Fumio Kishida, Sanae Takaichi, Taro Kono, and Seiko Noda (in order of candidacy) are all in the running for the LDP presidency on September 29.
Kono meeting with Ishiba and Koizumi. From Taro Kono @ LDP presidential election Twitter
The mainstream media is reporting that Taro Kono is leading, but as someone who has been involved in energy and global warming policy for a long time, I can only say that the combination of Prime Minister Taro Kono and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinjiro Koizumi is a nightmare. If the Kono-Koizumi administration comes to fruition, the Japanese economy and Japanese industry will surely suffer.
On the occasion of his run for the presidency, Mr. Kono stated that he would “pursue a realistic energy policy that will also reassure the industrial sector” and that “for the time being, we will use nuclear power plants whose safety has been confirmed. There are those who believe that with this statement, Mr. Kono has sealed his long-held “nuclear-free” policy, but considering what he has said and done so far, and the people around him, I doubt that most people really believe his “sealing”.
If the essentially anti-nuclear Kono administration comes to power, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) will operate in an ever more restrictive manner, ignoring its efficiency as a regulatory body, and the restart of nuclear power plants will be further delayed.
It is very unlikely that Prime Minister Kono and Chief Cabinet Secretary Koizumi will be able to provide the political leadership to achieve the 20-22% nuclear power ratio, which is an essential element to realize the 46% target for 2030. As a result, if the realization of 20-22% becomes impossible (or rather, that seems to be the goal), the renewable energy target of 36-38% will be further increased in order to achieve the 46% target. It means that “36-38% or more” which he claimed in the voice of threat to the executive of the Energy and Resources Agency which was broadcasted to the media will be realized.
Kono, while posing as an advocate of restarting nuclear power plants, also rejects the nuclear fuel cycle, saying, “Since the fast-breeder reactors have been decommissioned and there is no longer a need to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, the reprocessing facilities should be stopped.
As Sunao Narabayashi, a special professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, pointed out, if the spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants around the world cannot be reprocessed at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, the spent fuel pools at each plant will eventually fill up and the plants will be forced to shut down. “We can call it a “backdoor strategy to get rid of nuclear power.
Kono and Koizumi have a three-tiered approach: anti-nuclear fundamentalism, renewable energy fundamentalism, and global warming prevention fundamentalism. While setting ambitious goals for global warming, they have chosen between nuclear power and renewable energy, aiming to replace nuclear power plants with renewable energy and to achieve 100% renewable energy, which is unreasonable in terms of energy security, global warming prevention, and economic efficiency. His views are similar to those of Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the most leftist members of the Democratic Party of the United States.
Koizumi strongly opposed Sanae Takaichi, who advocated a review of the Basic Energy Plan, saying, “Do you want to achieve decarbonization by increasing the number of nuclear power plants to the maximum extent, or do you want to achieve it by giving top priority to and introducing the maximum amount of renewable energy? I think this is the composition of the conflict. For me, the future of Japan is to achieve the highest priority and maximum amount of renewable energy. As a person who loves his country, I want to establish energy security, which is a historical proposition.” This is the very idea of choosing between nuclear power and renewable energy.
At present, there is no one who discusses Japan’s energy policy who says, “If we have nuclear power, we don’t need renewable energy,” but there are too many people, including Mr. Kono and Mr. Koizumi, who argue for “replacing nuclear power with renewable energy and eventually 100% renewable energy.
However, there are too many people, including Kono and Koizumi, who argue for “replacing nuclear power with renewable energy and eventually 100% renewable energy.
Under the Kono and Koizumi administrations, the introduction of renewable energy sources, especially solar and wind power, will be expanded. This will lead to deforestation and the cost of subsidizing renewable energies will increase.
The draft of the Basic Energy Plan estimates that the amount of the renewable energy levy will expand to nearly 6 trillion yen even if 36-38% of renewable energy is used, but this will not be enough. Moreover, this does not include the integration costs associated with the expansion of variable renewable energy, so the actual cost will probably exceed 10 trillion yen.
As Nobuo Ikeda pointed out, Mr. Kono, who claims that “renewable energy is cheap,” does not understand the expansion of integration costs associated with the expansion of variable renewable energy. The cost of electricity in Japan, which is the highest among major countries, will rise significantly, undermining industrial competitiveness, wages, and employment in Japan’s manufacturing industry.
Moreover, Mr. Kono argues that the capacity market should be abolished to prevent the loss of balance between electricity supply and demand due to the expansion of variable renewable energy. Without such a safety valve, increasing the amount of variable renewable energy in pursuit of “100% renewable energy” will likely lead to major blackouts like those in California and Texas.
The overemphasis on variable renewable energy will lead to a sharp rise in energy prices when weather conditions are insufficient to generate renewable energy. The current spike in natural gas prices in Europe is a result of the overemphasis on renewable energy and the elimination of coal-fired power generation. It is as if we are seeing the future of Japan under the Kono and Koizumi administrations.
Finally, we should keep in mind that their policies will lead to increased imports of Chinese-made panels, storage batteries, and wind turbines, and will only benefit China, which is a threat to Japan, by dying out the domestic nuclear technology that Japan has developed. It is China that will most likely welcome the new Kono administration.
Mr. Kono’s new book is entitled “Moving Japan Forward,” and if the Kono-Koizumi administration comes to power, Japan will definitely move forward.
If the Kono/Koizumi administration comes to power, Japan will definitely move forward, but not toward prosperity, but toward self-destruction.
Energy is the blood of the economy and the basis of national security. I strongly hope that the Diet members, members and friends of the Liberal Democratic Party will be aware that their votes will determine the rise and fall of Japan.
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