Punching above its weight

Electricity Abroad This month EM looks at Japan, home of the Kyoto Protocol who faces its perennial energy challenge with the added burden of reducing carbon emissions.

For most of the past century, Japan has punched above its weight. Today, the economy of this small island nation is the world’s fourth largest, exceeded in size only by the United States, the EU and the
People’s Republic of China. The enormity of this achievement is underscored by Japan’s relative
lack of natural resources, a challenge that has defined much of Japan’s modern history.

The Japanese colonial expansion in the 1930’s and 40’s was an attempt to address this problem, both by acquiring the resources it lacked and securing
its supply routes by sea, leading directly to the outbreak of hostilities in the Asian theatre of
World War II.

While war and governments came and went, the central problem remained. As Japan lacks sufficient domestic sources of fossil fuels, it must import
substantial amounts of oil, natural gas, and uranium. In 1990, Japan’s dependence on energy imports stood at a staggering 84% of its
requirement.

Rapid industrial growth following the end of the war
doubled Japan’s energy consumption every five years. In 1950, domestic coal reserves supplied half of Japan’s energy needs, with hydroelectricity
accounting for one-third and oil the rest.

By the 1990s, Japan had become the world’s third largest producer of electricity with more than 3,300
power plants, but the balance of fuels had shifted dramatically. Oil had taken the place of coal,
supplying nearly 60% of energy needs, with a mix of coal, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal making up the balance. As with other industrialised nations, however, it had become apparent following
the oil crises of the 1970s that the reliance on fossil fuels was unsustainable in the long term.

Japan was a late starter in the field of nuclear energy, but it began moving swiftly into this
area by the mid-1980s. Japan obtained its nuclear technology from the U.S. and imported uranium from Canada, France, South Africa, and Australia,
bringing 42 nuclear reactors with a total generating capacity of 33,000MW online by 1991. Nuclear
power, which accounted for only 2% of total capacity in 1973, had grown to nearly 24% by 1990.

Ironically, Japan was the location for the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, ironic because by 2002, Japan was the world’s fifth largest producer of
carbon emissions, accounting for 5% of the world total. While Japan’s Kyoto commitment obligates it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% by 2012, it is trending in the opposite direction, with emissions increasing by more than 6% over the period 1990-2004.

In a further irony, Japan faces considerable difficulties in meeting its reduction target because the country is already quite energy efficient by world standards. Japan has also been a world leader in the development of alternative energy sources, concentrating primarily on geothermal energy, with six geothermal power stations having
a combined capacity of 133MW. Japan is also the world’s second largest producer of solargenerated
electricity, accounting for 38% of the world’s total.

Despite the difficulties, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for a 50% reduction in worldwide emissions by 2050, and has pledged that Japan will play a leading role in achieving that objective. The means to that end, however, is neither clear nor certain. EM