Japan pivots from coal to renewables

Japanese wind turbines
Source: Nikkei Asia Review
Renewables to form core of Japan's new long-term energy strategy

After Fukushima, Japan turned to coal to replace the lost electricity generation from nuclear.  Now, she is turning away from coal to renewables plus gas.  Of course, since 2011, renewables have more than halved in cost. 

From IEEFA:

While the Australian government continues to struggle with its hand-in-glove relationship with thermal coal, Japan – Australia’s largest thermal coal export destination – is taking matters into its own hands.

Japan’s Environment Minister Yoshiaki Harada released a policy initiative yesterday saying the Ministry will not sanction the construction of new thermal coal plant facilities nor upgrade existing coal plant facilities, in line with Japan’s international pledges to tackle global warming.

The Environment Ministry concludes that building new coal-fired power plants is not feasible given that carbon dioxide emissions, even from Japan’s most advanced coal-fired plants, are twice the amount produced by thermal plants using natural gas.

The number of new corporate announcements across Japan in the last six months strongly points to a strategic and rapid shift away from thermal coal characterised by both coal-fired power project cancellations and Japan’s influential trading houses exiting investment in thermal coal.

Overnight, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation, one of the world’s most significant developers of new coal plants globally outside of China and India, further built on their recent coal power plant exit commitment by targeting a doubling in renewable energy revenues to ¥1,300bn (A$17bn) by 2023.

Itochu of Japan likewise announced their thermal coal investment exit in February 2019 and Sojitz Corp. followed suit in March 2019. Other major Japanese trading houses Mitsui and Mitsubishi have also turned away from thermal coal citing climate concerns.

Japan has some of the most influential financial institutions globally and in this sector formal progress to-date has been far less material at a time when peers are rapidly from divesting coal. However, there are signs that this is shifting, with partial coal exits and/or restrictions announced by Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank as well as Nippon Life and Dai-Ichi Life insurance.

From The Asahi Shimbun:

The Environment Ministry said that in principle it will not sanction construction of new large coal-fired power plants nor boilers to existing facilities in line with Japan's international pledges to tackle global warming.

Moves are spreading worldwide to shun facilities that burn fossil fuels because they spew so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The policy initiative, announced March 28 by Environment Minister Yoshiaki Harada, follows criticism that Japan is reluctant to break with such power generation, particularly after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has the final say on whether to approve new coal plant projects, but such decisions are supposed to take into account the environment minister’s opinion.

As a matter of course, the Environment Ministry conducts an environmental impact assessment for new plants with an output capacity of 150,000 kilowatts or more.

It will conduct more rigorous assessments in future and call for the rejection of projects with an emphasis on economic feasibility alone or those lacking measures to cut carbon dioxide emissions when the ministry presents its opinion to the industry ministry.

Data shows that carbon dioxide emissions from the most advanced coal-fired plants amount to twice the volume of thermal plants using natural gas.

The technological means have not yet been invented that would allow operators of coal-fired plants to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Given this background, building new coal plants is not feasible.

After nuclear plants went offline nationwide after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, power companies scrambled to draw up projects to construct coal-burning plants to secure stable electricity supplies.

Even today, about 30 projects remain, including facilities that will not be scrutinized for their impact on the environment due to their limited scope of power generation.

Coal plant projects have increasingly been criticized as running counter to a global shift to cleaner energy, especially as the international community intensifies its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under provisions of the Paris Agreement that will be applied from 2020.

It's really simple.  We must not construct any more coal power stations, ever again, anywhere.  And we must replace existing coal power stations as rapidly as we can with renewables/hydro/ (grit my teeth) nuclear.  Japan has started down this road.  China is close (last year just 5 MW of new coal power stations in China was given permits).  India is moving in that direction with most new capacity now renewables.  Europe and the US also closing down coal or moving towards it.  That leaves a bunch of countries in SE Asia (Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia.)  There need to be some urgent diplomatic discussions with them, as well as financial incentives to persuade them to install renewables plus storage instead.  We are within sight of the end of coal.  Let's make it happen.