METI: Trouble With Local Communities Key Challenge Meeting 2050 Net-zero Goal

Historically, Japanese officials have a proud record of steering the domestic power industry along the lines written in national policy and strategy. Bureaucrats paved the way for Japan to harness it...

Japan: Energy Dinosaur or Innovator?

For most of the past decade Japan has been a favorite punching bag of the activist wing of the environmental movement. Almost each year, for example, the Climate Action Network (CAN) bestows an infam...

Can Solar Be Revived? The Shift To Smaller, Subsidy-Free Projects

Japan’s solar industry enjoyed stellar development in the early part of last decade thanks to a state program to buy renewable power at a premium and a supply chain built around domestic companies wi...

A Case Study in Local Energy: One Town’s Failed Biomass Dreams

Over the past decade Japan has vigorously promoted biomass energy as a clean and renewable form of energy. But since the start of the war in Ukraine in February this goal has acquired added urgency d...

Diversity vs. Uniformity: An Honest Conversation

In highly-diverse societies such as the United States or Europe, talk of “diversity” in the labor force has been around for a long time. In Japan, the issue is rather different, to put it mildly. ...