Land of the rising sun runs increasingly on solar power

UPDATE: Shortly after this blog was written, Reuters reported that Japan will shortly introduce a plan to wean itself off of nuclear energy entirely by as soon as 2030. This development will doubtless result in an entirely new energy policy and eventually an entirely new generation mix for the country.

In many spots around the globe, power producers and utilities are looking to deconcentrate their grids away from large, centralized power generators and steer them more toward distributed generation. There are cons to this approach, but the benefits are attractive, at least in theory.

While some countries have the luxury of carefully weighing these pros and cons, there is one country that's being forced by current events to decentralize, and rapidly, just to keep the lights on.

New research indicates that post-Fukushima Japan is now the world's third-largest solar energy markets, with nearly 5 GW of installed solar capacity. Germany and Italy, respectively, are the first and second. In some ways, though, this is a return to form for Japan rather than a new development.

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, Japan was the world leader in solar. Due to the cancelation of programs that backed solar (as a result of the government response to the "Lost Decade" depression in that country) and an accompanying shift toward nuclear power, Japan took its eye off the ball when it came to solar energy.

Then, of course, came the earthquake, the tsunami and the Fukushima disaster.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Since then, Japan's government has taken a second look at solar, and added more than 1 GW of solar capacity last year. The majority of this new generation is grid-connected, with all the benefits and drawbacks that adds.

With the adoption of new solar-friendly regulations and generous tariffs, companies across Japan's economic spectrum have announced plans to set up solar parks and install rooftop solar arrays on their properties. To boot, Japan is also one of the world leaders in manufacturing solar cells, modules and other key materials that support the solar energy supply chain.

Can a country replace a highly productive nuclear fleet with solar energy? That question raises further questions, but it's certainly a daring strategy and it will be interesting to watch unfold.

Fukushima a disaster made in Japan

The Japanese government's official report on the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster hit the internet earlier this morning and now everyone is picking apart what it means.

The parliamentary report purports to assign some level of responsibility for the accident, and the part that is making headlines so far is the finding that it was "man made," which must be opposed to a natural disaster — even though it was a natural disaster that touched the meltdowns off in the first place. The report, by the way, took half a year to put together, and the commission who authored it had the authority to compel government agencies to surrender pertinent information whether they wanted to or not.

Man-made failures that occurred both before and after last year's earthquake and tsunami were chiefly to blame for the Fukushima disaster, the report holds. This is probably the strongest-worded rebuke that plant operator TEPCO has received through official channels to date.

The commission's chairman wrote that the triple meltdown cannot be regarded as a natural disaster, but went on to say that it could have been prevented with a more effective human response.

In a twist that might be hard for Westerners to understand, the report places blame on Japanese culture itself.

"Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: Our reflexive obedience, our reluctance to question authority, our devotion to sticking with the program, our groupism and our insularity," according to the preface of the report. "Had other Japanese been in the shoes of those who bear responsibility for this accident, the result might well have been the same."

It's sharply worded indeed, but it also comes right on the heels of the 1 trillion yen (or about $12.5 billion) bailout from the Japanese government that will both save the company and put the government in charge of it. At least temporarily, if all goes as planned.


It's interesting to note that this report, unlike some others, did not specifically say that the magnitude-9 earthquake did not damage equipment or structures at the Fukushima plant. Most other reports held that the plant withstood the earthquake only to succumb to tsunami damage.

These findings could challenge some of the design assumptions the Japanese nuclear industry and the Japanese government (which are, even now, regarded as especially cozy) have stood by over the past few decades.

The report devoted a good deal of attention to the relationship between industry and government in Japan, implying that TEPCO lobbied the government to slacken regulations. To build this case, the commission requested information from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Government mismanagement of the situation as it evolved, the report also said, didn't help matters. The report's writers made it explicit that TEPCO can't and shouldn't try to pin blame on the government, however.

When Japan's government gave the nod to restart the first reactors to complete their required stress tests, those restarts were met with public protests. The public, perhaps understandably, thinks nuclear energy is too dangerous. A suite of new safety requirements — maybe passed in the wake of reports like this one — could create a new argument for protesters: That nuclear power is too expensive.