Energy Security in Japan

Challenges After Fukushima

Vlado Vivoda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138270312
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317143642
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy

For a country already uneasy about energy security, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which caused a nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, turned pre-existing Japanese concern about the availability of energy into outright anxiety. The subsequent closure of many nuclear reactors meant Japan needed to replace lost power quickly and so had no choice but to secure additional fossil fuels, undermining Japanese diversification policy and increasing global and regional competition for energy. This switch has been at a cost to the already weak Japanese economy whilst the increase in fossil fuel consumption has caused a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. In this book Vlado Vivoda examines the drastically changed environment following the disaster in order to analyse Japan's energy security challenges and evaluate Tokyo's energy policy options. Looking at how the disaster exacerbated Japan's existing energy security challenges, Vivoda considers the best policy options for Japan to enhance national energy security in the future, exploring the main impediments to change and how they might be overcome.

Transforming Environmental Politics and Policy

Series Editors:

Timothy Doyle

Keele University, UK and University of Adelaide, Australia

Philip Catney

Keele University, UK

The theory and practice of environmental politics and policy are rapidly emerging as key areas of intense concern in the first, third and industrializing worlds. People of diverse nationalities, religions and cultures wrestle daily with environment and development issues central to human and non-human survival on the planet Earth. Air, Water, Earth, Fire. These central elements mix together in so many ways, spinning off new constellations of issues, ideas and actions, gathering under a multitude of banners: energy security, food sovereignty, climate change, genetic modification, environmental justice and sustainability, population growth, water quality and access, air pollution, mal-distribution and over-consumption of scarce resources, the rights of the non-human, the welfare of future citizens – the list goes on.

What is much needed in green debates is for theoretical discussions to be rooted in policy outcomes and service delivery. So, while still engaging in the theoretical realm, this series also seeks to provide a ‘real world’ policy-making dimension. Politics and policy-making is interpreted widely here to include the territories, discourses, instruments and domains of political parties, non-governmental organizations, protest movements, corporations, international regimes, and transnational networks.

From the local to the global – and back again – this series explores environmental politics and policy within countries and cultures, researching the ways in which green issues cross North-South and East-West divides. The ‘Transforming Environmental Politics and Policy’ series exposes the exciting ways in which environmental politics and policy can transform political relationships, in all their forms.

Other titles in the series:

Community Gardening as Social Action

Claire Nettle

Energy, Governance and Security in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma)

A Critical Approach to Environmental Politics in the South

Adam Simpson

Energy Security in Japan

Challenges After Fukushima

Vlado Vivoda

Griffith University, Australia

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Vlado Vivoda 2014

Vlado Vivoda has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Vivoda, Vlado.

Energy security in Japan: challenges after Fukushima / by Vlado Vivoda.

pages cm. – (Transforming environmental politics and policy)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-5530-1 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-3155-7956-6 (ebook) – ISBN 978-1-3171-4364-2 (epub) 1. Energy policy–Japan. 2. National security–Japan. 3. Environmental policy–Japan. 4. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Japan, 2011. 5. Japan–Politics and government. 6. Japan–Environmental conditions. I. Title.

HD9502.J32V59 2014

333.790952–dc23

2013034232

ISBN 9781409455301 (hbk)

ISBN 9781315579566 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781315579566

Contents

• List of Figures and Tables
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: The Fukushima Disaster and Its Aftermath
• 1 Interests, Institutions and Ideas
• 2 The Evolution of Energy Security and Energy Policy in Japan
• 3 Oil
• 4 Natural Gas
• 5 Coal
• 6 Nuclear Energy
• 7 Renewable Energy
• 8 Electricity
• Conclusion: Japan’s Future Energy Options
• List of Respondents
• Bibliography
• Index

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

• 1.1 Japan’s primary energy demand by fuel source (1965–2012; mtoe)
• 1.2 Global primary energy demand by fuel source (1965–2012; mtoe)
• 1.3 Japan’s primary energy demand by fuel source (1965–2012; relative share)
• 2.1 Japan’s GDP (US$) relative to energy demand (kg of oil equivalent)
• 3.1 Japan’s oil demand (1965–2012; thousand bpd)
• 3.2 Japan’s reliance on Middle Eastern oil as share of oil imports and overall energy demand (1973–2012)
• 4.1 Japan’s natural gas demand (left axis; mtoe) and share of overall energy demand (right axis; %) (1965–2012)
• 4.2 Share of Japan’s LNG imports by source country (1988–2012)
• 4.3 LNG price in the three basins (US$ per million Btu; 2002–2012)
• 5.1 Japan’s coal demand (1965–2012; mtoe)
• 5.2 Japan’s coal import dependence on selected suppliers (2003–2012)
• 6.1 Japan’s nuclear power demand (left axis; TWh) and share of overall energy demand (right axis) (1965–2012)
• 7.1 Japan’s renewable electricity p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter 1
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: The Fukushima Disaster and Its Aftermath
• 1 Interests, Institutions and Ideas
• 2 The Evolution of Energy Security and Energy Policy in Japan
• 3 Oil
• 4 Natural Gas
• 5 Coal
• 6 Nuclear Energy
• 7 Renewable Energy
• 8 Electricity
• Conclusion: Japan’s Future Energy Options
• List of Respondents
• Bibliography
• Index