai Ioniq 5 Test Drive in Izu, Japan

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Today, after a one week test, I returned the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

Yesterday I did an extended test drive to one of my favourite parts of Japan, the Izu peninsula. I often go there for bike rides to take pictures. This time I drove over 440 km, which is pretty long for any drive I do. My longest drive this year until now had been 310 km.

I had a great day. It was a perfect day to enjoy Mt Fuji views and ocean views in Izu and the Ioniq 5 was a great car to do it in, more about that below.

The two concerns that keep people off opting for EVs when buying cars are range anxiety and cost. Izu is not the most well served part of Japan, as far as charging is concerned, and yet I really didn’t have to worry. Even when starting from Tokyo with a battery only charged to around 75% of its capacity, I came back with 30% of charge left after only a quick charge while having a 25 minute coffee and snack break. I charged at a 50 kW fast charger at a Familymart convenience store in Matsuzaki to at least once try out public chargers (previously I only tested charging at home) and it added about 150 km of range in a little over 20 minutes. Given a fast enough charger, the Ioniq can actually charge 5 times faster than that.

I later passed a 180 kW charger, but didn’t use it because I had plenty of battery left to get home and drop off the car tomorrow. Given a suitable charger (e.g. 350 kW), the current model of Ioniq 5 can charge at up to 260 kW, but the fastest chargers available in Japan right now are 220 kW.

On cost, the Ioniq is quite reasonable, when compared to brands such as Audi, Mercedes or Volvo. There are EV subsidies available from the national government and prefectural governments (e.g. Tokyo). Long term, there are substantial savings from the cost of electricity vs. gasoline, especially if you have solar panels on the roof and can generate your own power. A hybrid that gets 18 km/l at 160 yen/liter costs 9 yen/km. A non-hybrid ICE could be double that. An EV that consumes 180 Wh/km at 15 yen/kWh (Tepco FIT rate) costs 2.7 yen/km. At 40 yen/kWh from the standard grid without low cost night time tariff it costs 7 yen/km. That and no annual oil changes, no new spark plugs, etc.

One huge difference between electric cars (BEV) and internal combustion engine cars (ICE) is noise. When you put the foot down, both more or less do the job, but one does it without any fuss at all while the other becomes noisy. The Ioniq impressed me by just how quiet it was throughout (which is an excellent basis for enjoying the Bose speakers that come standard in the Lounge version). Whether you’re taking it easy or pushing the car hard, it just does it quietly, except for a minimal amount of tyre rumble and wind noise. That makes for a very relaxed experience. I don’t think I ever came back from a 13 hour drive feeling as fresh as I did today.

I also loved both the suspension and the seats. The ride is neither too soft nor too hard and the seats stayed comfortable and supportive at all times.

This is a great long distance car. It does everything my 2013 Toyota Prius did, only better and without burning fossil fuels (if you charge it with renewable energy, whose share will only keep increasing from now).

If I had to pick anything I didn’t like, I can only mention the digital rear view mirror (which thankfully can be switched to analog). It’s an LCD monitor in place of the usual center mirror, hooked up to a camera at the back of the car. Every time I looked at it, my eyes had to refocus from objects far away as seen through the windscreen to a monitor only 30 cm from my eyes, resulting in fuzzy recognition for a fraction of a second. Analog rear view mirrors don’t have that issue, as they don’t force your eyes to refocus.

I realize that the Ioniq is too large or too expensive for a lot of people, but the Hyundai Kona and Hyundai Inster are also very capable cars that are smaller and cheaper while using much of the same technology.

After returning the Ioniq 5, I placed an order to buy one. It will arrive next month.

Shopping for an Electric Car in Japan

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It’s time to replace my Prius hybrid with a battery electric vehicle (BEV). Later this month I will be test driving a Hyundai Ioniq 5 for a couple of days to make up my mind.

My only experience with Hyundai so far was an I30 that we had as a rental car in Italy two years ago. It was a compact and not an EV. In 2024 Hyundai was the 5th largest car maker worldwide, selling more cars globally than either Ford or Nissan.

In the EV race, Hyundai reminds me a bit of the Chinese car manufacturers, which (unlike Toyota or VW/Audi) don’t have a huge established base of ICE cars and therefore can move more nimbly on the transition to BEVs, without fear of hurting their existing products. For many buyers of these underdog brands, the BEV will be their first car of that brand, as it would be for me.

I have had two Volkswagens, four Audis, one Honda and two Toyotas as my main cars over the last 44 years (not all of them personally owned, e.g. some were company cars), but for me it was never about the brand but about the features and technology. I loved the Audi inline 5 cylinder engines and the ergonomics of their cars. I switched to Toyota after the last Audi, an A4 2.6 V6 turned out to be a disappointment on fuel economy and reliability.

Now that there are cars that don’t rely on fossil fuel (as hybrids still do 100%), I want to make a move. My new house has solar panels on the roof and a battery, with which I’m largely electrically self-sufficient. I have a 200V socket in the garage for charging at home.

More than 5 years ago, I test drove a Tesla Model 3 (before I knew that Elon was crazy). At the time there were no Japanese BEVs except the Nissan Leaf, which was too small for our needs and and too limited in what it could do (no thermal management for the battery, really?). Years later Mercedes launched their first BEVs in Japan, as did VW with the ID.4 and Audi with the various e-tron models (Q4 e-tron) and finally Toyota and Nissan came up with the Toyota bZ4X and Nissan Ariya.

None of those really appealed to me:

  • The bZ4X looks like an electric RAV4, which I never liked.
  • The Ariya looks better but still too much of an SUV and too expensive.
  • There was much to like about the ID.4, such as its looks and its size (not too small, not too large) but infamous software issues at VW/Audi are a huge turn-off, especially now that they may be dumping in-house in favour of Rivian-sourced tech that may see older models orphaned for updates.
  • Audi: basically same as the ID.4 because the Q4 e-tron is the same platform, only more overpriced.
  • Mercedes – I would kind of avoid them because of people who buy them for status, but their cars are also either not yet based on pure BEV platforms, with all the compromises that brings, or they’re large and very expensive.
  • Volvo: see Mercedes

That leaves:

  • BYD: Great technology, very competitive great prices, but from the PRC, which in a few years may try to invade Taiwan… See Tesla 🙁
  • Hyundai: The Ioniq 5 has been on the market since 2021, has had a model update this year with a bigger battery and many other improvements. It will do over-the-air updates for its computers. DC charging is very fast due to its 800V architecture (usually only found in Porsche and other high end brands). It’s slightly taller than I would prefer but doesn’t look too SUV-ish and is only marginally longer than the Prius. Range is good, prices reasonable and equipment levels attractive. On paper it easily beats cars that cost 2,000,000 yen more, as long as you don’t care about brand image.

I’ll keep you posted 🙂

Next step: Test drive!

Links:
Hyundai Japan website

Harnessing the Power of Osmosis

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The city of Fukuoka in Kyushu, Japan has announced a project designed to produce electricity from osmosis, a process involving two liquids with different concentrations of dissolved substances (“Japanese Power Plant Turns Saltwater Into Electricity—and It’s a Glimpse Into the Future“, Gizmodo, 2025-08-26). Water will seep through a permeable membrane from the less salty to the more briny side, creating a pressure difference that can drive a turbine and a generator. Here is a PDF of the Fukuoka area waterworks agency that describes it in detail.

In the case of this plant, on one side it uses clean treated sewage water from a nearby sewage treatment plant. On the other side, it uses salty brines from a reverse osmosis plant that extracts freshwater from sea water using pressure created by electric pumps — the exact opposite process of the osmosis power plant.

The osmosis power plant has an output of 110 kW. Working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and with a conversion efficiency of 91%, this yields 880,000 kWh per year. This is the typical annual power consumption of 290 households. Sounds impressive? Let’s compare it to an alternative.

Looking at the building on Google Maps, the roof area of that plant measures 100 m by 160 m, or 16,000 m2. Covered with standard solar panels (1.4m x 1m, 280 Wp per module), a rooftop solar setup at that location would, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory solar calculator, produce 3,450,000 kWh per year, enough for about 1200 households vs. the 290 quoted in this article.

And that is before you take into account the energy losses for pumping brine and reclaimed cleaned sewage water that the osmosis plant will require for operation.

What this demonstrates is just how extremely mature a technology solar power is by now. There are no moving parts, no filters to clean, no pipes to replace, etc. You just install it and harvest electricity, year after year after year, for 25 years and more.

Reiwa Shinsengumi and the Environment

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Three years ago I wrote about how Reiwa Shinsengumi, often described as a “left-wing populist” party, and its leader Yamamoto Tarō refused to condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, instead spreading Russian propaganda narratives that perversely blamed the war on NATO, which Ukraine was not even member of.

Left wing parties tend to be more pro-environmental than conservative or right wing parties that tend to be less motivated to take aggressive action to minimize climate change. How does Reiwa Shinsengumi rank in this regard? Well, it’s not exactly a Japanese Green Party, let’s put it like that!

Yes, Reiwa Shinsengumi is strongly anti-nuclear, opposing a restart of nuclear power stations idled after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Instead it wants to phase out all restarted nuclear power stations. That by itself is no pro-environmental position: While it may minimize risks of future nuclear disasters, it does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, if anything it makes it more challenging. While nuclear accidents may be a possibility, the climate disaster is a certainty if we continue on the present course.

In a 2022 questionnaire for the House of Councillors (Upper House) elections the party responds to a question:

Q: Will you reduce domestic coal power to zero by 2030?
A: [Yes]
[Supplementary Explanation:] In order to achieve “100% renewable energy,” we will utilize high-efficiency natural gas-fired thermal power as an interim energy source. We will not restart nuclear power plants. In earthquake-prone Japan, we will go for both coal-free and nuclear power-free. We will utilize abundant natural energy sources.

Note how they answer this with a direct promotion of LNG, much of which Japan has been importing from Sakhalin in Russia. The answer does not specifically mention wind and solar, the two “abundant natural energy sources” that Japan has been badly neglecting. The actual environmental benefits of LNG over coal are quite questionable. A 2024 Cornell University study found the climate footprint of LNG 33% worse than that of coal, once liquefaction and shipping are taken into account:

Over 20 years, the carbon footprint for LNG is one-third larger than coal, when analyzed using the measurement of global warming potential, which compares the atmospheric impact for different greenhouse gases. Even on a 100-year time scale – a more-forgiving scale than 20 years – the liquefied natural gas carbon footprint equals or still exceeds coal, Howarth said.
(“Liquefied natural gas carbon footprint is worse than coal“, 2024-10-03)

This commitment to phasing out coal by a specific year is already progress however from the 2019 stance of the party. Philip Brasor wrote about Yamamoto Tarō in Japan Times:

In fact, he has advocated for coal as the transition energy source toward renewables in Japan, a position that dismays environmentalists.
(“Taro Yamamoto blurs the popular line on climate change”, Japan Times, 2019-11-30)

I am highly skeptical of Reiwa Shinsengumi’s commitment to the environment. Yes, it is against nuclear power, but without a robust policy for switching electricity generation to wind, solar and geothermal, phasing out existing nuclear power stations will only make it more difficult to decarbonize power generation and could even promote fossil-fuel burning thermal power stations. As far as I can tell, the party has no detailed plan for promoting green power. It seems like an afterthought next to its more sexy anti-nuclear policies that promise to catch votes for it.

Advocating for a big push for onshore and offshore wind and a massive expansion of long distance transmission lines needed to bring power from windy coasts in Hokkaido, the Northeast and the Japan sea coast to the urban centers in the Kanto and Kansai is essential but nowhere near as effective at adding seats in parliament because you would have to do a lot of leg work explaining the policy. Populists don’t want to do that because they are more interested in gaining influence than in putting in place policies that actually benefit people.

Reiwa Shinsengumi’s policies are selected by its unchallenged leader. In that it resembles the German BSW (Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance), another supposed left wing party that is spreading narratives of Vladimir Putin’s fascist government. BSW is not run by its members but exclusively according to the whims of its leader. Unsurprisingly, BSW also sees Germany’s economic salvation in the resumption of supplies of Russian gas and not in an accelerated switch to wind and solar.

Both parties claim to champion low income members of the population and social policies, but in reality they are pied pipers with sympathies for Putin that must not be trusted.

A Dark day for America

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Yesterday Donald Trump swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

On the same day he issued an executive order to deny citizenship rights to children born in America if their parents weren’t legally resident in the US. This is a direct violation of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which has been part of the Constitution for more than 156 years. That man could not even go for one day without breaking the law and his oath of office!

America voted for a felon, so that’s what they got. He was never held responsible for any of the crimes he committed before, during and after his first term.

Having supported an insurrection against the United States by sending a violent mob to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after having sworn on January 20, 2017 to uphold the Constitution, Trump should have been held ineligible to run for office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, but this was never enforced. He should never even have been on the ballot.

Now Trump is allied with a billionaire oligarchy who control social media and own hundreds of billions of dollars that they can freely use to change the outcome of elections. Their representatives sat in the front row at his inauguration, before the cabinet. They run Twitter/X, Threads, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Do not trust them. Do not depend on them. They are not your friends!

Americans may yet reclaim their constitutional republic some day. It won’t be easy. My advice is to look at the examples of Hungary, Poland and Turkey, where people have been struggling against autocrats that had been elected into office but then changed all the rules to try and stay on forever. Trump will try the same illiberal playbook. In the case of Poland, the people managed to win back liberal democracy while the struggle in Hungary and Turkey still continues.

Recommended reading:

Japan’s new renewable energy plan falls far short

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The Japanese government is preparing a new energy plan that seeks to grow renewable energy, but its goals fall far short of what other major industrial countries are doing. By the year 2040, fifteen years from now, some 40-50% of electricity are to come from renewable sources (roughly a doubling from today), another 20% from nuclear power and the remaining 30-40% from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.

Meanwhile in Germany, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass already accounted for 52% of electricity generated in 2023. By 2030, this share is supposed to grow to 75%. Put another way, Japan is aiming for a lower share for renewable power fifteen years from now than Germany already achieved a year ago!

This is not because somehow Germany’s climate or geography was much more favourable for renewable energy than Japan’s, to the contrary.

Japan lies much closer to the equator than Germany, which means solar panels will be much more productive in the Land of the Rising Sun than in Central Europe. The northernmost point of Hokkaido lies 45° north of the equator while even the southernmost point of Germany lies 47° north. Tokyo is closer to the equator than Southern Spain.

Germany has a lot of wind turbines along its wind swept North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts, both on-shore and off-shore, but its coast line is much shorter than that of Japan: Germany has a total of roughly 21,000 km2 of territorial waters (i.e. within 12 nautical miles of the coast) while the equivalent number for Japan is 440,000 km2.

As factors that hold back renewables, Japan is citing “instability due to being dependent on the weather and its high cost”, when actually solar and wind are already cheaper to install and run than fossil fuel thermal power plants. They are the cheapest sources of newly installed power capacity virtually anywhere on the globe.

For sure, the variability of output must be addressed to be able to provide the majority of power from these sources, but that can be done. For one, the cost of battery storage has dropped dramatically over the past 10-15 years, which has allowed huge amounts of capacity to be added to electricity grids. For example, California grew its battery storage capacity by a factor of over 15 from 2019 to 2024 and now has over 13,000 MW of battery power supporting its grid. This has allowed it to consume renewable energy at different times of the day and not just when there is the most sunlight.

Wind and solar in some ways are complementary sources of power, as wind tends to be stronger after sunset and in the winter, whereas the sun provides the most energy around midday and in summer. Combining the two will minimize the need for storage or for peaker plants that burn gas.

Another way to even out production is by integrating long distance grids so that a surplus in one region can cover the shortfall in another region. Within Europe, Germany exchanges electricity with Scandinavia but also with France, which in turn connects to Italy and Spain. Japan is very weak in this regard. Its electricity grid consists of 8 regional grids with limited interconnect capacity. It is split down the middle by mains frequency, with western Japan using 60 Hz like in North America while eastern Japan uses 50 Hz like in Europe. High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines can take care of this, but they need to be built. Regional grid operators have little incentive to do this because they also own existing power stations whose output they want to sell.

Japan needs to rethink its renewable energy strategy if it wants to achieve its climate goals and end its dependency on costly energy imports. Its first priority should not be the profits of its existing electricity sellers, the importers of fossil fuels, the shipyards that build the ships that carry petroleum and coal, etc. Japan needs to upgrade its grid with long distance transmission capacity, grid level power storage and ease connection of wind and solar power capacity to cut its dangerous and harmful dependency on fossil fuels.

The LDP race and the clean energy transition in Japan

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The outcome of the leadership race of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan will determine the next prime minister. Failing an electoral defeat of the LDP, which has been in power for most of post-war history, this will also determine the direction of Japan’s future energy policy. Japan is currently trailing far behind most of Europe, the US and China in replacing fossil fuels for electricity production.

According to the Japan Times they face these two choices:

The first is to continue with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plan to increase the use of nuclear power alongside that of renewable energy.

The second is to reduce nuclear power’s share while moving more toward renewable and ammonia- and hydrogen-generated electricity.

This is a uniquely Japanese framing of the options because if you look around, no other major country is even talking about ammonia-generated electricity. Hydrogen plays mostly a peripheral role in their discussions. That is because these two substances are not really energy sources but energy carriers (just like a charged battery). To produce them you have to use some other form of energy, such as by steam-reforming fossil gas or coal or by hydrolysis of water using wind or solar electricity.

If you use fossil fuel to make hydrogen (or ammonia, its more easily shippable cousin), that does not solve the problem you are trying to address in the first place, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel. If you use renewable electricity to make hydrogen, ship it for thousands of km and then turn it back into electricity, a large part of the green energy will be lost in conversion inefficiencies.

Where do the candidates stand on the issues? Japan Times explains:

Of the nine LDP leadership candidates, three — Takayuki Kobayashi, Taro Kono, and Shigeru Ishiba — have been particularly vocal with their views.

Kobayashi, a former economic security minister, is strongly advocating a new strategy that emphasizes nuclear’s role in meeting future demand.

“The current energy plan is too biased toward renewable energy. We should work toward restarting, replacing and building new nuclear power plants that have been confirmed as safe,” he said during a Sept. 14 debate at the Japan National Press Club.

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, however, favors a future that brings the share of nuclear power close to zero. But he also has a preference for two forms of renewable energy in particular because they are ideal for Japan given its geography.

“Japan has the world’s third-largest potential for geothermal energy. We should also maximize the potential for small-scale hydroelectric power generation,” Ishiba, a former LDP secretary-general, said during the same Sept. 14 debate.

They do not explain where Kono stands, but it was previously reported that he had softened his anti-nuclear stance and now wants to restart more of the reactors shuttered after the Fukushima disaster.

None of the above candidates seem to really have a realistic solution.

Restarting nuclear power stations that have been upgraded to higher safety standards post-Fukushima, may be the low hanging fruit of carbon-free energy generation, but we are only talking about at best adding maybe 10% of total power demand through restarted reactors.

Construction of new reactors could take over a decade, even if sites without seismic risks and with local support could be found quickly, which is far from certain. Recent reactor projects in Europe and the US have been a sobering experience. Olkiluoto 3 in Finland took 17 years from start of construction to electricity production, with costs ballooning from 3 billion € to 11 billion €. Construction of Flamanville 3 in France started in 2007. It went into commercial operation this month, 17 years later. Cost estimates increased from an initial 3.3 billion € to 13.2 billion € two years ago. Hinkley Point C construction started in 2017, with an operational date estimate of 2029-2031 and cost overruns almost killed the project.

If we want to cut out a significant amount of CO2 by 2030, as would be required to have any chance of meeting the Paris climate goals to avoid the worst of the climate disaster, new nuclear reactors aren’t going to cut it, simply because they’re unlikely to have much of an impact before about 2040 and even then they will be very expensive.

So what should the LDP candidates propose, what should Japan do? Japan has a long coastline that can be harnessed for onshore and offshore wind. Solar is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation available now, cheaper than coal, if the variability of output can be addressed through storage or over-building of supply. The costs of wind and solar power have been falling dramatically for several decades. The cost of battery storage has decreased significantly over the past decade. It’s not rocket science and other countries have already been doing it at a large scale.

Germany, with a much shorter coast line and a more northerly latitude (the latitude of Tokyo is comparable to Gibraltar and Germany’s southern border is further north than Hokkaido) produces the majority of its electricity from renewables, as does Denmark.

Ishiba is not wrong in encouraging geothermal power, which can steadily produce electricity 24 hours a day all year round, or small scale hydro, but it’s neither the cheapest nor the easiest to build energy source.

In terms of cost effectiveness, solar and wind are really without competition. What holds back their use in Japan is a grid that is under-dimensioned for moving large amounts of power around the country because it was designed for a system where generation and consumption are relatively close by, under control of the same regional power company.

This will be different with renewables, where generation could take place more than 1000 km away from consumption and output could shift around the country depending on seasons and weather conditions. Thus what Japan needs is many more high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines that can move a large amount of power over long distances, something that China has invested in heavily in the last two decades. On top of that the permit process has to be streamlined.

All this talk about hydrogen and ammonia has been a huge distraction, perhaps by design. Currently these energy carriers are connected to existing fossil fuel companies. Importing hydrogen (or ammonia made from hydrogen), though quite expensive, would benefit shipbuilding giants and trading companies now handling coal, oil and LNG imports. It’s not really about stopping the climate disaster but about keeping some very large corporates in business.

When will Japan get a prime minister who understands these issues and is bold enough to address them?

Japan’s new energy minister: More of the same

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In his initial press conference, newly appointed Japanese energy minister Nishimura Yasutoshi called for restarting nuclear power stations to secure stable energy supplies. He announced there would be no policy change regarding Japan’s involvement with the Sakhalin-2 LNG project in the Russian Far East.

This choice of main topics of the news conference is typical for the public discourse here about energy policy and security:
1) Talk about whether to restart nuclear power or not
2) Talk about securing fossil fuel imports
3) Do not mention investment into offshore wind
4) Do not mention investment into grid expansion

Topics 3) and 4) are critical for weaning Japan off fossil fuel. 1) is a mere stop gap solution at best. Many nuclear stations shuttered after 2011 are too old for operators to make the necessary investments to bring them up to current safety codes. It wouldn’t be economically viable. The reactors whose restart is being promoted are equivalent to about 1/3 of the pre-2011 nuclear generation or roughly 10 percent of the pre-2011 annual electricity generation. While not trivial, it’s not a game changer. For that, Japan would have to embark on construction of new stations, which would be likely to run into political resistance at the local and national level.

Construction of new nuclear power stations will run into cost issues (see Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, Flamanville/France, Plant Vogtle/Georgia USA, Hinkley Point C/UK, etc). Many of these high profile nuclear projects by different companies in various countries have been billions of euros, dollars and pound over budget and years behind schedule. This seems to be a common theme. To build nuclear power stations takes a decade or more, which means capital is tied up for years and years before the first power flows ever into the grid. For example, construction at Flamanville started in 2007 while fuel loading will not take place before 2023, i.e. 16 years later. Or take Olkiluoto 3, where construction started in 2005 and as of 2022 i.e. 17 years later it still is not operating.

By contrast, large solar or wind projects tend be completed in 2-3 years at most.

As a country with a long coast line Japan has huge wind power potential which will complement its solar potential but it is way behind the curve compared to China, European nations or the US. Almost all renewable energy other than hydro power in Japan has been photovoltaic.

To maximize the potential of renewal energy which will often be found far from population centers, Japan needs to build long distance High Voltage DC (HVDC) lines so power from Kyushu and Hokkaido can supply Tokyo and Osaka.

Offshore wind and HVDC are near absent in the public energy debate in Japan. The Japanese economy suffered “lost decades” after the burst of its 1980s’ investment bubble. Unless it invests in offshore wind (and also geothermal power) and a HVDC grid backbone, it will suffer another lost decade in a delayed energy transition.

So why is the government not acting? The interests of Japanese utility companies on one side and of Japanese power consumers and of the planet as a whole on the other are not aligned and politicians of the ruling LDP-Komeito coalition are picking the wrong side.

Japanese utility companies own existing assets such as old nuclear power stations and thermal power stations. The longer they can utilize these assets to generate and sell power, the more money they will make. If they were forced to buy zero-carbon wind power from third-party offshore wind farms in Hokkaido or Kyushu they won’t be able to sell as much power from their own coal-burning or nuclear power stations in the Kanto or Kansai. Utility companies are still building new coal-burning power plants today. They don’t want to see these plants shuttered but to contribute to their profits for the next 20 years and more.

If we let them get away with it, it would be disastrous for trying to minimize the scale of the climate change threat. Climate change will devastate Japan through hurricanes, flooding, landslides and rising sea levels. The political leaders of Japan need to prioritize the interests of the power consumers and of everyone threatened by climate change. Currently they are acting as lobbyists for the utility companies.

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Battery electric cars in Japan

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BYD, China’s leading EV maker announced it will release three models for the Japanese market in 2023.

Meanwhile Toyota has only launched a single battery electric model in its domestic market (Toyota bZ4X SUV in 2022) while Nissan has launched two (Nissan Leaf in 2010, Nissan Ariya SUV in 2022). Both brands are still concentrating on gasoline-powered hybrids. The bZ4X is also offered as the Subaru Solterra, with some minor differences from the Toyota-badged model.

Germany’s VW is still holding back on its ID.3 and ID.4 models in Japan, perhaps because it can’t manufacture enough of them even for the European market. The VW group is only represented here in the battery electric market by its luxury brands Audi and Porsche.

Korea’s Hyundai launched the Ioniq 5 this spring, with the larger Ioniq 6 to follow next year.

It looks like 2023 will be an interesting year for BEVs in Japan which until now has been lagging far behind China, North America and Europe in the electric mobility transition.

On my last trip to the UK I was amazed by the number of BEVs of every brand and model I saw in London compared to Tokyo. In 2021, only 10,843 Nissan LEAF and another 8,610 imported electric cars were sold in Japan (about 60% of which were Tesla). That’s under 20,000 in total or 0.2 % of about 6.9 million new cars sold. The UK, with roughly half the population of Japan, bought 190,727 new electric cars the same year. About 1 in every 6 new cars registered in June 2022 in the UK was battery electric.

China recognized that BEVs are a strategic move. Taking the lead will allow them to leapfrog laggards like Toyota who are too wedded to their own past successes to make the necessary transition to a decarbonized future. And it’s not just about the cars: China also added more solar and wind power last year than the rest of the world combined to make it possible to charge these cars without burning fossil fuel. It has heavily invested in long distance HVDC transmission to shift renewable power over great distances while Japan’s grid still consists of separate grids in West Japan, East Japan and in Hokkaido with extremely limited interconnection capacity.

A couple of months ago Toyota upgraded its forecast for electric vehicle sales in 2030 from 2 million a year to 3.5 million a year, which is about one third of its current annual sales. That’s for almost a decade in the future! This suggests it doesn’t see a tipping point where battery electric overtakes internal combustion engines until later in the 2030s. It is hardly surprising then that during the recent G7 conference in Germany, Japan lobbied hard to remove a goal of at least 50% zero-emission vehicles for 2030 from the climate goals communique, presumably at the request of its car industry. Meanwhile 80 percent of new car sales in Norway are already battery electric.

When Toyota launched the bZ4X into the Japanese market this year, it announced a sales goal of only 5,000 units, roughly 1/10 of annual sales of the Toyota RAV4 that it most closely resembles and half of the annual volume of the 11 year old Nissan LEAF.

Furthermore, the bZ4X is not offered for sale to individual consumers who can only get it through leasing contracts. Supposedly this is “to eliminate customer concerns regarding battery performance, maintenance, and residual value.” This move paints long term performance of battery electric cars as a weak point when it isn’t (at least it isn’t with Tesla and other brands). By offering only leasing contracts, Toyota is casting shade on the technology.

At least due to the launch of the bZ4X Toyota will install DC fast chargers at its dealerships by 2025. Many Nissan and Mitsubishi dealers already have 30 kW DC chargers installed and a few have 50 kW chargers (more kW means a faster maximum charging rate) while most Toyota dealers still only offer 200 V AC charging, the most basic of all. The maximum charging rate with 200 V AC is a mere 6 kW. In countries with three phase AC, a 3 phase domestic AC charger that supports 11 kW will be offered by Toyota from the end of 2022. Until then, home charging in your garage or driveway will be limited to the lower rate.

DC charging of the bZ4X can go as fast as 150 kW, but available public DC chargers in Japan right now tend to be limited no more than 50 kW (most of them at car dealerships). For example, right now there are only 4 locations in Central Tokyo that offer 90 kW or more.

I think we will see change in the battery electric vehicle market Japan in the next few years, largely driven by foreign manufacturers introducing new models that Toyota, Nissan and other manufacturers will struggle to compete with. But they will have no choice but to step up the pace of the zero-carbon transition if they don’t want to lose their existing market share here in Japan and in export markets. Otherwise Toyota may become the Nokia of the car industry.