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Closure of Japan’s nuclear reactors in 2011 did not result in a boom for fossil fuels

Japan’s lurch away from nuclear hasn’t caused fossil fuels to boom http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/japans-lurch-away-from-nuclear-hasnt-caused-fossil-fuels-to-boom/

The emergency shutdown of nuclear reactors hasn’t been an emissions disaster. JOHN  TIMMER –
9/10/2016, In the wake of the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, Japan shut down its entire nuclear fleet in order to develop more rigorous safety standards and inspect the remaining plants. As of now, plants are only beginning to come back online.

Given that Japan had recently relied on nuclear for over a quarter of its electricity, the expectation is that emissions would rise dramatically. But that hasn’t turned out to be the case. While coal use has gone up, it hasn’t risen by more than 10 percent. And a heavy dose of conservation has cut Japan’s total electricity use to below where it was at the end of last decade The data indicates that nuclear was playing a decreasing role in Japan’s energy mix even prior to Fukushima, being displaced in part by natural gas and in part by petroleum. By 2012, however, nuclear was mostly gone. Conservation had already dropped Japan’s electricity use below a PetaWatt-hour, and further efforts have turned the drop in electricity use into an ongoing trend.

Fossil fuel use has gone up, but not by as much as might be expected. Coal rose by eight percent, and natural gas (transported in its liquefied form) rose by nine percent. These have largely reversed the expansion of petroleum use that began prior to the meltdown at Fukushima. Non-hydro renewables have also more than doubled their electrical production since that time. Combined with hydroelectric plants, they now provide more electricity than petroleum.

The net result of all of this? Carbon emissions have been relatively flat and have not exceeded the nation’s record year back in 2007

September 10, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, Japan