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Japan is definitely a special case in meeting its energy requirements. But all is not lost. Just as we cannot plan on meeting all the requirements with nuclear or coal, we needn't plan on meeting all the requirements with wind. There are three other categories that I suspect will be useful for Japan to consider (and probably already is considering)--solar (esp. PV), geothermal and tidal. If you consider all four together, Japan has more than enough renewable capabilities to meet its energy needs, particularly if they engage the efficiency and conservation opportunities that remain in the Japanese structure. No one of them will do the job alone, but if they take advantage of many of the complementary features of renewables, they can readily meet their needs. solar and wind in particular complement each other quite nicely--wind blows more at night and in the winter, while sun shines more in the summer and only, of course, during the day. The complementarity isn't perfect, of course, so energy storage is an important factor, which ultimately can be handled by vehicle-to-grid capability, but in the interim could be done with pumped hydro, compressed air, and some use of cold storage facilities (run the facilities longer to lower the temperature of the stored material--usually meat--during times of excess electricity production and turn the facilities off, allowing the temperatures to rise back to normal during times of deficient energy production).
OK--but then the question becomes how to provide sufficient energy at a land
use factor that works. Japan's main problem is the high population density
and little land for most current 'green' technologies. The U.S. has the
same problem in given regions--North-East corridor for example. Even
somewhere like Chicago, if say a couple old coal (or because of age nuclear)
plants are near the end of their effective use, with what do you replace
them? Even if you are willing to inundate the countryside with wind
generators (and you need a 3 MW generator to average 1 MW yearly output--so
a couple thousand generators to equal one coal/nuclear plant), you still
have the problem of what to do when the wind doesn't blow--something that
happens often during the summer cooling season.
Basically the problem with CURRENT 'GREEN' TECHNOLOGY--is low density (large
land requirements) and it is often NOT energy on demand. The solution here
might include a new grid structure with low loss, long distance transmission
lines, but must almost certainly include some kind of storage
infrastructure. One possibility (maybe not economically viable yet) is
using wind and solar, on site, to produce hydrogen which would be piped
throughout the country as an energy on demand source. This does suffer from
requiring a very large infrastructure expense--upgrading pipelines--and the
losses involved in the conversion processes. What I can't see as viable is
expecting power companies to invest in vast wind/solar farms and then also
maintain a full array of coal/nuclear/natural gas plants that can be turned
on when the wind isn't blowing. Economically--if I have the plants, I'm
going to use them and (as now) supplement them wind a much smaller array of
wind and solar.
So yes, better not to have coal. I guess, in the long run, better not to
have nuclear. But where you really need high-density power production, what
are the alternatives?
Then of course, if we really get serious about eliminating CO2 and fossil
fuel usage, much of the current energy produced by oil and natural gas has
to be taken up by electrical production. This could double, even triple the
amount of electrical energy that would be needed (even factoring in
achievable goals of efficiency and conservation). This complicates the
picture even more.
[All this is the basis of my energy class yearly project--where we try to
design a system for providing U.S. energy a century from now. We include
some 'clean' coal (it will be very difficult for the U.S. to give up on
coal) and some nuclear (newer technologies) but we eliminate the use of oil
and natural gas and decrease per capita usage by 25%. The capital price tag
for the conversion to wind/solar/biomass for about 60% or our energy
regularly gets estimated at over $30 trillion.]