Japan risks Blackout: the best way to convince local communities to accept nuclear power
A long hot summer is expected in Japan followed by a long cold winter after the government's bet on the country's energy policy has failed.
The government called on Tuesday a meeting of ministers and energy experts to address the looming energy shortage that could begin in the coming weeks and concluded that the public and industry should be guided towards reducing electricity consumption and even be ready to face rolling blackouts in times of extreme shortage.
"The government will not set a uniform numerical target for electricity savings this summer, but we will ask citizens to cooperate to save electricity and energy as much as possible," Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said after the meeting. A feat easier said than done.
The government is evaluating various solutions, because the situation is becoming more and more pressing. Although there are guides for energy saving, no matter what they say, saving does not generate electricity, so Tokyo is also considering reactivating the thermal power plants that have been put out of service because they are obsolete.
There is a “Reserve Ratio” in the electricity grids, ie a percentage of unused generation capacity that serves to cope with peak demand. This percentage is 16% in the US. In Japan, before Fukushima, it was 8%, already quite low. After Fukushima, with the shutdown of nuclear power plants, this reserve capacity was reduced to 3% of the total, a dangerously low percentage. Below 3% there is a risk of blackout.
According to government forecasts, in July the rate is expected to be 3.1% in Tokyo, in the Tohoku region of northern Japan, and in the Chubu district, around the city of Nagoya, in the central part of the country. Even a relatively modest increase in demand could push the figure below 3%.
Even more worrying is the fact that official forecasts indicate that the ratio will drop to zero in Tokyo in January and February, when heating demand is traditionally at its highest. At zero, the blackout is a mathematical certainty.
National energy production is triggered by the government's difficulty in convincing citizens to resume nuclear power after Fukushima, in addition to the surge in prices of liquefied natural gas, the energy source on which Japan relied after 2014.
Nuclear power supplies about 6% of total needs and the government hopes to persuade more communities and local governments to allow power plants to restart if they meet new and demanding safety standards. By the end of the decade, the government hopes nuclear power will provide up to 22 percent of the nation's needs, but this year won't help.
The situation has been exacerbated, said Martin Schulz, chief political economist of Fujitsu's Global Market Intelligence Unit, by a series of obsolete thermal power plants that have been closed and the renewable energy sector's inability to meet demand. exactly as it is happening in Europe. Now Japan is trying to buy more LNG, even at very high costs, but in ministerial circles, under the voice, it is said that perhaps this summer will bring the solution: the mix of very high prices and rolling blackouts will finally overcome skepticism and convince communities local to accept nuclear power. In the end, there is nothing better than a couple of days without electricity to convince them to build a new power plant.
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The article Japan risks Blackout: the best way to convince local communities to accept nuclear power comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-giappone-rischia-il-blackout-il-modo-migliore-per-convincere-le-comunita-locali-ad-accettare-il-nucleare/ on Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:29:27 +0000.