Still Missing Energy Mix

Liberal Democratic Party submitted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a plan of share of energy resources in 2030. The plan did not mention how much Japan will be independent from nuclear power, despite tragic experience of an major energy company to suffer from incredibly huge debt on victims of severe nuclear accident in Fukushima. LDP cannot criticize the governance of former administration led by Democratic Party of Japan as not decisive.

LDP’s plan gave sixty percent of share to base-load power sources, a newly introduced concept by bureaucrats in Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for survival of nuclear energy which meant energy resource with low-cost, usable for twenty-four hours and not affected by weather. Not indicating detailed ratio of each resources, LDP included nuclear power, thermal generation with coal, and something else like hydroelectric power in the base-load.

First of all, LDP is wrong in including nuclear power in base-load resource, because it is no longer a low-cost resource after the severe accident and easily affected by natural events like earthquake. In discussions inside the party, there was an overwhelming consensus that twenty percent of nuclear and thirty percent of thermal with coal. Afraid of backlash from broad concern about nuclear energy, LDP escaped from its responsibility as the leading party of showing a clear target.

Strangely enough, LDP excluded the renewable from base-load resource and did not place it in any category. To be precise, it included renewable energy in a category of unstable, raising its negative aspects in price that would be raised in the system of feed-in-tariff. Without any effort to reduce cost of renewable energy or to control the price in appropriate level, it is fair to say that LDP is firmly behaving as a renewable hater.

Some in the party argued that the Western nations were already shifted their energy policy toward lowering the share of base-load. There was an opinion that Prime Minister of Japan will be embarrassed in international conference, if Japan increases emission of greenhouse gasses. But, policy makers in Japan do not want to see what is happening outside of Japan, since the time when it opened a war against United States.

Right after the accident in Fukushima, LDP promised to reduce share of nuclear power as low as possible, being afraid of criticisms among voters. Now, they are antagonizing those voters with self-confidence that they can be winning future elections with support from business sectors alone. Moral does not matter with them.