PARIS--Prime Minister Naoto Kan set a high hurdle for Japan, pledging in a May 25 speech here to increase the ratio of power generation using renewable natural energy sources to 20 percent by early in the 2020s.
PARIS--Prime Minister Naoto Kan set a high hurdle for Japan, pledging in a May 25 speech here to increase the ratio of power generation using renewable natural energy sources to 20 percent by early in the 2020s.
Kan made his commitment in a speech to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Japan currently relies on natural energy sources, such as wind and solar power, for about 9 percent of its total energy needs.
To reach the goal of more than doubling the ratio of power generated by natural energy sources, Kan said Japan would seek to reduce the cost of power generation using solar cells "to one-third current levels by 2020 and to one-sixth current levels by 2030."
In the wake of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Kan stated his intention to radically review Japan's basic energy plan, but the Paris speech was the first time he has come out with actual numerical objectives.
The basic energy plan agreed to by the central government in June 2010 called for increasing the ratio of power generated by natural sources to 20 percent by 2030, along with raising the ratio generated by nuclear power to at least 50 percent of the total.
Kan's latest statement pushes forward that timetable by about 10 years.
The Fukushima accident has also made clearer the difficulties of relying on nuclear energy for half of Japan's power generation.
Making the speech at the OECD ministerial meeting makes Kan's statement, in a sense, a pledge to the international community.
In his speech, Kan explained that the government would revise its basic energy plan. He also said that the four key elements of Japan's energy policy would be natural energy sources and energy conservation, along with the emphasis on nuclear power and fossil fuels that has been at the forefront of Japan's energy policy until now.
He also laid out four challenges that awaited Japan--to seek safe nuclear power generation; to seek to lower the negative environmental effects of fossil fuels; to seek commercialization of natural energy sources; and to seek to expand the possibilities of energy conservation.
A key factor to achieving the goals set out by Kan will be major advances in technology.
If the cost of solar panels is reduced, that would encourage greater installation of such panels and increase the ratio of electricity generated through solar power.
However, even if Japan was able to reduce the cost of solar power generation to one-sixth current levels by 2030, that would mean that the current cost of 40 yen per kilowatt-hour would be reduced to between seven to eight yen per kilowatt-hour.
That would make the level of cost generation comparable to the five to six yen per kilowatt-hour the government now says nuclear power generation costs as well as the seven to eight yen of thermal power generation.
Some research and development is already ongoing to reduce the cost of solar panels by manufacturing ultra-thin panels that would require smaller amounts of silicon as well as developing technology to more efficiently convert solar power into electricity.
However, those efforts are still a long way from commercialization.
Kan put together his new goals by consulting with special advisors to the Cabinet that he appointed, rather than rely on central government bureaucrats.
The government will now have to come up with specific measures for achieving the goals as one way of demonstrating that the objectives are, in fact, even realistic.
(This article was compiled from reports by Kengo Sakajiri and Hidenori Tsuboya.)